A large-scale brain imaging analysis reveals that our brains can forecast what kinds of messages will go viral.
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Climate intervention may not be enough to save coffee, chocolate and wine
A new study published in Environmental Research Letters reveals that even advanced climate intervention strategies may not be enough to secure the future of wine grapes, coffee and cacao.
These crops are vital to many economies and provide livelihoods for farmers worldwide. However, they are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns cause big variations in crop yields from year to year, meaning that farmers cannot rely on the stability of their harvest, and their produce is at risk.
The researchers specifically investigated Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) as a way of mitigating climate change in the top grape, coffee and cacao growing regions of western Europe, South America and West Africa. SAI is a hypothetical solar geoengineering method that involves releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere to cool Earth’s surface, mimicking the natural cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.
AI-generated wildlife videos generate confusion and threaten conservation efforts
A video is circulating on social media in which a leopard enters the backyard of a house where a child is playing, and a cat confronts the leopard and scares it away, protecting the child. The video has garnered over a million “likes” and has been shared more than 15,000 times.
Another series of videos shows bears or deer jumping on a trampoline in a backyard. In another, three raccoons float down a river riding on three crocodiles. All of these videos are created by artificial intelligence, and thanks to their high degree of realism, appear to be real.
Given the proliferation of these types of videos and the lack of research on this topic in scientific literature, researchers from the GESBIO group at the University of Cordoba—José Guerrero, Francisco Sánchez, Antonio Carpio, Rocío Serrano, and Tamara Murillo—have spotlighted this issue, analyzing the different consequences that these AI-generated videos have on the knowledge and conservation of wild species.
Programmer Discovers His Smart Vacuum Was Spying on Him
Among other things, Harishankar discovered that the IRL weaponized roomba was sending logs, configuration files, and even unencrypted Wi-Fi credentials to the manufacturer’s servers. It was also running Google Cartographer, enabling the device to create a detailed 3D map of his home.
Most worryingly of all, the programmer found out that the command that shut down the vacuum was issued remotely – suggesting the manufacturer had root access via pre-installed rtty software, which allowed them to run any command or install any script on the device – meaning ILIFE/Zhiyi either manually bricked the vacuum in response to Harishankar blocking data transmission, or had automated scripts that did so.
XRISM catches a pulsar’s cosmic wind—and sees a surprising result
The universe is a strange place. The X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) orbiting observatory recently highlighted this fact, when it was turned on a pulsar to document its powerful cosmic winds.
The XRISM observatory is a joint mission for NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission was also a replacement for the ill-fated Hitomi X-ray observatory, which failed shortly after launch in 2016.
The discovery comes courtesy of ESA’s Resolve instrument, a soft X-ray spectrometer aboard XRISM. The study looked at neutron star GX 13+1. This is a strong X-ray source located in the constellation Sagittarius, very near the galactic plane towards the core of our galaxy. GX 13+1 is about 23,000 light-years distant. The system is a binary, consisting of a pulsar and a massive star in a 24.5-day orbit.
Women better protected against early neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease
A large international study involving nearly 700 participants reveals that women with a precursor condition to Parkinson’s disease show significantly less brain atrophy—decreased cortical thickness in the brain—than men, despite similar clinical severity. This discovery, published in the journal Nature Communications, could lead scientists to explore the role that hormones might play in treating the disease.
Isolated REM sleep behavior disorder is characterized by violent movements during sleep, where people literally “act out” their dreams. Far from being harmless, this disorder is the most reliable early warning sign of neurodegenerative diseases caused by the accumulation of a toxic protein in the brain: more than 70% of affected individuals will eventually develop Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia, or, more rarely, multiple system atrophy (a disease affecting multiple body systems).
“This sleep disorder offers a unique window of opportunity to study the mechanisms of neurodegeneration before major motor or cognitive symptoms appear,” explains the leader of this study.
“Update and Shut Down” Now Actually Shuts Down Your Windows PC
For Mac/Linux users out there who might not be familiar, the bug in question would cause your PC to randomly restart after clicking the “Update and shut down” button, leaving many users wondering if they had accidentally chosen the wrong option. While largely harmless, it became one of the most infamous errors in Microsoft’s OS due to its sheer annoyance and the company’s apparent reluctance to address it for nearly a decade, with some users reporting it as far back as eight years ago in Windows 10.
Marking the end of an era of sorts, the KB5067036 non-security update for Windows 11 has finally resolved the bug, with Microsoft fixing the “underlying issue” that prevented the “Update and shut down” button from actually shutting down your PC. Moreover, the new version also tackles the bug that could cause Windows Update to fail with error 0x800f0983, hopefully making the process of updating your PC a bit less cumbersome.
The Future of Aging: How Science Could Prevent You From Growing Old
Most people accept aging as inevitable. Aubrey de Grey refuses to.
In this episode, the world’s most recognized longevity scientist breaks down why aging is a solvable engineering problem — not a mystery of biology.
Aubrey shares the moments that shaped his mission to defeat death, the science behind “longevity escape velocity”, and how AI breakthroughs like AlphaFold are accelerating humanity’s fight against aging.
He also reveals what he actually does to stay biologically younger at 62 — from cutting-edge diagnostics to his take on rapamycin, plasma exchange, GLP-1s, and Brian Johnson’s Blueprint.
If you’re a founder, technologist, or anyone fascinated by the future of the human body — this conversation will completely reframe how you think about aging, biology, and time itself.
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Organoids mimicking celiac disease show new link between gluten, intestinal damage
Balls of intestinal cells from people with celiac disease faithfully model the disorder in a Stanford Medicine study. The lab-grown organoids revealed a new link between gluten and cell death.
H. P. Lovecraft
What if H.P. Lovecraft didn’t just imagine the Old Ones… what if he documented them?
In this speculative science analysis of SCP-4315: S.C.P. Lovecraft, we explore a Foundation case that blurs the line between fiction and physics — where imagination itself becomes a containment hazard. Discover how stories can bend probability, how consciousness shapes reality, and why Providence might be the thinnest spot between worlds.
We’ll unpack the Quantum Fictionalization Hypothesis, the Dreamlands as a collective cognitive field, and the terrifying idea that the human mind might be the real breach site.
If you love the SCP Foundation, cosmic horror, or mind-bending science philosophy, this is your next rabbit hole.
🔬 Topics Covered:
Lovecraft as Vector Zero.