AI6YR Ben(adding alt text)
( New Yorker cartoon by Ellis Rosen, published June 24, 2025: https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a28501 -- thanks for the ID, Neville)
@robloblaw
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Hilda BastianA big first for next generation Covid vax! A manufacturer is accelerating a "universal coronavirus vaccine." It's set to be the first pancoronavirus vax going into phase 2 trial – & a mucosal form might be developed, too.
More in my latest Covid vax update @PLOS
https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/06/30/a-universal-coronavirus-vaccine-pushing-forward-nextgen-covid-vax-update-30/
The Conversation U.S.Just because the storm ends doesn’t mean the danger’s over.
Hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires reshape the land, setting up the next disaster.
Scientists call it cascading hazards – and with #climatechange, it’s getting worse.
New research looks at how risk models need to be updated:
https://theconversation.com/natural-hazards-dont-disappear-when-the-storm-ends-or-the-earthquake-stops-they-evolve-259502
Mojo ♻️A foreign-owned media empire not only shaping the housing debate, but profiting directly from it?
Murdoch’s News Corp now owns real estate listings, mortgage platforms, property data firms and most of the media megaphone in this country — and they’re using that platform to steer the national housing conversation in ways that just so happen to benefit... themselves.
It’s no longer just bias — it’s vertical integration of propaganda and profit. A single company now helps drive housing policy outcomes by flooding the public sphere with editorials, headlines, and slanted coverage — while quietly monetising the very market conditions it helps create.
Where are the regulators? Where’s the outrage? Why is a foreign-controlled corporation allowed to manipulate both sides of the ledger — public opinion and private finance — while pretending it’s just journalism?
This is not a free press — this is a real estate racket with a printing press.
#ausmedia #auspol #housingcrisis #murdoch #newsCorp #mediabias #mediaownership #aushousing
Great polemic from @pluralistic
https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/
"The world is organized around the whims of billionaires, but it doesn't have to be."
Tom KindlonDavid Tuller: “An interview with Sjoerd Beentjes, Lead Author of Big Data Study on "Blood-Based Biomakers" for ME/CFS”
An 18-minute video interview with lead author of the paper "Replicated blood-based biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis not explicable by inactivity". Duration: 18 minutes.
QuixoticgeekThe Netherlands is enacting it's national heat plan this week. With temps forecast to be as high as 35˚C in the middle of the week. We need to talk about shade. Specifically, about the way our infrastucture is not designed for the new normal of these high temperatures in the summer.
In the heat of a summers day, by far the best thing a person can do is seek shade. Alas the way we have designed our built infrastructure makes this difficult. Take for example this bus stop in Amsterdam.
1/n
Recovered ExpertSeen Hummingbird hawk-moths a few times over the years here in south eastern Germany. Yesterday I‘ve managed to snap photos of one at my in-laws garden.
Takeaway: my 20+ year old macro lens w/ it‘s 30y old design is good enough for immobile or slow objects, but too slow for most living creatures. I should probably upgrade. It‘s autofocus is already under-powered for slower insects, but mostly useless for faster moving insects, reptiles etc.
#HummingbirdHawkMoth #Photography #MacroPhotography
Mark McCaughreanI don't take many macro photos of bees – they're big & fuzzy, so hard to get much depth of focus, & they dash around madly, making it hard to grab a sharp picture 😬
And when it comes to huge carpenter bees, I also get nervous, scared I'm going to fluff the moment before they bomb off next door 🙀
Still, these shots of (I think) a pollen-covered female splay-footed carpenter (Xylocopa valga) aren't horrible 🙂🤷♂️
#Insects 🪳
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🪰
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20184-2
Amazonian Dark Earths might not be anthropogenic, but caused by flood deposition of nutrients and pyrogenic carbon from upstream grass fires.
These areas were more fertile, so pre-Columbian societies preferentially settled there.
A new hypothesis for the origin of Amazonian Dark Earths - Nature Communications
Amazonian Dark Earth is soil that has had mysteriously high fertility since ancient times, despite the fact that surrounding soils have very low nutrients. Here the authors’ use of isotope reconstructions indicate that these soils predate human settlement and could have alluvial and burning origins.