== not to be outdone by Euclid?
Spying a spiral through a cosmic lens

When the lensed object and the lensing object line up just so, the result is the distinctive Einstein ring shape.

Ecological disruptions are a risk to national security

The effects of ecological disruptions on national security get less attention. But they, too, can cause social and political instability, economic strife and strained international relations.

Don’t give your email to strangers, use a decoy address instead

You’ve heard of burner phones. What about burner email?

Brain-like computer steers rolling robot with 0.25% of the power needed by conventional controllers

Analog computing, all but abandoned for digital’s lower power consumption and higher precision, may seem an unlikely hero.

Earth’s storage of water in soil, lakes and rivers is dwindling

Research finds that global warming has notably reduced the amount of water that’s being stored around the world in soil, lakes, rivers, snow and other places, with potentially irreversible impacts on agriculture and sea level rise.

DNA microscope creates 3D images of organisms from the inside out

By tagging each DNA or RNA molecule and allowing neighboring tags to interact, the technique constructs a molecular network that encodes their relative positions, creating a spatial map of genetic material.

Losing forest carbon stocks could put climate goals out of reach

The authors used an integrated global land and water use modeling as well as an energy-economy modeling system together with a global vegetation model to evaluate how natural disturbances and human impacts on forests influence the feasibility of achieving climate mitigation goals.

== yjc, haven’t yet played with it
The Museum of All Things

The breadth of the museum is made possible by downloading text and images from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Every exhibit in the museum corresponds to a Wikipedia article.

== yjc, paywall?
What is Signal? The messaging app, explained.

With news this week of the messaging app being used to discuss war plans, we get you up to speed on what Signal should be used for—and what it shouldn’t.

== significant development, paywall?
== alt: https://fortune.com/2025/03/27/anthropic-ai-breakthrough-claude-llm-black-box/
Anthropic Maps AI Model ‘Thought’ Processes

What the firm found challenges some basic assumptions about how this technology really works.

== yjc, expect this might affect a good many countries
The 500 Million Worker Problem

AI subscriptions replace Indian engineers at “higher precision and speed”.

== lengthy
Inside arXiv - the Most Transformative Platform in All of Science

Modern science wouldn’t exist without the online research repository known as arXiv. Three decades in, its creator still can’t let it go.

== worth a read I think
Some trees thrive after lightning strikes

A new study reports that some tropical tree species are not only able to tolerate lightning strikes, but benefit from them. The trees may have even evolved to act as lightning rods.

Scientists discover why obesity takes away the pleasure of eating

a new study suggests that pleasure in eating, even eating junk food, is key to maintaining a healthy weight in a society that abounds with cheap, high-fat food.

How elephants plan their journeys: New study reveals energy-saving strategies

Data from over 150 elephants demonstrated that these giants plan their journeys based on energy costs and resource availability.

JPMorgan Says Quantum Experiment Generated Truly Random Numbers

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has generated and certified so-called truly random numbers using a quantum computer, in a world-first that the bank hopes will have applications for security and trading.

== lengthy
Ibogaine: The last trip?

This psychedelic could change the opioid crisis. But its health risks hinder testing.

Open Source Devs Say AI Crawlers Dominate Traffic, Forcing Blocks On Entire Countries

AI companies have a history of taking without asking.

Rare sighting of a ‘sharktopus’ leaves onlookers stunned and puzzled

Researchers aren’t sure why a deepsea octopus hitched a ride on a shark off New Zealand’s coast.

Motion sickness brain circuit may provide new options for treating obesity

Interestingly, mice and humans subjected to motion sickness stimuli, such as experiencing horizontal motion back and forth for some time, show hypothermia, a reduction in body temperature.

‘Half ice, half fire’: Physicists discover new phase of matter in a magnetic material

The phase is a never-before-seen pattern of electron spins—the tiny “up” and “down” magnetic moments carried by every electron. It consists of a combination of highly ordered “cold” spins and highly disordered “hot” spins, and it has thus been dubbed “half ice, half fire.”

DeepSeek-V3 now runs at 20 tokens per second on Mac Studio, and that’s a nightmare for OpenAI

While the $9,499 Mac Studio might stretch the definition of “consumer hardware,” the ability to run such a massive model locally is a major departure from the data center requirements typically associated with state-of-the-art AI.

Unique two-clawed dinosaur discovered

Duonychus tsogtbaatari would have been adept at grasping vegetation.

Experiments show gray seals can monitor their own blood oxygen levels to prevent drowning

Many marine mammals can stay underwater for much longer than land animals, so the research team wondered if they use other mechanisms to alert them when it is time to come up for air.

Euclid opens data treasure trove, offers glimpse of deep fields

In just one week of observations, with one scan of each of the three regions so far, Euclid had already spotted 26 million galaxies.

Scalable nanotechnology-based lightsails developed for next-generation space exploration

If scaled up, the lightsail made by Norte and colleagues would extend over the length of seven football fields with a thickness of only a millimeter.

3D nanotech blankets offer new path to clean drinking water

Researchers have developed a new material that, by harnessing the power of sunlight, can clear water of dangerous pollutants.

== who would have thought?
Decoding the Mathematical Secrets of Plants’ Stunning Leaf Patterns

A Japanese shrub’s unique foliage arrangement leads botanists to rethink plant growth models.

AlexNet, the AI Model That Started It All, Released In Source Code Form

It was the shot heard ‘round the world - a neural network that finally fulfilled decades of theoretical promise.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Detects Largest Organic Molecules Yet Found on Mars

While there’s no way to confirm the source of the molecules identified, finding them at all is exciting for Curiosity’s science team for a couple of reasons.

Archaeologists find ‘unprecedented’ Iron Age hoard

Early analysis of the hoard, released on Tuesday, suggests a lot of the items had been purposefully burnt or broken before being buried as a show of power and wealth.

Unusual desert rocks suggest unknown microorganism that uses marble and limestone as a habitat

Unusually small burrows, i.e., tiny tubes that run through the rock in a parallel arrangement from top to bottom, were discovered in marble and limestone of these desert regions.

Blue Ghost lander captures stunning sunset shots on the moon before falling silent

A private lunar lander has captured the first high-definition sunset pictures from the moon.

Quantum genesis: The emergence of a flat universe and its mirror from nothing

By replacing traditional curvature with a quantum potential, this model is consistent with the observed flatness of the universe and naturally leads to a robust inflationary period.

== another Dyson sphere related article
A Dyson swarm made of solar panels would make Earth uninhabitable, suggests study

Their efficiency in energy conversion is highly dependent on the temperature of the solar cells, and unlike Earth-based equivalents, they must balance thermal exchanges with the sun, outer space and the enormous surface area of their structure.

A possible way to generate electricity using Earth’s rotational energy

Their study tested a theory that electricity could be generated from the Earth’s rotation using a special device that interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Massive, long-lived trees discovered in the Tanzanian rainforest are a new species

A team of botanists has discovered a new species of tree growing in the mountainous rain forests of Tanzania.

== lengthy
Why the Internet Archive is More Relevant Than Ever

As the Trump administration purges web pages, this group is rushing to save them.

Another Large Black Hole In ‘Our’ Galaxy

This paper suggests that the image we see is the result of the light (radio waves) from SGR-A* being “lensed” by another black hole, near (but not quite on) the line of sight between SGR-A* and us.

If Bird Flu Jumped to Humans, Could Past Flu Infections Offer Some Protection?

Bird flu has ripped through the animal kingdom for the past few years now, killing countless birds and crossing into an alarming number of mammals.

How AI coding assistants could be compromised via rules file

Rules files are used by AI coding agents to guide their behavior when generating or editing code. For example, a rules file may include instructions for the assistant to follow certain coding best practices, utilize specific formatting, or output responses in a specific language.

Pioneering trial could ‘switch off’ arthritis

There are different types of cells that come together, rather like an army of soldiers, to attack an infection or disease.

== paywall?
This Is the Sharpest Image Yet of Our Universe As a Baby

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope captures the afterglow of the Big Bang in unprecedented detail.

Surprisingly, Some Dyson Spheres and Ringworlds Can Be Stable

In the realm of science fiction, Dyson spheres and ringworlds have been staples for decades. But it is well known that the simplest designs are unstable against gravitational forces and would thus be torn apart.

Majority of AI Researchers Say Tech Industry Is Pouring Billions Into a Dead End

About a year ago, it started to become obvious to everyone that the benefits of scaling in the conventional sense had plateaued.

Boosting brain’s waste removal system improves memory in old mice

Aging compromises the lymphatic vessels in tissue called the meninges surrounding the brain, disabling waste drainage from the brain and impacting cognitive function.

Deadly bacteria have developed the ability to produce antimicrobials

And wipe out competitors.

Cosmic anomaly hints at frightening future for Milky Way

An international team of astronomers found that a massive spiral galaxy almost 1 billion light-years away from Earth harbors a supermassive black hole billions of times the sun’s mass which is powering colossal radio jets stretching 6 million light-years across.

How a special group of single-celled organisms laid the foundation for complex cells

They realized they were dealing with a previously unknown group of archaea.

Two bees or not two bees?

How wild bees feel the sting of honeybee competition.

New electrolytes enable safe, stable and fast-charging lithium-metal batteries

The resulting symmetric organic salt was found to alter the interactions between lithium ions and other charged particles, ultimately allowing them to move easily inside a battery.

This deepsea diver was cut off from his air supply for half an hour. He survived.

Chris Lemons’ survival story is one of lucky breaks, good training and science.

Scientists thought this Antarctic sea floor would be barren. But it’s teeming with life

When an iceberg the size of a city broke free, an expedition crew decided to see what lurked beneath.