FeedCity

My WordPress mirror site stopped updating on August 12. It's now updating once again. I'll try to watch it more carefully.

The Atlantis project continues. Today I'm working on the code that updates the frontier.root object database using RSS, a technique I started in 2007. I actually let the codecasting.org name lapse, figuring I'd never get back to that stuff, but here we are, doing unpredictable things.

All of a sudden it's cold here in the Catskills this morning. It's still August, I don't get what's going on. We haven't had a really hot day all month. I'm starting my workday wearing a freaking hoodie and am thinking about turning on the heat.

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Ancient teeth and human DNA are revealing a surprising history of insect eating. Modern humans in northern Eurasia appear to have eaten insects only occasionally, while Neanderthals may have consumed them much more regularly. Populations near the tropics also retained genes that make insect exoskeletons easier to digest.

Astronomers have captured their clearest image yet of Betelgeuse’s long-suspected companion, potentially ending a search that lasted about 100 years. The surprisingly massive hidden star could help explain Betelgeuse’s changing brightness and may influence its future supernova.

The belief that huge doses of vitamin C can ward off colds was popularized more than 50 years ago by Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. Since then, larger studies have found that vitamin C does not prevent most people from catching a cold, although regularly taking it may make severe symptoms slightly shorter or milder.

Today’s mysterious gravitational-wave background may preserve clues about how the Universe’s first supermassive black holes formed. Descendants of hypothetical Dark Stars could be responsible for a major portion of the signal, offering a surprising new way to investigate cosmic dawn and dark matter.

Ancient fossils suggest insects conquered land through a long amphibious phase rather than making an abrupt jump from water to dry ground. A newly identified 324-million-year-old species still carried paddle-like abdominal limbs, revealing an evolutionary bridge between aquatic ancestors and modern six-legged insects.

Scientists created smart nanoparticles that can both illuminate hidden glioblastoma cells during surgery and destroy microscopic cancer left behind afterward. In mice, the treatment prevented recurrence and led to 100% survival at 60 days, though it has not yet been tested in humans.

Ultra-processed foods make up a huge share of the American diet, and new research suggests they may carry another serious health risk for men. In a nationally representative study of more than 17,000 U.S. men, those who ate more ultra-processed foods, including soft drinks, packaged snacks, cereals, and processed meats, had roughly 24% to 31% higher risks of prostate cancer after accounting for factors such as age, smoking, race and ethnicity, and poverty status.

Scientists have found a surprising way to potentially switch on an unusual form of magnetism in ruthenium dioxide, a material that normally appears nonmagnetic. When the material was made into an ultrathin film only a few atomic layers thick and placed under strain, its electrons developed patterns consistent with altermagnetism, a recently proposed magnetic state with promising uses in advanced electronics.

NASA has successfully tested a system that allows satellites to navigate without GPS by using other spacecraft and debris as landmarks in orbit. In just three days, FALCON also improved the known orbits of more than 200 space objects completely autonomously.

A magnetar with an astonishingly powerful magnetic field may have revealed a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago. Its light shows signs that supposedly empty space is altering how the light travels, potentially providing the first evidence of vacuum birefringence.

Researchers discovered a brain-based “brake” that can shut down chronic nerve pain in mice by calming an overactive pain circuit. Targeting this system more precisely could one day lead to powerful pain relief without affecting opioid receptors throughout the entire body.

President Trump wants 401(k) plans to invest more in private equity, real estate and cryptocurrency.

Here’s how a proposed rule change from the Labor Department could affect your 401(k) plan.
https://www.propublica.org/article/401k-retirement-plan-fees-funds?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #Trump #WhiteHouse #Retirement #Finance #PersonalFinance #WallStreet #Business

Toluse Olorunnipa: “GOP lawmakers are pushing to restrict the rights of naturalized and dual citizens—including their ability to run for office.”

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Despite the collective Republican lean of the Senate seats being contested this year, the current average Democratic lead in generic ballot polling along with the large number of Republican seats up for election suggests that Democrats have a realistic chance of gaining at least four seats to take control of the […]

Not Just a Problem for Democrats Right-wing politicians in the U.S. have for decades pursued forms of voter suppression under...

In late summer 2023, a TV bulletin appeared around Colorado’s Fremont Correctional Facility inviting people to “Starting Over,” a class about good decision-making and self-betterment. A flier for the class featured a pair of hands holding a young plant in fresh soil.

The post Programming at My Prison Was Overwhelmingly Religious. I Tried to Change That. appeared first on Prison Journalism Project.