Nullary Sources

Hawaii’s famed Hōlei Sea Arch has collapsed

chz — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:00:58 -0700

A colossal sea arch that had long been a major landmark on Hawaii’s rugged coastline has collapsed into the Pacific Ocean more than 500 years after it was naturally formed, the local park service confirmed.

Hōlei Sea Arch stood at a height of roughly 90 feet (27 meters) in Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park on the southern coast of the Big Island — the largest and youngest island of the Hawaiian chain.

The arch formed around 550 years ago when ancient lava flow from the eruption of one of the island’s six volcanoes hit the cliff edges and carved the vault, creating a natural marvel that drew visitors to the spot for many years, according to the United States National Park Service (NPS).

Damn, this place was cool

An Intro to Daiso’s The Game Series (Trump 1, Nekomata Tanteisha, Nyanpoline, TechnoSylph: vsys gaiden)

chz — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 12:01:31 -0700

Latest post on Misty De Méo’s CD-ROM Journal:

Today’s post is the start of a new series about something a little different: a dive into Daiso’s The Game Series, a hyper-budget collection of CD-ROM games.

Daiso is one of Japan’s largest chains of ¥100 shops. They sell a little bit of everything: housewares, kitchenwares, small grocery items… and, for a time, video games. For a good chunk of the 2000s, Daiso had its own line of CD-ROM games for Windows that it sold on its shelves the same way it sold its other own-brand goods. Other stores had budget game sections too, of course, but Daiso’s line manages to be different compared to the discount section at your Wal-Marts of the world. For one thing, these were Daiso’s own-brand games the same way they sold their own-brand goods: they weren’t buying cheap discs from other discount publishers, they were actually publishing all of these games themselves. They were also undercutting every other discount game rack in the country by selling their games for the hyper-budget price of ¥100 (about $0.90).

We live in an era where $0.99 is too much to spend on a single mobile game, so it’s hard to emphasize just how cheap ¥100 was in this era. ¥100 was a genuinely, unthinkably low cost for a game in that era. By comparison, D3 Publisher’s famous Simple 1500 series for the PlayStation was ¥1500 a game in that same era; MSD-Japan’s contemporary Gameland series for Windows and Mac was ¥980; and even Sony Music Entertainment’s ultrabudget Shock Price series sold for ¥500. ¥100 was the cost of a single credit at the arcade, maybe two credits at the smallest discount arcades running old machines. Accounting for the cost of physically manufacturing and distributing discs, Daiso’s ¥100 price point is about as cheap as it’s possible to get; they found the floor and stuck to it. How much game can you even expect for ¥100?

Never heard of these before but this owns

People Who Drink Their Own Pee Are Obsessed With AI, Using It to Reassure Themselves That It’s a Miraculous Cure-All

chz — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:01:36 -0700

Joe Wilkins for Futurism:

For years, Facebook has played host to a truly stupefying number of groups for the tens of thousands of people interested in urine therapy — a pseudo-scientific practice involving the use of human micturate to “treat” ailments, ranging from acne to viral infections and even terminal cancer.

The members of these groups have done a fine job of cultivating a dangerous ecosystem of quack remedies and misinformation on their own. But with the advent of AI, many are starting to branch out, using the tools to brainstorm new applications and reassure themselves that pee is indeed the cure-all they already believe it to be.

…

Others used generative AI to spew out stomach-churning urine therapy propaganda. “Urine is the solution to everything!” cheers an extraordinary AI-generated poster shared in the “sacred plasma medicine” group. “Bathe in it! Soak your feet in it!”

Part of me is really charmed by this, and wants to let them have this, but we probably shouldn’t let the lying machine do this to people

New penguin species named for first time in over 100 years

chz — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 12:00:40 -0700

BBC News report:

Researchers have identified a brand new penguin, species - Pygoscelis kerguelensis also known as the southeastern gentoo.

It lives on the remote Kerguelen Islands, around 1,200 miles north of Antarctica.

They look almost identical to other gentoo penguins and until recently experts thought they were all the same species.

But researchers studying their genes now believe there are actually four separate species - northern, southern, southeastern and eastern - who all evolved differently.

Sometimes what you thought was one penguin was actually four penguins, this happens to everyone

I’ve been extremely salty lately about the incuriosity and solipsism a lot of people demonstrate…

chz — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:01:10 -0700

I’ve been extremely salty lately about the incuriosity and solipsism a lot of people demonstrate when interacting with art they don’t like—specifically in apparently lacking theory of mind and therefore being unwilling or unable to perform the frankly exceedingly easy task of considering that people with different likes and dislikes could in fact find value or meaning in things they don't—so the bad news for all of you is that I’m going to post some avant-garde bullshit today and you all have to just deal with it. From a performance at the Getty Center in Los Angeles in 2007, here’s Takehisa Kosugi performing “Op. Music.” I don’t know the exact technical details of how this work is set up but it seems to involve oscillators hooked up to photovoltaic cells so the audio responds to the changing light sources, and the audiovisual presentation that results is really engrossing.

Why Do These Fossil Shells Flip Their Spirals Every Few Millennia?

chz — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:01:25 -0700

Fanni Daniella Szakál for Quanta Magazine:

For thousands and sometimes millions of years, marine plankton all over the world built their spiral shells in one direction. Then, suddenly, the spirals switched direction at the same time, everywhere, only to switch back again later.

These microorganisms are types of foraminifera, or forams. Found in all oceans, from the tropics to high latitudes, they’re among the most abundant eukaryotic organisms on Earth. The single-celled protists secrete a hard shell perforated with many small holes; most species live on the seafloor, while some are planktonic, at the mercy of currents. When they die, their shells blanket the seafloor across the world, forming a natural archive of Earth’s history that goes back some 560 million years.

By studying the composition of species, or measuring isotopes or trace elements, scientists use accumulated foram shells to reconstruct past climates and ocean conditions. Over the years, they have noticed a strange phenomenon. Among the many planktonic forams that have snail-like coiled shells, some species strongly prefer one spiral direction — left or right — over the other, with as many as 97% of the individuals in a species coiling in the same direction. And sometimes, a new coiling direction dominates seemingly everywhere across the oceans all at once in the fossil record. Ever since the 1950s, when this curiosity was observed, scientists have been trying to figure out what might cause shell direction to change in quadrillions of microorganisms in unison.

Obviously, they got bored

Oxford English Dictionary adds several words long used in the Caribbean and Bermuda

chz — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 12:01:15 -0700

Dánica Coto for the AP:

More than a dozen words long used in Bermuda and across the Caribbean got an official nod on Wednesday from the Oxford English Dictionary.

First in line is “bimpert,” a Bermudian word of unknown origin that is used to describe a stupid or foolish person. People on the tiny island in the north Atlantic often use it in this traditional phrase: “A bimpert is justah wuffless bye,” which roughly translates to: an idiot is just a worthless boy.

Ah, good to know in case I go to Bermuda and end up getting called this constantly

Study reveals evolutionary history of bats, dating back 65 million years

chz — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 12:00:40 -0700

Will Dunham for Reuters:

Bats are critical players in global ecosystems, pollinating plants, dispersing seeds and eating huge numbers of insects. One of only three lineages of flying vertebrates in Earth’s history, there are more than 1,500 bat species living today. But their evolutionary history has been a bit of a puzzle for scientists.

The largest combined bat genome and fossil study ‌ever conducted is now bringing some clarity. Its findings indicate that these flying mammals first appeared in Europe about 65 million years ago, in the aftermath of the mass extinction event that doomed the dinosaurs, before spreading around the world, not in North America, Asia or Africa as previously hypothesized.

We’re really trying to doxx the residential history of bats now smfh

‘Useless’ female organ discovered over a century ago may actually support ovaries, study finds

chz — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 12:01:33 -0700

Jess Thomson for Live Science back in 2025 on something that’s randomly making the online science news rounds again:

An unsung appendage in the female body, which has long been considered useless, may actually be essential for ovary development and fertility, a new mouse study finds.

This structure, called the rete ovarii, was first discovered in humans over a century ago, but until now, it was considered a so-called vestigial structure — not crucial in adult female anatomy, but a leftover from fetal development. Vestigial anatomical structures, or “vestiges,” are generally thought to have once had a crucial function that was later lost in the course of human evolution.

But according to a new study, published March 19 in the journal eLife, the rete ovarii (RO) may actually play an important role in ovarian function, and therefore, fertility. The work also showed that the structure has three distinct regions and may respond to hormonal signals.

There’s a “once again medical science has overlooked something involving people who aren’t white men” angle to this, but there’s also a “we still don’t know jack shit about how the body works” angle to this

In historic first, tropical turtles spotted nesting on California beaches

chz — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:01:40 -0700

Lois Beckett for The Guardian:

A sea turtle crawled out of the surf in southern California last weekend around sunset and started laying eggs in the sand.

People on Huntington Beach who saw the female olive ridley sea turtle were shocked and excited. And they weren’t the only ones freaking out, said Justin Viezbicke, the California stranding coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (Noaa).

“This is the first documented case of a turtle nesting on the west coast,” Viezbicke said.

Well the West Coast rules, the real question is why did it take this long

Hot spring organism breaks record for heat tolerance of complex life

chz — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:01:57 -0700

Cell Press article:

A tiny, single-celled organism can thrive at temperatures that would kill all other known complex life. In a study publishing September 22 in the Cell Press journal Cell, scientists describe a new species of amoeba that can eat and reproduce in hot spring water as warm as 63°C (145°F) in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park. The amoeba can protect itself at temperatures up to 70°C (158°F) by changing shape and forming a protective outer layer.

“This finding pushes the bounds of what we thought was possible, which is incredibly exciting,” says corresponding author Angela Oliverio of Syracuse University. “There could be more eukaryotes that can survive at even higher temperatures than we know of.”

We’re approaching that time of year when it starts getting cold and I wish it was 158 degrees outside

Following up last week’s post about Akira Ishiguro with some video of one of the bands he was in,…

chz — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:00:55 -0700

Following up last week’s post about Akira Ishiguro with some video of one of the bands he was in, W.I.N.S, which I’ve been digging into a little bit thanks to drummer Kozo Suganuma (R.I.P.) having a bunch of performance recordings of theirs on his YouTube channel uploaded by “staff.” Here they are performing “DELUSION AREA” at a club in Tokyo in 1994; this piece was also included on their 1995 self-titled album. It was written by the bassist, Toshimi Nagai, who I’m familiar with from performances with other acts but I didn’t know wrote music too until now.

US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say

chz — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 12:02:16 -0700

Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen for CNN:

The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program.

The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said.

It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was.

The report, according to one of the sources, was “entirely false.”

I just want to live in less stupid times, though unfortunately I am aware that all times in human history are stupid in one way or another

This dolphin terrifies fish until they puke—and then eats it

chz — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 12:02:17 -0700

Gennaro Tomma for Scientific American:

New videos reveal how a male dolphin has perfected a never-before-seen hunting technique for his species: he terrorizes fish until they vomit—and then feeds on their regurgitated food.

The observations, aside from being gross, offer some of the most compelling evidence of kleptoparasitism—the act of stealing food from other animals—in a cetacean.

It’s not weird that you have this fetish, I’m not going to kinkshame a dolphin, but you shouldn’t force it on unsuspecting fish without their consent that’s just rude

Brain Activity Can Predict a Risky Decision Before It’s Made

chz — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 12:02:02 -0700

Sarah C.P. Williams with a news post from the University of California, San Francisco:

Every day, your brain runs the same calculation: take a risk or play it safe? Your gas tank might be low, but there’s just enough to make it to work on time. Do you stop and risk being late? If you’re out of money at the casino, do you quit playing slots, or withdraw more cash from the ATM? Talk to a stranger at the park or stay quiet?

Scientists at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley have discovered the exact spot in the brain where decisions like these take shape — and, they can see each result coming half a second before a person acts.

Their study, published in Nature Neuroscience, recorded brain activity directly from the orbitofrontal cortex, a region just behind the eyes. By working with patients who already had electrodes implanted there for surgical evaluation of epilepsy, the team found two neighboring patches of the brain that signal in opposite directions, one pushing toward “do it,” the other toward “don’t.”

You can’t just serve up an “inside you are two wolves” joke like that

New cat species identified in Bolivia, first in over a century

chz — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:57 -0700

Marta Serafinko for Reuters:

A diminutive wild cat that inhabits Bolivia’s cloud forest has been identified as a previously unknown species, marking the first time a new living cat species has been formally named and described in more than a century.

The cat, called Tilcayo by local communities, is part of a group called tiger cats found across much of South America. ‌It was found in Bolivia’s lush Yungas forest, a mountainous region where forests are often covered by clouds and surrounded by high humidity, according to researchers. It measures about 18 inches (46 cm) long and weighs around 3 pounds (1.4 kg), making it smaller than the average domestic cat.

New smol lil itty bitty baby cat just dropped

100 years after John Coltrane’s birth, secret tapes are emerging. What can they tell us about jazz’s great rulebreaker?

chz — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:01:58 -0700

Ammar Kalia for The Guardian:

To mark the centenary of Coltrane’s birth this month, that quest is being documented on a series of previously unreleased, holy grail recordings of his nightclub experiments. Regularly taking up four- to six-week residencies in spaces such as the Jazz Gallery in Manhattan, the Showboat in Washington DC or Pep’s Lounge in Philadelphia, [John] Coltrane would play extended sets of new material that existed purely in the moment of their making: unplanned and unruly.

Dubbed The Tiberi Tapes after Frank Tiberi, the saxophonist who made the recordings, the reel-to-reel tapes initially existed as Tiberi’s private means of study. Taking a bulky Magnavox TR-100 to clubs, with its microphone hidden in the sleeve of his overcoat, Tiberi began recording concerts, managing to change the tapes in the dark every 30 minutes to capture as much of Coltrane’s virtuosity as possible. Following Coltrane’s quartet from 1960 to 1964, just before the recording of A Love Supreme, Tiberi amassed 80 reels of recordings and more than 60 hours of music that he began sharing with select peers and students: a map of Coltrane’s circuitous route to endless music.

Sax legend Joe Lovano played with Tiberi as part of the Woody Herman Big Band in 1976 and remembers being astounded by the material. “Frank would come and put the headphones on me and press play on certain sections to illustrate the way Coltrane would work harmonic changes or melodies,” Lovano says. “It was inspiring because you could already hear how he was playing single tunes for 35 minutes or more; really stretching out to follow the music and let it take him where it wanted to go. That freedom of his later work was always present in the way he took his own melodic path and left space for others.” Lovano later played with McCoy Tyner, Coltrane’s pianist from 1960 to 1965, “and he told me they all knew Frank was recording but he had their blessing. The band knew it was for education and the music first.”

Incredibly sick for this material to surface but also I’m dying at the image of this dude switching whole-ass tape reels in the dark underneath his completely unsuspicious boxy giant coat

Astrophysics study suggests Venus may have swallowed its moon

chz — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:00:53 -0700

Steve Gorman for Reuters:

A California-based astrophysicist presented a new theory on Monday to explain why Venus, the planet most like Earth in size, mass and structure, lacks its own moon. Call it a case of celestial cannibalism.

The ‌extremely slow speed at which Venus rotates on its axis would have doomed any natural satellite that may once have orbited that planet to gradually spiral closer to its parent and ultimately be consumed in a cataclysmic smash-up.

I’ve definitely been so hungry that I ate a moon before so this passes the sniff test at least

From Metamorphosis, a 1992 instructional drum VHS tape released by Yamaha, here’s Akira Jimbo…

chz — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:00:30 -0700

From Metamorphosis, a 1992 instructional drum VHS tape released by Yamaha, here’s Akira Jimbo performing Akira Ishiguro’s composition “Aerobics of Alien.” Ishiguro is a jazz keyboardist who doesn’t have as many composition credits to his name as I’d like given how long he’s been doing music, since he rules at proggy fusion like this

Earliest known drug use may have trapped prehistoric foragers in a ‘vicious cycle’

chz — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:00:51 -0700

Ashley Strickland for CNN:

“Archaeologists have long believed that the earliest traditions of drug use arose around 13,000 years ago when nomadic hunter-gatherers began to domesticate plants and live permanently in one place as farmers,” wrote Adam Brumm, professor of archaeology at Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, in an email.

During this so-called Neolithic Revolution, farmers in what’s now Israel first brewed beer from barley. And betel nut chewing occurred in Southeast Asia as early as 4,000 years ago, previous evidence has suggested.

But Brumm’s team has uncovered evidence that prehistoric foragers were sucking on whole betel nuts between 25,000 and 16,000 years ago. The practice could represent the oldest known example of drug use by humans, which evolved into the betel nut chewing that remains so popular today.

More proof that getting completely zonked is an essential part of being human