Mike the Mad Biologist

Links for you. Science:

To understand rooftop solar, I built a 2,000-degree furnace in my studio apartment
Fauci speaks out about the pandemic, global health—and his own record
We’ve Got a ‘Supersized’ El Niño on Our Hands
Ancient “living fossils” may reveal how complex life began
WHO Grants Emergency Use Listing for Cepheid’s Xpert® Hemorrhagic Fever Panel Test to Support Ebola Outbreak Response in the DRC
COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness and Safety for the 2026-2027 Respiratory Season
Accurate detection of metagenomic strain-level associations using average nucleotide identity with StrainSpy

Other:

Imperialist Delusions and the Price of Fuel. Trump and Bessent tried to betray Ukraine. Now they don’t have any cards.
The Center For American Progress (bad title, but very good)
The MAGA Right Is Only Pretending to Be Censored. The conspiracy theory that persists even though no evidence supports it
Secret Service is getting the fortified White House that past presidents resisted (wrote about this here)
Gloria Steinem, Personification of the Women’s Movement, Dies at 92
AI Addicts Won’t Make Better Workers
Is It Genocide Yet
The President Can’t Handle the Truth (the pattern is correct, but I think this is just standard narcissistic behavior, and has not that much to do with Pearle)
Bottom 90% of New Yorkers’ Incomes Stagnate As Very Richest See Huge Gains Since COVID
Kennedy Center Removes ‘Beloved’ Sculpture From Its Grounds
Hakeem Jeffries slammed a ‘breach of trust.’ Democrats want to know what he’ll do about it. (she should lose committee assignments next term)
Clarence Thomas Pal Harlan Crow Maxed Out Donations to John Fetterman
Death in the celebrity age
Denouncing Extremists
Home-intruding bobcat no match for police drone
More than 68% of voters support recall of Independence Councilman John Perkins (data center backlash)
Former Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin arrested by Bourbon County Sheriff’s Office
The Funniest Emails From The Kawhi Leonard Investigation Are Also The Most Clarifying
RFK Jr. is investigating whether troops died of Covid vaccine, Army doctor says
NYC bans AI use for students until they reach high school. The policy also bans companion chatbots across all grades.
Texas Police Used AI to Write Report About Using Flock to Search for Woman Who Had Abortion
New Mail Voting Rules Moved Forward Despite USPS Officials’ Concerns About Mass Disenfranchisement
Did Trump’s Tariffs Achieve Trump’s Goals? I didn’t grade the trade war against an economist’s ideal. I graded it against Trump’s own promises.
Gloria Steinem, a potent voice of US feminism and co-founder of Ms. Magazine, dies at 92
How Baby Boomers Transformed American Cuisine
Democrats expose GOP’s data center kickbacks

Today the Washington Post, which despite Jeff Bezos, can still commit journalism ran a story about how the Secret Service convinced Trump to surround Lafayette Square with a fence, making it possible to close off the park. While this is small beans compared to, let’s say, ICE murdering a nurse while emptying a clip into his back, it’s not good.

What really sucks about this is Lafayette used to be a place where people could peacefully protest, speak out, and so on. It was literally a town square at least in political terms, where anyone (including some hilariously bonkers people) could engage in free speech. In 2020, it was a primary gathering place for Black Lives Matter activists*.

But Trump, who is intensely disliked and who has lived his entire life in a rich person’s bubble, does not comprehend that being an elected official means the occasional exposure to the public (Trump’s fascism also plays a role here obviously).

A bad day for the spirit of the First Amendment. And when detrumpification occurs, professional Democrats must liberate Lafayette**.

*I would argue that Trump’s closing of Lafayette in 2020 during the BLM protests was a critical factor in their massive expansion in size, at least D.C.. When Trump closed the park, the few hundred protesters moved to the sidewalk surrounding the park, and then when he decided to walk to St. John’s Church for a photo op that one day, our internal security forces cleared the street using excessive force. That angered locals–and remember people were either working from home or out of work due to the height of the pandemic–and many thousands of people the next day in D.C. converged on the White House*** in no small part due to anger over the previous evening’s tear gassing (I was there both days, but left about 90 minutes before the tear gassing). The park does matter.

**Of course, if they take back the House and/or Senate, they attempt could pass legislation to this effect and turn this into an issue, but professional Democrats don’t do this sort of thing.

***As best as I could tell, it was largely locals who walked or took mass transit to join the protests the following day. People were just angry–and many of them were normies, not the usual suspects one saw at the BLM protests until then.