Nullary Sources

The Largest Megalodon Vertebra Ever Found Was Excavated in The 1970s. Then It Went Missing

chz — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:02:20 -0700

Paleontologists were stunned when they unearthed about 20 vertebrae from a single megalodon, including one that, at 23 centimeters (9 inches) across, was larger than any megalodon vertebra ever found, before or since.

…

In 1989, while being moved from one storage facility to another, the specimen was severely damaged and was thought lost.

It turned up again after vertebrate paleontologist and curator Bent Erik Kramer Lindow of the Natural History Museum of Denmark noticed a box of jumbled remnants and realized that he was looking at some of the missing fossils.

Completely normal and everyday occurrence to find a decades-missing shark spine in a box somewhere

As veterinary costs climb, private equity ownership of clinics draws scrutiny

chz — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 12:00:42 -0700

Transcript of a story that ran on PBS NewsHour last week:

If you have a furry friend, you might have noticed that veterinary care is becoming increasingly expensive. And as prices rise, attention is turning to a major shift in the industry, private equity firms and large corporations buying up veterinary practices across the country.

I’ve never been a pet owner so I didn’t really know anything about this before, but multiple people I know were already aware of this so I guess this isn’t a super new thing. Private equity vacuuming up vets feels… somewhat ill-advised to me in this post-Luigi world we live in

Scientists find yeast in ancient Iceman’s guts—and make bread

chz — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:00:36 -0700

Daniel Lawler for the AFP:

Yeast has been growing in the guts of a frozen mummy called Oetzi the Iceman for thousands of years, scientists have discovered, telling AFP they used it to make a tasty sourdough bread.

More than 5,300 years ago—before the Egyptian pyramids were built—Oetzi was strolling through the Alps on the border of Austria and Italy when he was killed by an arrow in the back.

He remained frozen in the ice until two German hikers stumbled across his mummified remains in 1991 in the northern Italian region of South Tyrol.

Fucking finally, some non-coward scientists making corpse bread and definitely getting cursed in the process

Australian officials ask fans to respect the privacy of Neil, a 1-ton seal who respects nothing

chz — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:02:20 -0700

Charlotte Graham-McLay for the AP:

Like plenty of local boys before him, Neil has come home to the stretch of Australian coast where he was born. Unlike most of them, he trails fame, fans and property damage in his wake. He is also a 1,000 kg (2,200 pound) elephant seal.

In June, the bellowing and blubbery 5-year-old mammal hauled himself onto land for his twice-yearly tour of beachside towns in southern Tasmania state after months of feeding at sea. That’s posing problems now that he weighs as much as a small car and has a social media following more than double Tasmania’s human population.

His rampage through local infrastructure has claimed bent traffic bollards, a sign warning the public about seals and a fence that did not survive Neil’s attempt to vault it. The rest of the time he lies placidly any place he likes, which is sometimes the middle of the road, bringing towns he visits to a standstill.

But officials say their biggest concern is that Neil’s popularity could lead to ill-advised human-seal encounters that are dangerous for both sides.

Honestly, this is like a lot of Onion articles where the headline is a complete punchline and the article only dilutes the joke really

Vatican declares ultraconservative society in schism, excommunicates bishops and warns faithful

chz — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 12:05:59 -0700

Nicole Winfield for the AP:

The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist society that consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicating its bishops and priests and warning its faithful they too face the harshest sanctions in the Catholic Church.

The Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimum sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops at the society’s Econe, Switzerland, seminary.

The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors.

[chanting] schiiiii-sm schiiiii-sm schiiiii-sm schiiiii-sm

A little bird told her: scientist wins $100,000 prize for decoding birdsong

chz — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:00:31 -0700

Ian Sample for The Guardian:

A scientist who decoded the vocalisations that a bird uses to communicate has won a $100,000 prize for making progress towards a world in which humans can talk to the animals – without being met with a blank response.

Dr Julie Elie at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2026 Coller-Dolittle prize for two-way interspecies communication after working out the 11 core calls in the zebra finch vocabulary and their meanings.

Her work revealed how the birds announce who they are and what they are doing, and recognise one another regardless of what they are saying by using individual signatures. She also found that at times, the birds confused calls with similar meanings more than those that sounded the same.

Now that we know how to name birds, we can finally write diss tracks about them that they’ll understand

From Motohiko Hamase’s 1987 album Anecdote, a recording of a live concert held in Tokyo earlier that…

chz — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:01:36 -0700

From Motohiko Hamase’s 1987 album Anecdote, a recording of a live concert held in Tokyo earlier that year, here he is performing “Duplicated Scene” on bass with Toshio Kaji on piano (Kaji also composed this) and Yasunori Yamaguchi on percussion. Just some ambient, abstract, improvised jazz for you on this fine Tuesday afternoon.

Scientists find evidence of vast hidden magma systems inside Mars

chz — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:01:07 -0700

University of Oxford news release:

Researchers from the University of Oxford have uncovered evidence that Mars once hosted enormous, Earth-like magmatic systems deep beneath its surface – despite the planet lacking the plate tectonics long thought necessary for this kind of geological complexity. The findings, published today in Nature Astronomy, reveal fascinating new possibilities for how rocky planets become habitable.

Mars is often described as a ‘stagnant lid’ planet: unlike Earth, its surface is not broken into moving tectonic plates. Because plate tectonics drives volcanism, recycling and continent–building on Earth, many scientists assumed Mars lacked the conditions needed to produce similarly complex crust. However, this new study challenges that view, suggesting that Mars could have produced highly evolved crust through intense internal recycling.

Need to figure out a context where I can insult someone by calling them a stagnant lid

Man with same name as US Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible for Alaska’s primary ballot, judge rules

chz — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:01:19 -0700

Becky Bohrer for the AP:

A man with the same name and party affiliation as Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible to challenge the senator in the August primary, a judge ruled Friday.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews’ ruling overturns a June 15 decision by Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher to disqualify the challenger and keep him off the primary ballot. Matthews’ ruling can be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Why should I change my name, he’s the one who sucks

Every Homo naledi we know of is female, and the implications are fascinating

chz — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:01:00 -0700

Kiona N. Smith for Ars Technica:

All the Homo naledi skeletons in Rising Star Cave are female, and that probably didn’t happen by accident.

In 2013, a team of anthropologists led by Lee Berger unearthed the remains of more than 20 small-bodied hominins (ancient relatives of humans), all 335,000 to 236,000 years old, from the Rising Star Cave System in South Africa. Excavations at Rising Star have sparked debate about whether these little hominins had all ended up in the caves by tragic accident, or whether they’d been carefully placed there by other members of their enigmatic species, dubbed Homo naledi.

Now there’s a plot twist that may speak to how the remains got there: All of the hominins in Rising Star are female, at least according to the proteins in their dental enamel.

Gay

Scientists find antidepressant in the brains of sharks off the coast of Rio de Janeiro

chz — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:00:33 -0700

Mariana Batha Alonso and Leonardo Vazquez for The Conversation:

Sertraline is one of the most widely prescribed antidepressants in the world. Global sertraline sales are expected to keep growing, projected to expand from an estimated US$1.94 billion in 2025 to approximately US$3.13 billion by 2032.

In Brazil, a national survey indicates that 10.2% of Brazilians were diagnosed with depression, and it is estimated that 4% used antidepressants.

But what few people know is that some of these pills take a second path after being metabolized by the body: They are excreted in urine, enter the sewage system, and go straight into the ocean.

And in Rio de Janeiro, in addition to all the beauty of the ocean, there are also sharks.

I don’t know why editorial chose to run this with the goofiest photo of a hammerhead shark I’ve ever seen in my life, but they sure did. If ever there were a shark that was absolutely on antidepressants, it’s this one

Louisiana man becomes first in region functionally cured of sickle cell disease

chz — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:00:41 -0700

Ramon Antonio Vargas for The Guardian:

A young south-eastern Louisiana man recently became the first person in his region to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease, clearing the way for him to continue pursuing his dream of a career as a commercial pilot, according to his medical team.

I posted about the treatment two and a half years ago when it was approved by the FDA, nice to see a successful use in the wild

Deadly superbugs on hospital phones

chz — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:00:59 -0700

News release from Bond University in Australia:

The largest study of its kind has found hospital workers’ phones are carrying the same superbugs that kill millions of people worldwide every year.

An international team of researchers including several from Bond University analysed DNA samples from 95 mobile phones belonging to healthcare workers in Australian and UAE hospitals.

They identified bacterial species responsible for a significant proportion of the 13.7 million deaths caused by bacterial infections in 2019 alone.

On average, each phone carried 3.62 species from the 10 bacteria associated with the highest global mortality rates.

Another strike against cell phones, though I think we’re at strike like 5 million at this point

Realized I’ve never posted anything by Panzerballett here before, and I wasn’t sure exactly what…

chz — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 12:00:32 -0700

Realized I’ve never posted anything by Panzerballett here before, and I wasn’t sure exactly what song to post so I went with the tried and true technique of skimming their YouTube uploads and clicking on ones with funny-looking thumbnails, and I was rewarded with some sick ‘90s-looking 3D graphics for my trouble. Here they are performing Virgil Donati’s “Alien Hip Hop” along with the man himself on drums

Alleged ice-cream cartel in Japan investigated as sweltering summer looms

chz — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 12:00:44 -0700

Gavin Blair for The Guardian:

Authorities in Japan have raided six of the country’s largest ice-cream firms for allegedly colluding to raise the price of their products, provoking anger from frozen snack aficionados as they face a cruel summer ahead.

Officials from the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) on Tuesday carried out searches of the corporate headquarters of Akagi Nyugyo, Ezaki Glico, Lotte, Meiji, Morinaga Milk Industry and Morinaga & Co due to suspicions they had violated antimonopoly laws.

Diabolical

The Sun may not engulf Earth after all, scientists say

chz — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 12:01:08 -0700

Bénédicte Salvetat Rey for Phys.org:

Need some good news on a Friday after a long week? The Earth may not be engulfed by the expanding fireball of the dying sun, which has long been assumed to be our home planet’s ultimate fate, according to scientists.

How is that good news??? I was looking forward to that

As the sun expands and its blistering surface approaches Earth, intense tidal waves will stir within the star. When they dissipate, they will pull Earth into its doomed embrace.

However, the growing sun will also lose a lot of its mass due to stellar wind, which pushes our planet farther away.

“Earth’s fate depends on a delicate balance between these two effects,” explained Mats Esseldeurs, the lead author of a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on Friday.

Cuddling cats might make us feel worse when under stress

chz — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 12:01:31 -0700

News article from Frontiers:

A team in the Netherlands set out to better understand the nuances and underlying mechanisms behind the positive influence of pet ownership on owners’ emotional well-being. They also examined whether the beneficial influence of pet interaction is specific to either species and found tentative evidence of a difference in how interacting with cats and dogs affects stressed owners.

They published their findings in Frontiers in Psychology.

“Our findings indicate that stress-buffering is not the mechanism causing momentary emotional well-being when interacting with a pet. Interaction with either species did not act as a buffer for negative emotions,” said corresponding author Dr. Mayke Janssens, an assistant professor of psychology at The Open University.

“In cats, we even observed that a higher level of interaction was associated with a stronger link between stress and negative emotions in owners.”

Cats: making all your problems worse since domestication™

“Pink Planet” is surrounded by salty clouds, researchers using Webb telescope find

chz — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 12:02:46 -0700

Kierra Frazier for CBS News:

Researchers studying the universe’s “Pink Planet” have discovered an unexpected feature in its atmosphere: clouds made of salt.

A team of astronomers led by Northwestern University used the James Webb Space Telescope to discover a salty cloud atmosphere unlike anything previously observed. The findings were published Thursday in The Astronomical Journal.

It took longer than we were expecting but we finally found evidence that gamers exist elsewhere in the universe

Young women now have ‘close to zero’ risk of cervical cancer death after HPV jab

chz — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 12:02:14 -0700

Continued good news about the HPV vaccine in the UK from Sophie Hutchinson for BBC News:

Children vaccinated at age 12–13 against HPV (human papillomavirus) have close to zero risk of dying from cervical cancer before the age of 30, landmark new research reveals.

The first study of its kind shows deaths have fallen sharply since school-age girls began being offered it in 2008, and around 200 lives have been saved in England so far thanks to the vaccine.

Between 2020 and 2024, no cervical cancer deaths were recorded in women aged 20 to 24 - the first time that had happened over a five-year period.

Every time there’s a study about the HPV vaccine it turns out the results are that it’s insanely good in every way

Dolphins know how to avoid troublesome males by listening for their ‘names’

chz — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:01:18 -0700

Paul Arnold for Phys.org:

Male dolphins can be highly aggressive and coercive during courtship. If a female tries to escape, a male may bite, slam his body into hers or slap her with his tail. Much is already known about what males do during these encounters, but the scientists wanted to know whether and how females try to outsmart them.

The research team combined decades of data tracking the lives of Shark Bay dolphins with a field experiment using high-quality audio recordings of the signature whistles of 11 adult male dolphins. The aquatic mammals use these whistles to identify themselves, and other dolphins can recognize them, much like human names.

…

Females likely to be fertile or about to become fertile swam away immediately and stayed away longer when they heard the whistle of a male known for frequently herding females during mating attempts. In the Shark Bay population, males that herd females more often are also more likely to be coercive.

…

And their reactions were not necessarily guided by their own past with him. Instead, females appeared to respond to a male’s track record. The researchers suggest dolphins may learn which males are most likely to hassle females not only through personal experience but also by observing how they behave toward others.

Can’t believe dolphins also have whisper networks