While many messaging apps are tightening their security belts, Instagram is going the other way, eliminating end-to-end encryption with no explanation why. Once done, Meta will be able to access your messages and analyze private conversations.
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/instagram-ends-encrypted-dms
Privacy at risk? Instagram to kill end-to-end encrypted DMs this May
Instagram will end end-to-end encrypted DMs on May 8, 2026, allowing Meta to scan private messages and raising fresh privacy concerns.
From 1905 to 1915, the United States entered a golden age of postcards. That coincided with a time when “tall-tale” art also reached its peak—and one of the most popular genres was agricultural goods of fantastic dimensions.
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/giant-produce-postcards/
Calicornication: Postcards of Giant Produce (1909)
"Tall-tale" or "exaggeration" postcards illustrating the bounties of California.
The same person who can’t get through a novel can watch a 3-hour video essay on the decline of the Ottoman Empire. That’s not inferior cognition. It’s different cognition. And the difference isn’t the screen, but the environment.
https://aeon.co/essays/what-we-think-is-a-decline-in-literacy-is-a-design-problemDo “impossible” colors like reddish green or yellowish blue exist? They may, but we can’t see them because of the way our eyes work. Still, some hacks may make them visible to us, if only momentarily.
https://www.thoughtco.com/impossible-colors-introduction-4152091Mosaics, art made from tiny, colored tiles, are alive and well at the Vatican. There, a 12-person studio dating back to the 1500s houses a catalog of 27,000 different varieties of tiles stored in a 9,000-drawer filing cabinet.
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/inside-vatican-studio-preserving-mosaics-st-peters-basilica-2026-02-24/You know that screeching sound tape makes when you peel it away from glass? The source of the sound has baffled physicists—until now. Turns out it’s a sonic “whisper,” and it’s surprisingly technical.
https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-finally-reveal-why-sticky-tape-screams-when-you-peel-it
Physicists Finally Reveal Why Sticky Tape 'Screams' When You Peel It
There are some things in life that many people just don't think to question.
In the days before accurate forecasting, the 1888 Great White Hurricane unexpectedly buried New York in 50 inches of snow. The storm led President Benjamin Harrison to create the Weather Bureau.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/weather/2023/03/11/great-blizzard-1888-photos/11414253002/
'The cities were paralyzed': Photos show historic blizzard that pounded Northeast 135 years ago
After the great blizzard of 1888, the meteorological service separated from the War Department to improve forecasting and weather preparedness.
It matters not at all whether we are holding our breath for a triumph or bracing for a tragedy. For as long as we are waiting, we are not living.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/02/21/henry-james-the-beast-in-the-jungle/
How to Stop Waiting and Start Living: A Jolt from Henry James
“It wouldn’t have been failure to be bankrupt, dishonoured, pilloried, hanged; it was failure not to be anything.”
Electric eels have long fascinated scientists. Now they’re the inspiration behind flexible batteries that could deliver bursts of power for next-generation soft robotics, implantable biomedical devices, and wearable electronics.
https://connectsci.au/news/news-parent/7767/Shockingly-powerful-gel-battery-inspired-by
Shockingly powerful gel battery inspired by electric fish
Researchers have developed soft, flexible and non-toxic hydrogel-based batteries which could deliver bursts of power for next-generation soft robotics, implantable biomedical devices and wearable electronics.
The batteries are inspired by species of electric fish such as the electric eel (Electrophorus electricus) and torpedo ray (Tetronarce nobiliana). The animals have electric organs containing thousands of specialised cells, called electrocytes, stacked in series which generate electric potentials by maintaining different concentrations of ions in their intracellular and extracellular environments.
“The electrocytes in electric eels are ultra-thin biological cells, capable of generating over 600 volts of electricity in a brief burst,” says Joseph Najem, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Pennsylvania State University in the US.
“These cells achieve very high power densities, meaning they can produce a lot of power from small volumes.
“For biomedical and near-biology applications, we have to make sure that batteries are compatible with their surroundings, flexible, safe and ideally capable of using...
For the French and Italians, it’s arts, culture, and food. In Poland it’s heritage. For Australians it’s “mateship.” People of 25 nations of the world say what makes them most proud about their countries.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/02/17/what-makes-people-proud-of-their-country/
What Makes People Proud of Their Country?
From diversity in Indonesia to food in France, people in 25 countries share in their own words what makes them proud.
