Nullary Sources

An Ancient Shark Graveyard Has Been Found in The Egyptian Desert

chz — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 12:01:19 -0700

The desert sands of Egypt have been dry for thousands of years.

As difficult as it is to picture now, however, much of that desert was once submerged beneath a sea that covered much of the northern perimeter of the African continent.

Nor was it a dead sea – evidence suggests that, during the Cretaceous period, it may have been a tropical wonderland, where rising currents lifted nutrients into the water column to feed a thriving ecosystem.

Now, buried in what was once the floor of that long-ago sea, on the Abu-Tartur Plateau, paleontologists have found evidence of its lushness: the teeth of sharks that would have thrived amid the bounty of fish.

It’s only fair that we return Egypt to its rightful owners: the sharks

Poisoning the Forest for the Trees

chz — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 12:00:46 -0700

Nathan Halverson reported for Reveal in a podcast episode back in February about how the Forest Service is spraying glyphosphate in California forests to kill competition for regrowing trees, which probably isn’t great, and it includes this amazing quote from a deposition in a 2016 lawsuit against Monsanto I’d never heard before:

Nathan Halverson: By the late ‘90s, studies came out showing that Roundup might damage DNA, which raised cancer concerns. Monsanto knew it had a problem with public perception, so employees launched a secret plan. They would orchestrate their own scientific studies that emphasized that glyphosate was safe and pay independent scientists to be the public face of those papers. Their whole plan became public after Lee Johnson filed his lawsuit. In discovery, company executives’ emails were exposed. In that case and the lawsuits that followed, Monsanto employees were forced to answer questions during depositions like this one.

Speaker 10: And you knew that it would be more powerful if it was looked like it had been written by outside authors, right?

William Heydens: No, that’s not correct.

Speaker 10: Let’s see what it says here. You say, “It was noted this would be more powerful if authored by non-Monsanto scientists.”

William Heydens: Oh, yeah, I see that. So I sort of misunderstood your question.

Fuck that guy

Constipation is common in astronauts – blood tests provide new answers

chz — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:01:13 -0700

News release from the University of Copenhagen:

For astronauts in space, constipation is a well-known problem. But why this happens has long been unclear.

Now, a new study from the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with NASA provides an idea of what happens in the stomach without the influence of gravity. The researchers have examined blood samples from 52 astronauts who have participated in months long missions to the International Space Station. The study results identified gastrointestinal changes that occur shortly after the astronauts leave Earth and gravity behind.

“We see changes in astronauts’ blood samples that indicate that the gut bacteria begin to ferment protein to a greater extent than usual within weeks after the astronauts arrive in space, and this change continues until they are back on Earth,” says joint first author and associate professor at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, Giorgia La Barbera.

Hehe poop

Scientists ‘stunned’ by children’s lung recovery in ultra low emission zone

chz — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:01:35 -0700

Smitha Mundasad for BBC News:

Scientists say they have been “stunned” by how quickly young children’s lungs began to recover and grow after pollution restrictions were brought in where they lived.

Researchers found that children in London whose lung growth had been stunted by pollution showed impressive improvements after the introduction of an Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) in 2019 reduced emissions.

The study followed more than 3,400 primary school children in London and Luton and provides what scientists believe is the strongest evidence yet that local clean air zones could help reduce some of the harm caused by pollution during childhood.

But independent researchers caution that other factors must also be considered.

Potentially neato

As Ice Melts, Antarctica Is Leaking Mercury Into The Ocean

chz — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:00:48 -0700

Jess Cockerill for ScienceAlert:

Mercury is released into the environment naturally by volcanoes and geological weathering, but ever since humans started to burn fossil fuels and intensify mining, environmental levels of mercury have seriously ramped up.

Meanwhile, Antarctica has been functioning as a kind of mercury ‘sink’, locking away large amounts of pollution in its layers of ice.

That’s probably been helping reduce the amount of mercury getting into marine food chains (and our seafood).

Unfortunately, those heavy industries that are releasing mercury into the environment are also releasing the greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that are causing Antarctica’s ice to melt.

And as Antarctica melts, it’s leaking all that 'legacy’ mercury into the ocean, too.

I didn’t know Antarctica was a mercury sink, this scenario is actually kind of terrifying

Here’s a funky visualization by Stephen Malinowski of Bach’s Great Fugue in G minor (BWV 452) as…

chz — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 12:00:45 -0700

Here’s a funky visualization by Stephen Malinowski of Bach’s Great Fugue in G minor (BWV 452) as performed by the German sax quartet SAXOFONQUADRAT. Very trippy, warpy visuals evocative of fabric weaving, maybe a little disorienting if you stare hard at the center for too long

Billions of sea stars have died. A Northwest tribe is trying to save the species

chz — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:01:06 -0700

John Ryan for NPR:

On a spring morning so blustery that the National Weather Service issued a small craft advisory, a Samish Indian Nation research boat, called the Chinook (Yómech), set out from Anacortes, Washington, just east of the San Juan Islands.

A team of divers crammed into the cabin as the small craft bounced and slammed across Rosario Strait. They were on their way to pick up precious cargo: 20 endangered sunflower stars, raised by hand in a lab at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

Sunflower stars are one of the Pacific Ocean’s most endangered sea creatures. For the past year, University of Washington researchers have worked closely with the Samish Indian Nation to bring this 24-armed creature back from the brink of extinction after a vast underwater pandemic nearly wiped it out.

Yeah star that ocean up, star it the fuck up

Broccoli could treat untreatable rare nerve disease, Swinburne research finds

chz — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 12:00:40 -0700

New release from Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology:

The secret ingredient for treating a rare nervous system disease could be hiding in the back of your fridge, Swinburne research has discovered.

Friedreich ataxia is caused by deterioration of neurons in the spinal cord and brain, leading to the gradual loss of speech, movement and survival. There is no cure for the roughly 200 Australians with the condition.

The paper establishes that sulforaphane, a natural compound found in broccoli, can improve frataxin levels, the key protein deficient in Friedreich ataxia while also protecting vulnerable nerve cells from damage.

Okay mom I’ll eat my broccoli jesus christ

Crocodiles Evolved Backwards From Warm-Blooded Species to Cold-Blooded Killers

chz — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 12:01:03 -0700

Matthew Phelan for Gizmodo:

Despite an incredible number of visible differences, modern-day crocodiles and birds share a common ancestor dating back to the Early Triassic. Paleontologists call them archosaurs: a hardy clade of reptiles that toughed it out through the sulfurous, inhospitable years of the Great Dying that followed the Permian–Triassic extinction event roughly 250 million years ago.

Scientists had long assumed that the critical juncture marking archosaurs’ evolutionary split on their separate journeys toward birds and crocs was the moment that birds’ avian-like ancestors first became warm-blooded—but it turns out they were wrong. Crocodiles’ ancient forebears also evolved through a phase of warm-blooded species before reversing tack back into aquatic, cold-blooded killers. A new analysis of fossilized bones from 81 archosaur species, spanning the earliest known relatives along both lineages, has found that the crocodile’s ancient ancestors were likely warm-blooded until as recently as 66 million years ago, when the Chicxulub asteroid killed off most dinosaurs.

“Scientists have assumed that warm-blooded animals evolved from cold-blooded ones, not the reverse,” as Roger Seymour, an emeritus professor of physiology with Adelaide University in Australia, explained in an essay for The Conversation.

Honestly, wouldn’t you, given the choice? Don’t lie

Hundreds of California stonecutters fall ill with deadly disease ‘for a product we do not need’

chz — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 12:01:23 -0700

Karen Garcia and Clara Harter for the Los Angeles Times:

Latino men who cut artificial stone countertops in California are falling ill from an incurable and deadly lung disease at an alarming rate, a new study finds.

These workers are developing silicosis, a condition in which microscopic silica dust contained in the stone slabs they grind and polish is cutting up the inside of their lungs until the organs fail. Life expectancy can be extended through a lung transplant, but even then the fatal disease will continue to progress.

The number of silicosis cases reported in California has increased more than tenfold in less than four years — from 2019 through 2022 there were 47 cases; from 2023 through August of this year, there have been 571, according to data from the state Department of Public Health.

Love inventing a new product just to kill people through the production in it

Study ties estrogen-based menopausal hormone therapy to lower Alzheimer’s risk

chz — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:00:43 -0700

Bruce Goldman for the Stanford School of Medicine:

Women on regimens of estrogen-only menopausal hormone therapy are at reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, a study by Stanford Medicine investigators has found.

…

Alzheimer’s disease is, by far, the leading cause of dementia in older people. About two-thirds of Alzheimer’s patients are women. Earlier studies have indicated that menopausal hormone therapy raises dementia risk. But the new study suggests otherwise.

…

Evidence from analysis of living participants’ cerebrospinal fluid and blood samples supported the study’s autopsy findings. Estrogen-only menopausal hormone therapy users had 39% lower odds than non-users of receiving a clinical diagnosis of dementia during their lifetimes, and they performed better on memory tests and in their overall ability to function independently.

We should see if this works on dudes too, get in line for your HRT fellas

Bumblebees can learn to associate new smells with their queen

chz — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:01:05 -0700

As part of our continuing coverage of bees, here’s Katie Bohn for Pennsylvania State University:

Bumblebees are able to learn to associate new odors with their colony’s queen, instead of being preprogrammed to recognize the queen’s pheromones from birth, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State.

For the study, recently published in the journal Communications Biology, the researchers treated buff-tailed bumblebee queens daily with one of two different floral scents as they built their colonies.

Later, the researchers gave these worker bees — who grew up exposed to one of these scents as they tended to the queen — a choice between the floral scent applied to their queen and a new, different scent they never encountered before. They found that the workers preferred the odor of the queen, which meant that they were able to learn it.

Actually, you know what, this is real weird, never mind. Sniffing queens? What are you doing, bees. Please forget I posted this, I’ll try to do better tomorrow

Here’s the WDR Big Band performing “Cearensinho,” a piece by Michael Pipoquinha, with Pipoquinha…

chz — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:01:23 -0700

Here’s the WDR Big Band performing “Cearensinho,” a piece by Michael Pipoquinha, with Pipoquinha himself there jamming out on the bass and Jacob Collier guest starring on keyboards. WDR here is Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln, a public broadcaster in Germany; apparently some TV and radio stations in Europe have house bands? Not like bands for specific late night shows but general-purpose bands that perform on their own like this. I just thought that was neat, and that’s why I’m posting this

China has planted so many trees it’s changed the entire country’s water distribution

chz — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:00:36 -0700

Sascha Pare for Live Science back at the end of 2025:

China’s efforts to slow land degradation and climate change by planting trees and restoring grasslands have shifted water around the country in huge, unforeseen ways, new research shows.

Between 2001 and 2020, changes in vegetation cover reduced the amount of fresh water available for humans and ecosystems in the eastern monsoon region and northwestern arid region, which together make up 74% of China’s land area, according to a study published Oct. 4 in the journal Earth’s Future. Over the same period, water availability increased in China’s Tibetan Plateau region, which makes up the remaining land area, scientists found.

“We find that land cover changes redistribute water,” study co-author Arie Staal, an assistant professor of ecosystem resilience at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told Live Science in an email.

Not excited for dipshits to find this and misuse it as an excuse to oppose replanting elsewhere

Avocados Switch Sex on a Daily Basis, And Researchers Finally Know How

chz — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 12:02:40 -0700

Ivan Farkas for ScienceAlert:

Avocado trees also ostensibly like to have sex, but face a problem: Each tree’s flowers have both female and male reproductive organs, so they must somehow avoid self-pollination to derive such sexual benefits.

They do this through a clever evolutionary trick called temporal dichogamy, where the flowers of avocado trees (and many other angiosperms) functionally ‘switch sexes’ each day.

Yet the underlying genetic basis has fascinated and frustrated botanists and growers for over a century.

In a new study, a team of ecologists and agricultural engineers combined field observations with genetic analyses to finally crack the conundrum of avocado sexuality, revealing their dichogamy-defining gene variants.

Damn how did I not know that avocados were genderfluid icons until now

Appeals court says fishermen’s claim in lobster defamation suit raises First Amendment questions

chz — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 12:01:30 -0700

Patrick Whittle for the AP:

A federal appeals court signaled that it might not allow a lawsuit brought by fishing industry businesses and trade groups against a California aquarium to proceed because of the case’s potential impact on free speech.

The New England-based plaintiffs sued the Monterey Bay Aquarium for defamation after the aquarium’s Seafood Watch conservation program placed American and Canadian lobster on its do-not-eat “red list” in 2022. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether the lawsuit can go forward.

Honestly, even if this was defamation—which it’s not—I feel like the Monterey Bay Aquarium is cool enough that we should give them a couple of free defamations per year to use however they see fit

Most-detailed-ever view of the sun’s surface revealed in new images from the world’s largest solar telescope

chz — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:00:49 -0700

Olivia Maule for Live Science:

New images captured by the world’s most powerful solar telescope have revealed something that was hiding in plain sight on the sun for 150 years: thousands of tiny whirlpools twisting across our star’s surface. The ultra-detailed observations could help to explain some of the sun’s most violent behavior as well as hint at the answer to a long-standing solar mystery.

The new time-lapse footage offers the first direct proof of a long-predicted phenomenon called Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. The effect itself isn’t new to science; it’s named for physicists Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who described it in the 19th century. The physicists found that whenever two fluids slide past each other at different speeds, the friction between them, or shear, rolls into spiraling patterns. However, this is the first time this effect has been seen on the sun, where that shear plays out between neighboring streams of solar plasma.

There’s a timelapse image in the article and it definitely looks like an old screensaver or music visualizer, which kicks ass

Massachusetts prosecutors run their offices on software from the dial-up era

chz — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 12:01:05 -0700

Article from Nasser Eledroos:

Massachusetts has decided to lead the country on artificial intelligence. Over the past two years, the state has put a hundred million dollars into a new AI Hub, placed a ChatGPT assistant on the desks of forty thousand state employees, and directed every agency to work out what the technology can do for the public’s business. The public is warier than its government: two thirds of Massachusetts voters tell pollsters they are more concerned than excited about artificial intelligence.

Massachusetts has not extended its technology modernization to the offices with the most direct power over ordinary life in the Commonwealth: the eleven District Attorneys. The state elects one for each county or small group of counties, and each runs an independent office that answers, between elections, to no governor, no mayor, and no oversight board. Their Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) decide every day who gets charged with a crime, who gets offered a way out of one, and who gets left alone.

All eleven District Attorneys’ offices run on a shared database called DAMION, which holds the record of essentially every criminal case in the state and is roughly twenty-five years old. Even the offices that use it every day do not defend its age.

There’s a screenshot of the thing and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it rules. It doesn’t rule that it’s still in use, it just rules as a thing

Egg oiling offers a targeted way to reduce raven predation on vulnerable prey

chz — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:00:39 -0700

Short news release from Wiley:

Common ravens are intelligent omnivores that regularly consume the eggs and young of nesting birds, and their populations are boosted by human-provided food and nesting resources. This has resulted in elevated predation by ravens on many sensitive prey species, including greater sage-grouse.

A study in The Journal of Wildlife Management indicates that coating developing raven eggs with nontoxic mineral oil helps protect sensitive prey populations by reducing raven reproduction.

Yeah oil those eggs up nice and good, it’s only weird if you make it weird

I thought I posted this a few weeks ago but apparently I didn’t, well anyway, from the mobile hot…

chz — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:00:37 -0700

I thought I posted this a few weeks ago but apparently I didn’t, well anyway, from the mobile hot boy gacha game BREAK MY CASE (don’t play gacha games, kids), here’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Sondai Nishijima, which of course arranges several different movements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. I was absolutely dying when I heard this for the first time, in a positive way