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Tarantula venom study could help epilepsy patients like this toddler who's had 50 ambulance rides before her third birthday. The study will test spider venom molecules against brain tissue made from the blood of individual epilepsy patients.

The Colour Literacy Project "The Colour Literacy Project is a 21st century initiative that recognizes colour as a meta-discipline. Our mission is to provide state-of-the-art educational resources that strengthen the bridges between the sciences, arts, design and humanities in order to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future. " [via: Is color even real?]

Dan Gardner on Henry Ford, his son Edsel, and unpasteurized milk. "Intellectual arrogance cripples the powerful but it is a danger to us all."

RAG: Retrieval Augmented Generation They built an RAG tool using Page Rank, the basic algorithm that Google built Web Search on. They are offering 100 free trials using their tool. See below for a typical task analyzing Dicken's "Christmas Carol". RAG:Retrieval Augmented Generation is a technique that grants generative artificial intelligence models information retrieval capabilities. It modifies interactions with a large language model (LLM)...

The U.S. real estate market has become a money-laundering haven for corrupt officials and criminals across the world, a place to hide their cash behind opaque shell companies. from The mysterious Virginia mansion allegedly bought with stolen Nigerian money [The Washington Post; ungated]

Firstly, Poppy's new metalcore album Negative Spaces dropped. Wikipedia says: "Musically, the album has been described as Nu Metal,metalcore, industrial,pop metal, arena rock, electropop, synth-pop, and hyperpop, with elements of grunge, emo, space rock, and tech-metal." It was produced by Bring Me The Horizon's Jordan Fish and has gotten a lot of good reviews.Secondly, Spiritbox announced a new album, Tsunami Sea, for March 2025,...

Woman discovers dog-sitter used her house for OnlyFans content. (slCBC)This is posted more for "uhhhhh, well huh. I guess that is a thing that you could do whilst dogsitting." But a reminder: sex work IS work, but perhaps do not do said work when dogsitting.

A Man of Parts and Learning by Fara Dabhoiwala [archive link] is the text of a lecture about the portrait of 18th Century Jamaican polymath Francis Williams, the first Black man to be proposed for election to the Royal Society, which became the subject of popular interest last month when it was revealed that the painting celebrated Williams' great scientific triumph. In his lecture,...

Saxophonist and composer Colin Stetson performs 5 tracks off his latest and first non-soundtrack solo album in 7 years: The Love It Took To Leave You (SLYT, [warning for flashing lights])Colin Stetson previously on the blue.

Murder for Dummies is a 6-part horror-comedy whodunnit series in the form of a true crime mockumentary about the murder of ventriloquist Keith Flapp. Created by comedy troupe Casual Violence. Youtube playlist. Trailer.

However, the calculator differs from the personal computer in one very significant way: calculators slid directly down the market from pricey machines owned by organizations to birthday gifts handed out by middle-class parents. At incredible speed (far faster than computers) calculators became as commonplace as wristwatches; indeed, it wasn't long before manufacturers put calculators in wristwatches. Though the market leaders changed rapidly as the...

TALKING SMALL.[slyt]if it's not small talk, best not talk at all." A small Brian David Gilbert sings about small talk

World is watching as endangered turtles are moved to new home outside natural habitat. A rare Western Australian turtle species will be introduced to a new habitat in the state's South West, in a last-ditch effort to bring the reptiles back from the brink of extinction.A rare Western Australian turtle species in dire straits is set to be introduced to a new habitat in...

The change will be the equivalent of going from navigating a library with the Dewey decimal system, and thus encountering related books on adjacent shelves, to requesting books for pickup through a digital catalog. It could completely reorient our relationship to knowledge, prioritizing rapid, detailed, abridged answers over a deep understanding and the consideration of varied sources and viewpoints. Much of what's beautiful about...

Why creativity is the new currency of success As AI gets better at handling traditional productivity tasks, human creativity - not efficiency - will become the real differentiator. The piece suggests we're moving from an era where "doing more, faster" was the key to success, to one where making original, emotionally resonant work matters most. Maybe the tendency to think differently, make unique connections,...

An Argentinian ghost story, climate fiction for a better future, guidance on writing and the writing life, a satellite murder mystery, a resource for parents of children undergoing gender affirming care, the 2024 GG's, and more: a roundup of more than 50 new and forthcoming small press books (previously).NEW: The Articulations / Amouroboros by Elizabeth K. Switaj & Amelia K. (Kernpunkt Press, 12 Nov...

"The idea of calling our music 'alt K-pop' also started as satire. 'We're not K-pop idols, but let's make some K-pop anyway,' that idea. But as you do it more, you kinda become more aligned with it and believe in it. Even though it started as a joke, it became our reality." Balming Tiger Is Re-Writing the Rules of K-PopBrighten your day with and...

R.U. Sirius interviews Jeremy Braddock about his new book Firesign: The Electromagnetic History of Everything as told in Nine Comedy Albums and the place of the seminal comedy group The Firesign Theatre in 20th century technoculture.LARB review by MetaFilter's own Colin Marshall

Some fantastic and eminently quotable quotes from this ABC piece - Australia's Cassowaries EXPOSED: The Truth Behind the World's Most Dangerous Bird - Dr Ann Jones. A quick sample - "Just give it your sandwich", "That white bread'll probably make him constipated; just sayin'", "I mean you no harm", "Look at those wattles, they're like testicles..."From Wikipedia Cassowaries (Indonesian: kasuari, Biak: man suar 'bird...

Let's talk board games! What do you like that's new? What do you like that's old? What games get better if you start selectively ignoring the rules? Or ignore that suggestion, and treat this post as a #freethread! Link unrelated.

The 100 Greatest Movie Musicals of All Time ...just what it says on the tin.Before we're awash in year end top ten lists here's another solid top 100 for your palaver pleasure.

An international team of scientists using observations from NASA-German satellites found evidence that Earth's total amount of freshwater dropped abruptly starting in May 2014 and has remained low ever since.

For those who suffer from recurrent UTIs, there's a vaccine. Urinary tract infections can be extremely painful and some women experience them frequently. Now there is a vaccine to help prevent UTIs.

"Walking amid a tangle of ancient Sitka spruces and cedars on the island of Gwaii Haanas in British Columbia, Robert Moor wonders how being in the presence of old-growth trees can help us feel, rather than intellectualize, not only the deep past, but also our responsibility to the future."