Mike the Mad Biologist

Links for you. Science:

Trump Administration Readies Plans to Dismantle Renowned Science Lab
The archaeal roots of eukaryotic life
WHO releases guidance for urgently needed new antibiotics
Florida Is Trying to Ignore Measles Until It Can’t
Surgeon general nominee now says Americans should get vaccinated for measles. Dr. Casey Means told Congress last month she supported the measles vaccine, but she declined to answer whether she would recommend it to Americans.
National Academies of Sciences says no to demands it remove climate info. State attorneys general won’t get climate chapter removed from a legal manual.

Other:

The Last Thing Trump Wants to Do Is Save America
Why We Are Failing in the Fight Against Antisemitism
Immigration questions for Markwayne Mullin
Iran’s Hormuz blockade is its most powerful card against Trump and Israel. It won’t back down easily
The IRGC’s way of war
After rookie ICE agent’s paperwork error, man is detained for days
How God Got So Great
A top Trump aide resigned over Iran. Liberals should stay away from him.
The World Baseball Classic, Team USA, and the war problem
On the Wired renaissance: Katie Drummond is leading Wired magazine through its best era.
Sarah Michelle Gellar Breaks Her Silence on What Killed the Buffy Reboot: ‘Nobody Saw This Coming’
Black Women, Allies and Elected Officials Navigate HIV Prevention Landscape
How Eric Trump Became an Ally of One of China’s Biggest Crypto Companies
Chelsea Handler Says RFK Jr. And Cheryl Hines Sold Her ‘The Most Toxic’ Home (lol)
Federal judge in D.C. issues new grand jury policy after failed indictment of Democrats
Wired’s New Editor Doesn’t Care if the Tech Bros Are Mad
Crypto’s True Believers Demand to Be Taken Seriously
Donald Trump’s Fake Makeover: Republicans, in a blind panic about the midterms, are pretending to course correct.
‘Trump is aiming for dictatorship’. That’s the verdict of the world’s most credible democracy watchdog (the article really ignores the role the Republican Party plays in this; the fascist political formation is quite broad–it’s not just Trump)
Making Messes That Other People Are Supposed To Fix
Americans Are Stuck in Dead-End, Exploitative Part-Time Jobs
Judge reinstates 1,000 Voice of America employees, deems wind-down illegal
Chat Is This Good
MAGA Turns on Itself, and It’s Ugly
I Predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis. What Is Coming May Be Worse.
Are They Done With His Bullshit Yet
AI Job Loss Research Ignores How AI Is Utterly Destroying the Internet
My Self-Driving Car Crash
Donald Trump’s Racism Mirrors Jeffrey Epstein’s
The Colorado River’s Problems Are About to Get Deeper
What to know about the resignation of Joe Kent as Trump’s counterterrorism chief
Why Are We Still Doing This?

Links for you. Science:

This Pink Bug Is Not A “Rare Freak Mutant” After All
Scholars Return Fire
Alien Life Might Exist on the Starless Moons of Rogue Planets
‘RAMmageddon’ hits labs: AI-driven memory shortage is impacting science
Arctic’s ‘keystone’ fish faces collapse as melting ice floods ocean with light
Scientists Discover Vast Ancient Trade Network That Rewrites History with Parrot DNA

Other:

In a golden age for many American Jews, my family was uncertain about its identity
Is Trump a World-Historical Figure?
Democratic turnout doubles in Rio Grande Valley where four Hispanic counties previously went for Trump
Anti-Muslim rhetoric rises among Republicans with little pushback from GOP leadership
Trump Appears To Endorse Eugenics In Wild Fox News Clip
How a mathematician is cracking open Mexico’s powerful drug cartels
Sculptor Thaddeus Mosley, who found international fame in his 90s, is dead
As GU Investigates College Republicans’ Post, Community Members Condemn Islamophobia
Former DOGE employees give an inside look at the Elon Musk-led agency
Where the money in D.C.’s mayoral race is coming from
How racist group chats are part of a long history of GOP bigotry
Appointee wants to replace White House columns with the ones Trump prefers
AI Mistake Throws Innocent Grandmother in Jail for Nearly Six Months
The left’s housing civil war is ending
“If AI is writing the work and AI is reading the work, do we even need to be there at all?” Educators reveal a growing crisis on campus and off
Rail Transit Development Hasn’t Kept Up with US Population Growth. Here’s How Policymakers Can Expand Access
When Laws Fail, What Do You Have? The Beekeeper
The Coalition of Nope
Trump says GOP lawmaker would have been ‘dead by June’ in awkward moment
How Jeff Bezos Upended The Washington Post
The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why (the ‘best’ pro-war case, which seems to have a lot of unverified and incorrect assumptions built in; e.g., Iran wasn’t close to having a nuclear weapon)
The Tesla Influencers Leaving the ‘Cult’: The EV manufacturer is supported by a robust online community. But Elon Musk’s politics and overblown hype about Full Self-Driving are turning some loyalists away.
No, America is Not Respected. Thanks to Trump, we’re held in contempt even by our closest allies
Implications
Janeese Lewis George Emerges as the Early Front-Runner for Mayor As Kenyan McDuffie Looks to Pick Up the Pace
The dictionary sues OpenAI
‘It’s Just Crazy’: High Car Payments Make Ownership Feel Impossible
Why Insect Farming Startups Are Going Bankrupt
Republicans fret over RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine policies while MAHA moms stew
Eight big-picture lessons from the DC Streetcar

Links for you. Science:

How a species evolved fast enough to save itself from extinction
What Earth’s longest-lived animals can teach us about aging better
Judge Strikes Down Kennedy’s Vaccine Policies
His Harvard Lab Was Thriving. Then Came the Cuts.
Fuck the Roman Empire
An Inflection Point

Other:

Using FOIA To Expose Trump’s Biggest Coverup
An Existential Threat to Organized Labor’s Ability to Help People
The Marine Corps probably told Platner what the Totenkopf is
Gov. Jared Polis punts Tina Peters clemency decision until after appeals court weighs in, his office tells lawmakers
While Putin helps Iran kill Americans, Trump shrugs
Bernie Sanders-backed Senate hopeful backtracks on apology for ‘Nazi skull’ tattoo insisting it’s an ’eminently reasonable skull-and-crossbones’
MAHAspital
Doomscrolling is over. Now everyone is “monitoring the situation.”
‘Crappy luxury’: Inside NYC’s brand new apartment buildings that are falling apart
Trump sold young voters on his vision. Many are having buyer’s remorse.
ARE THE ATTACKS ON GRAHAM PLATNER HELPING HIM?
Jewish students shunned by anti-Semitic housemates as 1 in 5 don’t want to flat share
Let Firefly Stay Dead!
A List Of Better Ways To Experience The Frisson Of Transgression Than Becoming A Fascist
“This Ain’t No Game, Bro”: Gen Z Crashes Out Over Trump’s Iran War
People Hate Datacenters, Survey Finds
Did Trump Just Start a Recession? A very candid chat with oil market expert Dan Yergin on the potential unintended consequences of Trump’s war in Iran.
Live Nation Gets To Keep Its Monopoly Thanks To Trump’s Department Of Justice
Is ChatGPT a Dead End? A growing number of the most decorated A.I. researchers have declared that world models, not L.L.M.s, are the key to unlocking tech’s next quantum leap. Investors are betting billions of dollars that they’re right.
Norms
Analyze This: Limbic, a British company backed by Khosla Ventures, is working toward a future where people use A.I. to supplement their shrinks rather than rely on the tech altogether—one of the darker trends of the artificial intelligence era so far.
Even Silicon Valley Says That AI Is a Bubble (the assumption is that stocks will rise again shortly thereafter, and at some point, that might not happen…)
Billionaires are a danger to themselves and (especially) us
Delayed projects, low morale: Boston’s streets department is stalling under Wu, long a transit champion
Rise, Grind, Die
Sure Why Not
Trump Gives Eugenic Vibes Ranting Against ‘Genetics’ of ‘Sick’ Muslim Immigrants
Situational Unawareness
“I am 5 years old. I want go home”: Children’s letters expose nine months of torture at Texas immigrant concentration camp
Why Trump Didn’t Plan for the Strait of Hormuz

Links for you. Science:

The US slashed research for cancer, Alzheimer’s, mental health — and nearly everything else
“Unlike Anything We’ve Ever Seen” – Bizarre New Insect Discovered in South America Stuns Scientists
WHO releases guidance for urgently needed new antibiotics
Capturing dynamic phage–pathogen coevolution by clinical surveillance
Accounting for Defective Viral Genomes in viral consensus genome reconstruction, application to influenza virus
RFK Jr’s pick to review Covid vaccines authored misleading research, experts say

Other:

The Republican Party’s Nazi Problem Is Getting Worse. It Should Care
Brian Schatz’s Signals of Comfort With Big Money. The Hawaii senator and heir apparent to Chuck Schumer attacked a bipartisan housing bill without trying to fix it, merely to show support for private equity.
Utah measles outbreak speeds up but there are few changes to daily life. Health officials in the outbreak’s epicenter are relying on social media and talk radio to reach residents. Many aren’t listening.
Elizabeth Warren’s Amazingly Progressive Housing Bill
BuzzFeed Nearing Bankruptcy After Disastrous Turn Toward AI
Trump Surprised To Find He’s At War in Iran. Once his not-even-half-baked plan failed to materialize in Iran, it’s clear that there’s no Plan B.
How the money spent on Trump’s Iran war could have helped Americans
The Trump Administration Floats a New Way to Humiliate the Legal Profession
The Removed DOGE Deposition Videos Have Already Been Backed Up Across the Internet
Change in Data Sources Led to Lower Inflation Reading
A Federal Judge Just Called Out the DOJ for Politically Motivated Prosecutions
MAGA infighting erupts after Laura Loomer apologizes for ‘racist’ remarks
Is Trump Building ‘Concentration Camps’? These Experts Have No Doubts
How Epstein lured girls to his Zorro Ranch and kept authorities away. At least 10 women and girls say they were groomed at what was once Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico.
They came to build China’s EV future. Investigators found conditions akin to ‘slavery.’
Using Bigotry to Hide an Authoritarian, Christian Nationalist Agenda
After a brief scare, National Zoo’s rare baby elephant to make her debut
Jamie Raskin Just Told John Roberts: “The Emperor Has No Clothes”
Black history was made on this golf course. Some fear Trump will erase it.
Should Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Run for President in 2028?
The enduring truth of Tupac’s ‘money for wars, but can’t feed the poor’
It’s become too easy to use your data against you
One-third of Americans skip meals or other needs to afford health care
Secretary Of Defense Hegseth Promises Iranians ‘No Quarter’ – A War Crime
Facing deficit, D.C. to wait-list families seeking child care subsidies
People are spending hundreds of dollars at IV drip bars in Boston. Are they worth the hype?
If Iran Becomes ‘Israel’s War,’ American Jews May Pay the Price
Just six days of war in Iran cost us $11.3 billion. ‘What the [expletive] is wrong with us?’
Trump’s Pick To Represent Him In Florida Statehouse Doesn’t Even Live In The District
Vindicated At Last In My Years-Long Loathing Of Grammarly
MGB researchers create AI models to detect domestic abuse in patients (paper here)

Links for you. Science:

Scientists, it’s time to pay your taxes. This arrangement—where a small number of dedicated scientist activists fight for the whole of the ecosystem—isn’t sustainable.
These ants navigate with a newly discovered ‘Moon compass’
A recipient-based anti-conjugation factor triggers an abortive mechanism by targeting the Type IV secretion system
Colorado River may deliver just a third of normal water supplies this spring, projections show
The Shingles Virus May Be Aging You More Quickly
Scientific sleuths come in from the cold

Other:

AI “journalists” prove that media bosses don’t give a shit
Shot by Border Patrol, Then Called a “Domestic Terrorist”
A Knock on the Window and a Glimpse of America’s Surveillance Future
I Went to Florida to See the 31-Year-Old Candidate Thrilling Gen Z. We’re in Trouble.
The Secret Police Playbook: How DHS reflects historical lessons from dictatorships
Is a random human peer better than a highly supportive chatbot in reducing loneliness over time?
Small Models, Gently Loved: An AI Speculative Fiction
LA’s Tesla Diner is so dead, even the protesters gave up. Just eight months in, not even the tech bros are eating there
The mysterious case of the DHS white supremacist memelord. Or: why some MAGA group chats leak, and others don’t.
The most divorced men in history. The resentment of women that undergirds so much recklessness.
Trump’s Inexcusable Unpreparedness for the Iranian Oil Crisis
As Trump’s bizarre claims about spiking oil prices trigger backlash and officials reportedly start panicking about them, an international relations expert explains what this fiasco reveals about his deeper failings.
What We Talk About When We Talk About AI (Part one)
The National Security Case for Renewable Energy
What We Talk About When We Talk About AI (Part Two)
Husband of Nashville Reporter Gauges the Hole Created When ICE Detained his Wife
What We Talk About When We Talk About AI (Part Three)
Insurrectionist Brunch: Trumpists plotted to deploy military on U.S. soil. Before the 2024 election, a cadre of MAGA loyalists met over brunch to plot ways for Trump to use the military domestically.
What We Talk About When We Talk About AI (Part Four)
Tomorrow’s AI models are learning from today’s polluted research
That Which Cannot Sustain…
The worst cabinet in American history. And it’s not even close.
Welcome to the Derp State
Mamdani Wants New York Estate Tax Threshold Cut 90% to $750,000
AI Didn’t Break the Senior Engineer Pipeline. It Showed That One Never Existed.
DOGE Deposition Videos Taken Down After Judge Order and Widespread Mockery
The Washington Post Is Using Reader Data to Set Subscription Prices. How Does That Work?
Why I’m Suing Grammarly
2023: Buzzfeed Pivots To AI. 2026: Buzzfeed Is In Big Trouble.
Islamophobic Think Tank Helped Write Indictment Against ICE Protesters

Links for you. Science:

Denmark’s Floating Islands: Turning Urban Harbors into Havens for Bees and Birds
Why so salty? The not-so-invisible impacts of winter salt
The Man Who Stole Infinity
A bacterial ecocline in Klebsiella pneumoniae may explain its backboned phylogeny
Hawaii’s battle with rat lungworm disease shows California what may be coming
The Other Lab Leak Hypothesis: Is Lyme Disease Caused by an Escaped Bioweapon?

Other:

US needs a crisis-tested surgeon general, not an influencer. Having a large following, publishing a best-selling wellness book or launching a health start-up cannot replace clinical training, board certification and public health command experience.
Ultrawealthy Consider $500 Million Fund to Influence California Politics
Pete Hegseth’s manly act is backfiring
US Jewish leaders express alarm over new political conditions for synagogue security grants
Federal Judges Are Slowly Realizing They Can Treat Trump Like Anyone Else
Balcony solar is taking state legislatures by storm
War With Iran? A Blood Moon on Purim? For Some Christian Influencers, That Can Mean Only One Thing: The End Times
A new lawsuit claims D.C. is withholding money meant to help laid-off Circulator bus drivers
The Harlem Tiger: The Astonishing True Story of Ming, a 425-Pound Pet Living in an Apartment
Here’s the Memo Approving Gemini, ChatGPT, and Copilot for Use in the Senate
D.C.’s lax utility oversight is costing customers
‘Sly stowaway’ UK fox finds new home at Bronx Zoo after illicit transatlantic trip
Wilson Building Bulletin: The politics of congestion
In unusual step, D.C. Council sues Mayor Bowser over budget documents
Why ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did (it’s really not the iPhone, but the laptop computer with good internet connection)
It took U.S. years to lose a war in Vietnam. Trump lost one in days.
War With Iran Puts Further Strain on America’s Pessimistic Farmers
Leftover ramen, too few Qurans: A ‘humiliating’ Ramadan inside ICE detention centers
Dark money group offers influencers $1,500 for posts attacking Chicago Democratic primary candidate. Progressive House candidate Kat Abughazaleh told MS NOW the secretive campaign is “filled with false and defamatory claims.”
The Alarming Twitter Timeline of Trump Nominee Kara Westercamp
Trump Tells Kentucky Crowd ‘I Have Much Better Blood’ Because His Uncle Was an MIT Professor
Drone sightings drove surveillance fears as ICE surged in Minnesota
The Great American Condo Crisis: If the U.S. wants to remain a nation of homeowners, it has no choice but to start building condos again.
Suburban school district uses license plate readers to verify student residency. An NBC 5 Responds and Telemundo Chicago Responde investigation found a school district is paying tens of thousands of dollars for the technology, that one mom says, is erroneously keeping her child out of public school.
When Pete Hegseth Says “Lethality” He’s Talking About Killing Iranian School Girls
Montana sent a Senator to Washington, not a bouncer
In rural America, a teacher pipeline from abroad starts to dry up
Why hundreds of people in L.A. are strapping cameras on their bodies to do chores
Does The New York Times Want to Eradicate Trans People? An analysis of its coverage reveals a pattern of misrepresentations, deceptions, distortions, the exclusion of trans voices, and the endorsement of contempt.
The U.S. Mint dropped the olive branch from the dime. What does that mean for the country?

Links for you. Science:

RFK Jr.’s advisers had a plan to target covid shots. Then it fell apart.
Tiny Warty Frogfish Was Surprise Birth at Shedd, Is First-Ever Raised in Aquarium
Bumblebee Queens Can Breathe Underwater
The tropics may be getting even hotter than expected
This 2-pound dinosaur is rewriting what scientists know about evolution
Will there be a super El Niño later this year? Here’s what that would mean.

Other:

Elites Aren’t Much Savvier Than MAGA
50 Years of DC’s Iconic Metro
Here We Go Again: A War That Makes Me Ashamed to Be an American
A Running Tally of All the Times Robert White and Brooke Pinto Have Dunked on Each Other
The Smash-and-Grab Presidency Reaches Its Apex
Anthropic’s Lawsuit Should Absolutely Destroy the Pentagon in Court
Bam Adebayo Breaks The Concept Of Basketball, Scores 83 Points
Yeah, We’re Going to Have to Tax the Middle Class
Trump can quit when Iran says so
Trump says white South Africans are persecuted; some are returning to a better life
How the US far right bought into the myth of white South Africa’s persecution
I Watched 6 Hours of DOGE Bro Testimony. Here’s What They Had to Say For Themselves
US Lawmakers Move to Kill the FBI’s Warrantless Wiretap Access
‘AI Is African Intelligence’: The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back
Speaker Condemns Rep. Corcoran Targeting Jewish Colleague, But No Sanction
DOJ is Hiding Trove of Documents About Trump’s 13-Year-Old Accuser
Classical education: The feds are getting more involved in how D.C.’s public schools look
It’s peak crawfish season, but Louisiana peeling plants are empty: ‘I’ve lost all hope’
Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler
Trump’s War Takes Unnerving Turn as Damning New Leaks Hit
How Epstein’s biggest financial client shaped millennial teen culture
In anti-Muslim post, Tuberville suggests New York’s Mamdani is ‘the enemy’
At 42, With Three Young Kids, I Got a Diagnosis That Would Have Me Dead in a Year. That Was Somehow Just the Beginning.
Democrats introduce ‘Justice for Hind Rajab Act’ as film about her death gains Oscar buzz
The Alternate Universe of Donald J. Trump
DOGE Bros Had More Fun Burning Down Government Than Testifying About It
Iran was nowhere close to a nuclear bomb, experts say
ICE Tried To Turn This Minneapolis Teacher Into An Informant
All 66 Democrats in Colorado’s legislature sign letter urging Jared Polis not to shorten Tina Peters’ prison sentence
What Was Grammarly Thinking?

Links for you. Science:

The Sun Is ‘Glitching.’ Scientists Investigated and Solved a Cosmic Mystery
Is a deep freeze coming? The Atlantic ocean current that keeps northern Europe warm is in danger of collapsing. Compared with threats of war and disease, it is given relatively little attention
Which Chimp Should Wield The Crystal?
The Myth That Wind Farms Are a Guillotine for Birds Is Being Debunked by Hard Data
Humanity Has Altered an Asteroid’s Orbit Around the Sun
Americans trust Fauci over RFK Jr. and career scientists over Trump officials

Other:

The war makes it more urgent for journalists to call out Trump’s derangement (excellent; again, Trump is a narcissist who does not attempt to treat or control his narcissistic behavior. He is mentally ill, and has been for years. His aging exacerbates this, but he has always been like this)
Command-Shift-War: War as Cliché (excellent)
The Young Women Leaving the New Right: Defectors say the movement has dropped the pretense of protecting women and is now openly “cruel and fickle.”
Bowser Once Again Defies the Law, Refuses to Release a Study of Congestion Pricing in D.C.
After slashing federal jobs, Trump administration ramps up hiring
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Is Stepping Down
Is Nellie Bowles The Worst Writer In America?
Neocons Got What They Want in Iran. They Still Want More.
Can AI Kill the Venture Capitalist? VCs are betting that artificial intelligence will disrupt nearly every industry in the world. Are they prepared for it to disrupt their own?
Trump’s Weird Fetish for Discount Dress Shoes Revealed
Republican Jeannie LaCroix Wins Woodbridge District Supervisor Special Election in Upset Victory (the perils of discounting ‘youthful transgressions’)
Porn laws push users to illegal sites, OnlyFans creators warn
Monologuing
A top biotech VC quietly helped Epstein’s ‘great friend’ make a comeback
Who’s to Blame When the Theater Critic Disappears?
Her Brand Is Genocide
Democrats ask what happened to millions earmarked for Trump’s library
Well This Isn’t Any Fun At All
Ed Martin faces disciplinary proceedings over actions as D.C. U.S. attorney
The Lawyers and Scientists Training AI to Steal Their Career
Impeach Jared Polis?
President Donald Trump Is Giving “All The Boys” Dress Shoes That Don’t Fit Right
The US Is Counting Traffic Deaths Wrong
10 Pictures Of Pete Hegseth From The ‘Unflattering’ Batch The Pentagon Reportedly Doesn’t Want You To See
The media is structurally pro-Trump. What a petty hit piece reveals about the media’s fucked-up incentives.
Pentagon bars press photographers over ‘unflattering’ Hegseth photos
Foreign hacker reportedly breached FBI servers holding Epstein files in 2023
The ADL’s turn away from civil rights was years in the making — Oct. 7 accelerated it
DHS Ousts CBP Privacy Officers Who Questioned ‘Illegal’ Orders. Department of Homeland Security leaders removed top privacy officers who objected to mislabeling government records to block their public release
Deaf boy deported without hearing aids as mom sought asylum for domestic violence, lawyer says