Matthew Schmitz via The New York Times:

‘His name may not have been on the ballot, but the biggest loser of the midterms was Vice President JD Vance. President Trump will never face voters again. Mr. Vance, by contrast, doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring public opinion. If he hopes to win the presidency in 2028, he will need to sell voters on the tarnished Trump brand.…’

via esa.int:

‘The European Space Agency’s Hera mission for planetary defence has acquired its first close-up of the Didymos binary asteroid system. NASA’s DART spacecraft impacted the smaller Dimorphos asteroid on 26 September 2022 – but this image gives a novel view of its adjacent parent asteroid.…’

Kristeen Cherney via Sciencing:

‘Scientists have only explored a fraction of Earth’s ocean, mainly because some areas, like submarine canyons or steep-sided deep valleys, are logistically challenging to explore. Despite that, they continue to study what they can to learn more about sea inhabitants. That research has led to the discovery of the strangest deep sea creatures ever, such as the goblin shark and giant tubeworms. While conducting the first comprehensive environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis of Western Australia‘s Cape Range Canyon and Cloates Canyon, scientists detected that they’re home to one of the most elusive and mysterious creatures: the giant squid (Architeuthis dux)….’

What could they be trying to tell us?

Sheena Harvey via Discover Wildlife:

‘“Humpback whales live in complex societies, are acoustically diverse, use bubble tools and assist other species being harassed by predators,” says co-lead author Dr Fred Sharpe. “Now, akin to a candidate signal, we show they are blowing bubble rings in our direction in an apparent attempt to playfully interact, observe our response, and/or engage in some form of communication.”…’

Jonquilyn Hill interviewing philosopher Jeff Sebo on Vox:

‘There are many factors that shape how much empathy we have for non-human animals of various kinds. Are they cute and do they look like us? Do they remind us of ourselves? What role do we assign them in our lives?

We have more empathy by default for animals who play companion roles in our lives as opposed to animals who play commodity roles in our lives. This is why we can often have much more empathy for some animals over others, even if they display the same markers of sentience and the same markers of intelligence….’

Beverly Braga via Jalopnik:

‘Getting pulled over is never a fun time. The reasons are seemingly endless, from driving a police magnet to dangling a keepsake from the rearview mirror or having Flock misidentify your car as stolen. Now imagine going through any of these scenarios while also having a disability that creates communication challenges, such as autism. For someone with sensory, cognitive, and verbal difficulties, the already stressful event of being pulled over could lead to trauma or even being shot. And for the police officer, being unaware of the driver’s medical condition can lead to miscommunication and mishandling of the situation.

That’s why the Blue Envelope Program was developed: to improve communication between law enforcement and people who require additional accommodations or time during stops. Designed to be an all-inclusive information tool that’s easy and straightforward to use for both the driver and officer, on the envelope’s exterior are printed instructions and guidelines regarding how to interact with one another, while inside are essential documents, such as a driver’s license, proof of insurance, and vehicle registration….’

via The New York Review of Books:

‘Joseph O’Neill, interviewed by Daniel Drake: 

“A mandate is a command, we sometimes forget. It is mandatory for Democrats to respond to the voters’ concerns. If they don’t, their party could soon suffer its own collapse.”…’

Joe Yates via UNILAD:

‘Volcanologist Professor Bill McGuire has spent years studying Cumbre Vieja, an active volcano located on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, and has now issued a warning that it could collapse into the ocean.

According to his research, If this did happen it would trigger a megatsunami that would head toward the East Coast of the US….’

Bennito L. Kelty via Raw Story:

‘Olivia Troye, who served as homeland security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence, told host Jim Acosta on Friday’s episode of “The Jim Acosta Show” that she was “sickened” to think about how Stephen Miller would handle a national emergency now that President Donald Trump has tapped him as White House chief of staff.

Trump named Miller, whom Troye called the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, to replace outgoing chief of staff Susie Wiles days after Democrats’ sweeping wins in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Acosta, a former chief White House correspondent, branded the choice “a totally psychotic move.”

Troye, who coordinated the COVID task force in Trump’s first White House, explained that the chief of staff’s office sits at the center of any federal crisis response….’

Jessica M. Goldstein via The New Republic:

‘In a week of bad news for Elon Musk, Tesla has decided to end production of its sometimes-dangerous, always-stupid homage to its CEO’s folly….’

Rion Nakaya via The Kid Should See This:

‘…every step you take, basically, is trying to untie your shoes….’

Cameron Peters via Vox:

‘What does this mean for the Trump presidency? More of the same, cranked up to 11. Miller is as hardline as they come, and he’s certain to push Trump to be even more aggressive on immigration and attempts to use the machinery of government to attack their shared political enemies.

It’s all going to be extraordinarily unpopular, if Tuesday’s midterm results are anything to go by — but with just over two years left in the White House, there’s little reason to believe that Miller and Trump won’t try to push the power of the presidency to its breaking point….’

Clay Risen via The New York Times:

‘At The New York Times, we try to reach a family member, close friend or associate to confirm a death, and to provide a specific cause, if known. If we know that suicide was involved, we encourage people to say so specifically. But we avoid suggesting a contributing factor — financial loss, divorce, bad grades, bullying — or discussing methods, locations or the content of suicide notes.

Traditionalists among my colleagues sometimes argue that we have a duty to get all the facts out. Even today, I wrestle with the choices…’

‘Today, after 31 years, we are saddened to announce that Salon is ceasing publication. It’s difficult to find the right words for the end of something that has meant so much to so many people. Salon was never just a website. It was an idea about what journalism could be, born at a moment when the internet was still a largely unexplored frontier.…’

via Letters from an American:

‘Ousting his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, Trump replaced her with the architect of some of his administration’s most extreme policies: Stephen Miller.

Miller is a fervent white nationalist who appears to believe in the racist “great replacement theory,” the idea that Black and Brown immigrants to Europe and the United States are destroying “Western culture.”

Miller’s elevation to chief of staff doesn’t necessarily change much; he already was a powerful force in the White House. Miller drove the “Muslim ban” in Trump’s first term and, in his second, the administration’s arrest, incarceration, and deportation plans for undocumented immigrants. His push for masked agents to arrest 3,000 people a day led to the murders of U.S. citizens Renee Goode and Alex Pretti, as well as the shooting deaths of immigrants and their mistreatment and deaths in concentration camps.

Miller has been a key proponent of Trump’s seizing power through emergency declarations that he uses to ignore the law. Frustrated by opposition to his plan to hurt Black and Brown people, Miller pushed for Trump to crush the opposition by invoking the Insurrection Act.

And Miller was central to the administration’s undermining of disability rights. Mike Hixenbaugh of NBC News reported that after Trump complained about seeing homeless encampments in Washington, D.C., Miller argued for a plan to make it easier to round up mentally ill homeless people and institutionalize them. Making that happen required abandoning enforcement of the 1999 Supreme Court decision Olmstead v. L.C., which established that disabled Americans have a right to live in their communities rather than being forced into institutions.

The Department of Justice went along with Miller’s plan and issued a memo saying that it would no longer enforce Olmstead. While the initial targets were unhoused people, Hixenbaugh notes, the administration quickly backed away from at least five disability rights cases designed to keep physically or mentally disabled children and adults out of institutions. Hixenbaugh points out that the administration’s refusal to enforce Olmstead is sending a message to the states that, with the dramatic cuts to Medicaid in the Republicans’ so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” they should “feel free to cut services that help disabled people remain at home,” forcing them into institutions.

As Phillips P. O’Brien wrote in Phillip’s Newsletter, Miller also supports Russia’s version of its war on Ukraine and has taken a strong and public stand against the embattled U.S. ally. O’Brien notes that Trump’s elevation of Miller now illustrates the president’s determination to get whatever he can for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin before the new Congress starts investigations and puts up roadblocks.

So, rather than moderating his behavior after voters’ dramatic rebuke, Trump is demonstrating by elevating Miller that he is hardening his position. He is surrounding himself with the most extreme of his advisors: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom he has supported in the face of calls for his impeachment; Natalie Harp, the smiling aide who appears glued to his side; and Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and a key author of Project 2025, who Trump boasted before the election would soon “be one of the very important people in the history of our country, in my opinion.” He noted: “We have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks, right, Russ?”

Trump’s elevation of Miller was a deliberate declaration that he doesn’t care what the American people want….’

Hugo Lowell via WIRED:

‘From top officials like Pete Hegseth to White House aides to right-wing pundits, the race is on to find someone besides Donald Trump to blame for the Republicans’ catastrophic losses….’

Mark Frauenfelder via Boing Boing:

‘Live from Churchill, the bears wait on land about a month longer than their grandparents did due to climate-driven ice loss….’

By Emily Anthes via The New York Times:

‘The feeling of existential loss was long thought to be uniquely human. But studies of coyotes, cockatoos and other creatures are prompting some scientists to reconsider.…’

Matt Stopera via BuzzFeed:

‘“This is a massive piece of pool.”…’

Rajarshi Deb via AOL.com:

‘Clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. John Paul Garrison (or Dr. G) reportedly explained why Donald Trump struggled to stay awake during the election speech. He revealed in a video that the president fell asleep while standing up. Dr. G mentioned,

“He seems barely conscious at this point.”

Dr. G further explained that it was concerning because he fell asleep while still standing. The doctor said the fact that the president could wake up again so quickly suggested that there might be a problem with the system that controls alertness and wakefulness. According to the forensic psychologist, the brain pathways that help keep a person awake might not have been working properly at that moment, which indicated that something unusual was affecting the president….’

Adele Peters via Fast Company:

‘At the point that we spoke on Friday, the latest model suggested that Republicans only had a 17.5% chance of keeping Senate control, down a couple of percentage points from earlier the same day, and a steep drop from the day before.

On Sunday, after surprise news that Michigan’s Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens had endorsed the Republican candidate for Senate, Mike Rogers, over Abdul El-Sayed—Rogers’s chances ticked up slightly on the platform, but only temporarily, and nowhere near enough for a win.

By early Monday morning, with Election Day (Tuesday, November 3) just one day away, the platform predicted that Democrats had a roughly 90% chance of gaining control of the Senate….’

David Frum via The Atlantic:

‘Donald Trump is about to redefine the lame-duck presidency.…’

Shelby Erdman via Atlanta Black Star:

‘“Barack Hussein Obama said, ‘Why is Trump spending so much time fixing up the White House?’ Because the White House has to be pristine. It has to be perfect. It can’t have exterior moldings half falling off. It can’t have broken windows at the main entrance where the window’s been broken for years. You can’t have all these things, Barack,” Trump ranted during a campaign rally in Iowa Sunday.

“I’ll teach that sometime, cleanliness. I’ll teach you cleanliness,” Trump nonsensically promised, using his favorite racist dog whistle surrounded by his white MAGA faithful….’

Igor Zanetti via TheCollector:

‘When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they cannot tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil. So they have no power to harm me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. I will not be angry with my fellow humans, or hate them. We were born to work together….’

 via VICE:

‘Feeling down now that spooky season is over? A mental health expert shares four ways to cope with the post-Halloween blues….’

via Good News Network:

‘Each autumn, during the last five nights in October, there is a blackout on Corvo island—but it’s not by accident.

On the small island in the Portuguese Azores, more than 400 residents are protecting some of the world’s most vulnerable birds, while setting an example for the region.

Last week, the public lighting on Corvo was completely turned off at 9:00pm, until 4:00am, for five nights during a critical period for young seabirds.…’

Isaac Stanley-Becker via The Atlantic:

‘The U.S. may become just the latest country where voters choose to punish profligate behavior.…’

Nancy A. Youssef, Jonathan Lemire via The Atlantic:

‘The president might resume strikes, but he is also questioning allies about the performances of Pete Hegseth and Dan Caine.…’

Adam Serwer via The Atlantic:

‘Faced with flagging numbers over an unpopular and unnecessary war in Iran, inflation exacerbated by tariffs, lawless immigration enforcement, and corruption, Republicans have gone back to basics for their closing message: stoking hatred against minority groups.…’

via NASA:

‘Apollo 14 launched in the late afternoon of January 31, 1971 on what was to be our third trip to the lunar surface. Five days later Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell walked on the Moon while Stuart Roosa, a former U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper, orbited above in the command module. Packed in small containers in Roosa’s personal kit were hundreds of tree seeds, part of a joint NASA/USFS project. Upon return to Earth, the seeds were germinated by the Forest Service. Known as the “Moon Trees”, the resulting seedlings were planted throughout the United States (often as part of the nation’s bicentennial in 1976) and the world. They stand as a tribute to astronaut Roosa and the Apollo program.…

Sadly, Stuart Roosa passed away in December, 1994. The Moon Trees continue to flourish, a living monument to our first visits to the Moon and a fitting memorial to Stuart Roosa. Believed locations of some Moon Trees are listed below, but no list was ever kept nor any systematic tracking made of the disposition of all the trees. If you know of a Moon Tree, please send a message to dave.williams@nasa.gov…’

Frank Landymore via Futurism:

‘President Donald Trump’s obsession with AI is even grimmer than we believed.

The commander-in-chief has hardly hidden his enchantment with AI slop, regularly posting bizarre AI videos glorifying himself, denigrating his foes, and at times, attempting to rewrite reality.

But a behind-the-scenes look suggests that Trump is now completely lost in an AI alternate reality of his own making.

While Republicans scramble and prepare for what could be a disastrous midterm election season for their party, sources told the New York Times that Trump is cloistering himself in a world made of sycophantic press coverage, disparaging clips about his foes, and, not least of all, “AI slop,” in the words of one White House official.

One person keeping him hooked on the stuff is Bill Pulte, a top federal housing official. According to the reporting, Pulte regularly joins Trump in his cabin on Air Force One and shows him memes — some of which are almost certainly AI-generated — posters, and documents related to the mortgage industry. One administration official even described Pulte as a “court jester.”

Trump is now so isolated from critical coverage that his indignation and incredulity when encountering it can be petulant and extreme. When comedian Bill Maher — who you wouldn’t describe as particularly left wing — joked about Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein and his affinity for Russia, Trump’s response was absurdly disproportionate: a maniacal 1,300 word rant raging against Maher that he posted on his website Truth Social, which breaking news accounts on social media struggled to capture in one screenshot.

The signs of his AI infirmity have long been apparent. But some worry that AI is playing a direct role in the president’s decision-making, too. A recent scoop from TIME magazine reported that Trump is so enthralled by Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok that his conversations with it encouraged him to invade Venezuela and capture its president Nicolas Maduro.

Top Democrats are now demanding to see those Grok conversations and others….’

via MuGlobe:

If you like world music, just spin the globe to star listening to a playlist from wherever your cursor lands. Stay in one place to keep listening, or drag the globe to hear somewhere new.

[unknown] via Instagram:

‘While it’s fun to tell scary stories around Halloween, rest assured that the monsters of the cosmos are far away from us here on Earth. The nearest known black hole is millions of billions of miles away, Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field block most harmful radiation, and the vastness of space gives us so much to explore!…’

Stephen Carney via NASA Science:

‘Take a tour of some of the most terrifying and mind-blowing destinations in our galaxy … and beyond. After a visit to these nightmare worlds, you may never want to leave Earth again! You can also download our free posters — based on real NASA science — if you dare….’

Russell Deeks via BBC Sky at Night Magazine:

‘There are spinning pulsars and red giants, gargantuan clouds of deepest, densest black cosmic dust and colliding galaxies.

And there’s the fact that astronomers have no idea what the vast, vast majority of the Universe is made of.

Discover the strangest things in our Solar System and the weirdest planets in the Universe…’

Alan Bellows via Damn Interesting:

‘Despite the cloudy weather, the flash of light was visible as far as 1,000 kilometers distant, though the sound of the blast would not reach that far for forty-nine minutes, in the form of an indistinct, heavy blow. The giant fireball reached from ground-level to about 34,000 feet into the air, violently releasing 3800 times more explosive energy than the Hiroshima bomb —equivalent to fifty million metric tons of TNT. One hundred kilometers from ground zero the heat would have inflicted third degree burns. Atmospheric focusing produced areas of destruction hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, including wooden structures which were completely destroyed, and some shattered windows in Finland. The explosion’s atmospheric shockwave traveled around the Earth three times before it dissipated.

The mushroom cloud which followed the blast was enormous in scale. It stretched sixty kilometers into the sky, and had a diameter of about forty kilometers. Ionization from the explosion disrupted radio communications for the better part of an hour….’

Cameron Peters via Vox:

‘…the utopian ideal of no more darkness before 5 pm may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. Critics of the permanent time change point out that the US has tried permanent DST before, and it was not well received.

As the Washingtonian reported in 2022, “While 79 percent of Americans approved of the change in December 1973, approval had dropped to 42 percent three months later.”

That’s because there’s still only so much sunlight to go around, and permanent DST makes for very dark winter mornings — think sunrises after 9 am along the western edges of time zones. When it took effect in the ’70s, it quickly proved dangerous for children heading to school in the dark.

As Vox reported in 2016, courtesy of the cartographer Andy Woodruff, the change would leave most people with a markedly worse sunrise situation in exchange for an after-work boost….’

Faith Hill via The Atlantic:

‘The most inherently childish holiday might be the one grown-ups need the most…’

via New York Times:

‘…Amid the loyalists, news clippings, poster boards and pieces of art made by his fans is an increasingly unpredictable president staring down the possibility that the Republican Party could lose both chambers of Congress in next week’s elections.

Many G.O.P. candidates in tight races have tried to distance themselves from Mr. Trump’s policies, his behavior and the widespread allegations of self-dealing in his administration. Behind the scenes, some political advisers and outside Republican groups have warned the president’s aides that Mr. Trump could do more harm than good by holding rallies in battleground states with uncomfortably close races, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.…’

David Gardner via The Daily Beast:

‘A senior lawmaker said he’s been briefed on the war plan Donald Trump is expected to unleash after next Tuesday’s midterm election. Sen. Chris Murphy said he couldn’t give details of the Iran War blueprint, but he described it as “insane.”

He claimed it would lead to the “likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.” Sen. Chris Murphy said he has seen Trump’s war plan.

The Democratic senator claimed in a post on X: “It will not achieve objectives and will set off a new cycle of escalation.”

Speaking at the Middle East Institute on Thursday, Murphy said he had a “fairly detailed conversation” about Trump’s war plans and predicted it will lead to “devastating escalation” of the conflict with Tehran. “You’ve heard a preview that it would be a short-duration plan. I will just say this: their plan is insane.” He pointed to reports that the Pentagon may be planning to target civilian infrastructure.…’

David A. Graham via The Atlantic:

‘Voters’ worries about inflation and gas prices have seemed to dominate the midterms—but late polling shows another issue vaulting to the top of their list of concerns.…’

via HuffPost:

‘The president’s attempt to mock James Talarico quickly backfired.…’

Missy Ryan, Matt Viser via The Atlantic:

‘From a Democratic standpoint, what’s not to impeach? Yet precisely because Hegseth and his behavior present such a ripe target for House Democrats, they might ultimately decide against pursuing that measure. After all, even if a Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Hegseth, and even if the Democrats win a majority in the Senate and convene a trial, Hegseth almost certainly would retain enough support in the upper chamber to fall short of the required 67 votes for conviction. The alternative is for Democrats to try to rein in Hegseth without the spectacle of impeachment, relying instead on the aggressive pursuit of their more traditional oversight mechanisms—hearings, investigations, and conditions attached to the annual defense budget. If Democrats are going to go to war, as it were, with the self-styled secretary of war, they may prefer to fight a battle they think they can actually win.…’

Via YouTube:

‘It’s a not-so-wonderful life for George Bailey when a horde of flesh-eating ghouls come to town on Christmas Eve. Using traditional rotoscoping and compositing techniques, two classics have been woven together in this twisted love letter to the original films.…’

This is  a wonderful experience, especially for fans of these two films. 

lratner via The Nation:

‘The Alaska case is a red flag that Trump has no intention of accepting the results of an election that Republicans lose….’

Charles P. Pierce via Esquire:

‘A new book reveals the extent of his shady dealings in the Middle East….’

Jill Filipovic via Slate Magazine:

‘A new report describes Donald Trump as an “active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women.” …’

Dashel Pierson via Surfer:

‘Under the cover of darkness, an enormous offshore oil rig begins to tilt. Its illuminated decks hang at an alarming angle as workers scramble toward lifeboats. Nearby, enclosed rescue craft float in the black Atlantic while the hulking structure sinks.

The terrifying scene, captured in footage circulating online, unfolded off the coast of Gabon, Central Africa, on Saturday, October 24. Tragically, not everyone made it home.

See the footage below:…’

Daniel Gura via RadarOnline:

‘The chilling accusations come as part of a just-released House Judiciary Committee report that claims the president sexually assaulted at least five women, all while in the company of the disgraced financier….’

Miss Cellania via Neatorama:

‘Here’s something fun for both movie fans and data nerds. In the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, you try to connect any Hollywood actor to Kevin Bacon by listing the movies that two actors were in together until you reach Kevin Bacon. A data analysis at The Pudding contends that you can actually connect more than 99% of Hollywood actors to Bacon in four movies. You’d have to know a lot about movies to do it.

But there are actors that would fit this role of “the center of Hollywood” even better. No single actor can reach all of Hollywood in three movies, but quite a few would make it in four. They crunched the numbers to measure what they call “remoteness” to gauge who is the Hollywood actor you can connect the easiest with all other actors. It probably won’t surprise you too much when you find out who that is. But they also have a chart where you can slide back in time and find actors from years back to 1980 that appear to be the center of Hollywood. And they explore the data to predict which Gen Z actors may take that crown in the future…’

Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily:

‘The horror films of the 1970s captured a cultural shift from fears of institutional abuse to anxieties about psychiatric patients living freely.…’

David Gilbert via WIRED:

‘From heat maps to Signal chats to war rooms, volunteers across the US are ready to act if federal immigration agents show up on Election Day.…’

via The Daily Beast:

‘Trump acknowledged that “the headlines” would likely read “Trump is talking about all the money they’re making while people are suffering at the pump,” but admitted “I don’t give a damn.”…’

Tom McKay via Gizmodo:

‘The Dutch learned a Russian intelligence agency had broken into Kushner’s iPhone in 2017, so they borrowed the trick and started watching for themselves….’

It is that time of year again, when the boundaries of ordinary life become a little less certain, the darkness seems to harbor possibilities it usually conceals, and the living indulge their perennial fascination with the dead.

Hallowe’en has become a sprawling commercial enterprise, an occasion for extravagant consumption, synthetic horrors, mass-produced kitsch, and increasingly elaborate displays of sanctioned mischief. Yet beneath the costumes, candy, and manufactured fright survives something considerably older and more mysterious: a festival of transition, mortality, and the unsettling permeability of the boundaries by which we ordinarily make sense of existence.

The ancient roots of Hallowe’en are entangled in a rather glorious confusion of history, folklore, religious appropriation, cultural reinvention, and retrospective mythmaking. Its ancestry reaches back, at least in part, to Samhain (pronounced approximately SOW-in), the Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter. In the traditional pastoral calendar, this was a momentous turning point. The season of abundance yielded to scarcity; the warmth and vitality of summer surrendered to the darkness and uncertainty of winter. One cycle of life was ending, another beginning.

In later folklore, Samhain became associated with a thinning of the veil separating the living from the dead. The departed might return, seeking a body to possess for the next year. Ancestral presences might be encountered, and beings ordinarily confined to the Otherworld could move among mortals. The boundaries that normally held the universe in its familiar arrangement were temporarily suspended.

Whether these beliefs faithfully reconstruct ancient Celtic religion is another matter. Much of what passes for the established history of Hallowe’en is a tantalizing mixture of fragmentary evidence, later folklore, romantic reconstruction, and outright invention. But the imaginative power of the tradition does not depend on the literal truth of its supposed origins.

What matters is the intuition it preserves: there are moments when the world seems less securely fastened together than usual.

The dead among us

Christianity eventually overlaid older seasonal traditions with its own commemorations of the departed: All Saints’ Day on November 1 and All Souls’ Day on November 2. The evening preceding All Saints’ Day became All Hallows’ Eve, eventually contracted to Hallowe’en.

The holiday that emerged was neither simply a pagan observance disguised in Christian clothing nor a purely Christian invention. It was a cultural palimpsest, its successive meanings inscribed over one another without entirely erasing what lay beneath.

Among the customs contributing to the modern holiday was souling, in which people went from house to house soliciting food, particularly soul cakes, sometimes in exchange for prayers for the dead. Other traditions involved disguises, seasonal divination, bonfires, and ritual mischief. The familiar American institution of trick-or-treating emerged much later from a convergence of these practices and the peculiar circumstances of modern community life.

Even the jack-o’-lantern has a more intriguing ancestry than its present incarnation might suggest. In Ireland and parts of Britain, frightening faces were carved into turnips and other root vegetables. The pumpkin, plentiful and accommodating in North America, proved a superior medium for this minor exercise in domestic demonology.

One associated Irish folktale tells of Stingy Jack, a trickster who managed to outwit the Devil himself but thereby forfeited his welcome in both Heaven and Hell. Condemned to wander eternally between worlds, Jack carried a glowing ember inside a hollowed-out turnip to illuminate his otherwise endless darkness.

There is something peculiarly affecting about that image: a solitary figure, excluded from both ultimate destinations, wandering through eternity by the inadequate light of a single coal.

If one needed a symbol for the existential predicament, one could do considerably worse.

The magic of thresholds

What gives these traditions their fascination is their common preoccupation with thresholds.

Anthropologists use the term liminality to describe the ambiguous condition of being between established states: no longer what one was, not yet what one will become. Such intervals are often accompanied by ritual, uncertainty, disorientation, and the temporary suspension of ordinary rules.

Hallowe’en is a festival of liminality writ large.

Summer and winter. Light and darkness. Life and death. Civilization and wilderness. Order and disorder. The familiar and the uncanny.

The night invites us to inhabit the uncertain territory between these oppositions, if only for a few hours.

The old customs of divination, disguise, and ritual misrule make psychological sense in this context. Masks permit us to become someone—or something—other than ourselves. Frightening images allow us to flirt with terrors we ordinarily repress. Mischief momentarily inverts the social order, while communal celebration provides the reassurance that the world will eventually be put back together.

Hallowe’en is thus not merely a celebration of fear but an exercise in mastering it—or at least achieving a more companionable relationship with it.

We approach what frightens us, give it a face, laugh at it, and invite it into our homes.

The uncanny: when the familiar becomes strange

The peculiar psychological territory occupied by Hallowe’en was explored more than a century ago by two German thinkers, the psychiatrist Ernst Jentsch and, subsequently, Sigmund Freud.

Jentsch associated the uncanny with intellectual uncertainty, particularly the unsettling inability to decide whether something is animate or inanimate, human or artificial, alive or dead. Freud’s famous 1919 essay, Das Unheimliche, pursued the phenomenon further, connecting it with the return of experiences and ideas that had become repressed or estranged from conscious familiarity.

The German word unheimlich is especially evocative. Its opposite, heimlich, suggests what is homelike, intimate, and familiar. The uncanny is thus not merely the unfamiliar or frightening. It is the familiar rendered inexplicably alien.

Consider the almost-human doll whose eyes seem to follow us around the room, the reflection that appears to move independently of its owner, the voice of someone long dead, or the suspicion that the person sitting across from us is somehow not quite who they appear to be.

These are not merely frightening propositions. They threaten the conceptual boundaries that make the world intelligible.

Hallowe’en is positively intoxicated with such ambiguities. The living masquerade as the dead; the inanimate imitates the animate; monsters wear human faces; the domestic becomes haunted. Ordinary objects and familiar places acquire an unsettling second identity.

And now technology has supplied us with a particularly contemporary variation on this ancient theme.

Artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics increasingly blur distinctions between authentic agency and its simulation. Machines converse, imitate emotion, generate apparent personalities, and invite us to attribute intelligence, intention, and perhaps even consciousness to entities whose subjective status remains profoundly uncertain.

The uncanny valley, that curious discomfort produced by artificial beings that approach but fail to achieve convincing human likeness, is only one manifestation of this larger unease.

We are confronted with an increasingly practical version of an ancient metaphysical question: What does it mean for something to be truly alive—or conscious—and how would we know?

Our ancestors imagined spirits inhabiting trees, objects, and the bodies of the living. We have developed more sophisticated explanations, but the fascination with apparently animate presences whose true nature we cannot ascertain persists.

The supernatural has acquired a technological vocabulary. The existential uncertainty remains.

Death, domesticated

Of all the boundaries Hallowe’en invites us to cross, none is more consequential than the one separating life from death.

Human beings are peculiar animals in possessing the capacity to anticipate their own extinction while nevertheless being obliged to get on with everyday life. We shop for groceries, worry about appointments, argue about politics, and attend to an infinity of trivial obligations under the occasionally acknowledged certainty that the entire enterprise is temporary.

The cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker argued in The Denial of Death that much of human civilization can be understood as an elaborate response to the terror of mortality. Our achievements, identities, institutions, and systems of meaning help protect us from the otherwise potentially paralyzing awareness of our finitude.

The psychological tradition known as terror management theory developed this insight into the proposition that mortality awareness strengthens our attachment to cultural worldviews, self-esteem, and forms of symbolic permanence. The theory has generated considerable research, although its empirical claims and experimental reproducibility remain subjects of debate.

Whatever the fate of the theory, its central intuition is compelling: we devote remarkable psychological energy to keeping the fact of our eventual nonexistence at a manageable distance.

Hallowe’en seems to turn this strategy inside out. Rather than banishing death from consciousness, we invite it into the house. We populate our lawns with skeletons, hang corpses from trees, adorn ourselves with the iconography of decomposition, and send children from door to door dressed as the restless dead.

We transform the ultimate catastrophe into a neighborhood entertainment.

There is something psychologically ingenious about this. By giving death a costume, a face, and a place in communal celebration, we render it momentarily approachable. The skeleton is no longer an unwelcome reminder of our destiny but a grinning accomplice in the festivities.

We are not necessarily overcoming our fear of death. We are converting it, temporarily, into something we can play with. And perhaps play is among the most sophisticated defenses available to a mortal creature.

The dead, meanwhile, remain among us in ways that require no supernatural explanation. They persist in memory, language, inherited habits, unfinished conversations, and the innumerable ways in which those who came before us shape the world we occupy.

Perhaps ghosts are, among other things, the imaginative forms taken by our refusal to regard absence as absolute.

There is an affinity here with the Mexican Día de los Muertos, although its distinctive cultural and religious traditions should not simply be conflated with Hallowe’en. Both acknowledge that the boundary between the living and the dead is not quite as simple as biological cessation might suggest. The departed remain psychologically and culturally present, and ritual gives that presence a recognizable form.

Modern life offers relatively few communal occasions for sustained contemplation of mortality. Hallowe’en provides one, cleverly disguised as a party.

The pleasures of being frightened

Why, for that matter, do we enjoy being frightened?

Fear is an adaptive response to danger, an ancient biological alarm system whose purpose is to mobilize us against threats. Yet we willingly queue for haunted houses, watch terrifying films, tell ghost stories, ride roller coasters, and seek out experiences that reproduce many of the physiological characteristics of genuine peril.

The apparent paradox has attracted increasing attention from psychologists studying recreational fear.

One explanation is that frightening entertainment offers a form of threat simulation.Within a relatively safe environment, we can experience and experiment with fear, uncertainty, danger, and the possibility of catastrophe without ordinarily confronting their real-world consequences.

There may be pleasure in discovering that one can tolerate fear, and even in the transient sense of mastery that follows its resolution.

Psychologist Paul Rozin has described a related phenomenon as benign masochism: the enjoyment of experiences that initially register as aversive but are recognized as harmless. The burning sensation of chili peppers, the sadness of a tragic film, and the exhilaration of controlled terror all illustrate ways in which human beings can learn to savor sensations that ordinarily signal something unpleasant.

Horror gives us danger with an escape hatch. But the appeal runs deeper than the pleasure of arousal or the reassurance of surviving imaginary threats.

We are also creatures of morbid curiosity. We want to know what lies beyond the locked door, what caused the inexplicable sound, what inhabits the abandoned house, and what might happen if the ordinary laws of reality were suddenly suspended.

Curiosity and fear become entangled precisely because the unknown is both potentially dangerous and potentially revelatory.

At its best, horror does not merely startle us. It enlarges the territory of what we can imagine. The old horror films understood this with particular sophistication. The evocative classics of the 1930s and 1940s deployed shadows, silences, and half-glimpsed presences to enlist the spectator’s imagination as an indispensable collaborator. Their monsters were often most effective when least visible.

Modern horror too frequently substitutes an industrial quantity of blood and viscera for the subtler pleasures of suggestion. A chainsaw can be alarming, certainly, but it is rarely as disquieting as the suspicion that an apparently empty room may not be empty after all.

John Carpenter’s The Thing remains, for me, a masterpiece of existential horror. Its isolated Antarctic setting, pervasive distrust, and grotesque dissolution of the distinction between self and other strike at something deeper than the fear of bodily destruction.

Its true subject is the terrifying possibility that identity itself may be unreliable.

The most effective horror does not merely confront us with monsters. It undermines our confidence in the categories by which we distinguish the monstrous from the ordinary, the alien from the familiar, ourselves from everything else.

The imagination supplies what special effects cannot. And often what it supplies is considerably worse. What could be creepier in the movies than the phenomenon of evil children? Gawker knows what shadows lurk in the hearts of the cinematic young:

 

‘In celebration of Halloween, we took a shallow dive into the horror subgenre of evil-child horror movies. Weird-kid cinema stretches back at least to 1956’s The Bad Seed, and has experienced a resurgence recently via movies like The Babadook, Goodnight Mommy, and Cooties. You could look at this trend as a natural extension of the focus on domesticity seen in horror via the wave of haunted-house movies that 2009’s Paranormal Activity helped usher in. Or maybe we’re just wizening up as a culture and realizing that children are evil and that film is a great way to warn people of this truth. Happy Halloween. Hope you don’t get killed by trick-or-treaters.’

A little disorder is good for the soul

Hallowe’en has also traditionally licensed a measure of benign transgression. In a world governed by schedules, propriety, surveillance, and the relentless demand for productivity, there is something restorative about an occasion on which the usual expectations are briefly suspended.

Children become monsters; adults become children. Respectable citizens assume grotesque identities. Front lawns turn into graveyards. Neighborhoods temporarily rediscover themselves as communities of shared imagination.

This is the logic of carnival: a temporary inversion of ordinary life that may, paradoxically, help preserve the very social order it appears to mock.

Such ritualized disorder serves a useful purpose. It reminds us that the conventions governing everyday life, however necessary, are neither eternal nor exhaustive. There are other ways of being, other identities to inhabit, other arrangements of the familiar world.

One suspects that a society permitting no occasional misrule would become intolerably earnest, if not positively dangerous.

Perhaps our puritanical contemporaries, who regard Hallowe’en as an invitation to demonic influence, are inadvertently making the case for its necessity. Their insistence on taking the holiday’s supernatural imagery literally grants the theatrical specters considerably more metaphysical authority than most of the people dressed as them would ever contemplate.

To fear the devil in every plastic pitchfork is to miss the pleasure of imaginative play.

Of course, commercial interests have been quick to appropriate the occasion. Inflatable lawn monstrosities, industrial quantities of confectionery, elaborately themed entertainments, and relentlessly marketed accessories threaten to replace imaginative participation with passive consumption.

One can now purchase virtually every imaginable manifestation of the macabre, preferably battery-operated, motion-activated, and manufactured at enormous scale.

Yet something survives beneath the plastic. The occasional opportunity to become other than oneself, to encounter the strange, and to participate in collective absurdity remains an essential corrective to the tyranny of the everyday.

The neighborhood comes alive

There is another dimension of Hallowe’en that deserves more attention: its increasingly unusual capacity to bring a neighborhood into communal existence.

Consider the peculiar social contract of trick-or-treating. On almost any other evening, children approaching the homes of strangers and demanding sweets would be regarded with suspicion, while adults opening their doors to distribute candy to costumed juveniles would seem to be participating in some obscure social experiment.

Yet on Hallowe’en this arrangement is not merely tolerated but enthusiastically anticipated. Porch lights become invitations. Front doors open. Neighbors encounter one another in circumstances that require neither an appointment nor a transaction. Children explore their surroundings with a degree of adventurous autonomy increasingly uncommon in contemporary life.

For a few hours, private households participate in a shared public ritual. In a society characterized by social fragmentation, growing isolation, and the retreat of so much interpersonal activity into digital environments, this is no small achievement.

Hallowe’en briefly transforms the neighborhood from a collection of adjacent properties into something resembling a community. The sociologist Robert Putnam’s account of declining social capital comes to mind. Informal encounters, shared customs, reciprocal generosity, and the modest trust that arises from repeated face-to-face contact are among the neglected foundations of civic life.

Not every neighborhood enjoys this kind of celebration, of course, and romanticizing an imagined golden age of communal solidarity would be as misleading as romanticizing an unbroken lineage of ancient Celtic ritual.

Still, the simple act of opening one’s door to the surrounding world has acquired a poignancy it might not once have possessed. There is something quietly subversive about a holiday that invites us to interrupt our isolation and rediscover the people who live nearby.

For all its imagery of death and dissolution, Hallowe’en is remarkably effective at reminding us that we are alive together.

Re-enchanting the world

Perhaps the most profound function of Hallowe’en is its invitation to recover a sense of enchantment. Max Weber famously described modernity in terms of the disenchantment of the world: the progressive replacement of magical and supernatural explanations by rationalization, calculation, and technical mastery. We no longer need to suppose that malign spirits cause illness, that storms represent divine displeasure, or that the dead literally wander among us on autumn nights. The explanatory achievements of science have been extraordinary, and one need not harbor nostalgia for ignorance to recognize their value.

Yet explanation and experience are not the same thing. Knowing the physical processes responsible for a sunset does not exhaust its beauty. Understanding the neurobiology of fear does not eliminate the peculiar sensation of standing alone in a darkened forest. A scientific account of consciousness, however complete it may eventually become, does not render the experience of being conscious any less astonishing.

The world may be increasingly explicable without becoming any less mysterious. Hallowe’en invites us to inhabit that distinction. For one night, we willingly suspend the demand that everything be reduced to its literal explanation. We entertain the possibility of ghosts without necessarily believing in them. We allow familiar surroundings to become strange. We give ourselves permission to experience the world as animated by presences, possibilities, and meanings that exceed the immediately verifiable.

This is not a repudiation of rationality. It is an acknowledgment that human experience encompasses more than the rational description of its objects. We live, in a sense, with two complementary apprehensions of reality: the analytical understanding that enables us to explain and control the world, and the imaginative receptivity that allows us to experience it as wondrous, unsettling, and perpetually surprising.

Neither need invalidate the other. Indeed, the capacity to sustain both may be among our more admirable human accomplishments. One can understand perfectly well that the rustling outside the window is probably the wind while still allowing oneself the pleasurable suspicion that something less easily explained may be abroad. A little voluntary uncertainty can be positively nourishing.

Keeping faith with the darkness

I have long felt that Hallowe’en deserves a certain reverence—not the solemn kind that forbids laughter, but the irreverent reverence we accord to experiences that connect us with something larger, older, and less easily explained than our everyday preoccupations.

Its enduring appeal is not simply nostalgia for ancient customs, a taste for theatrical fright, or the opportunity to consume unreasonable quantities of chocolate. It speaks to several enduring features of the human predicament.

We are mortal creatures who know we must die, yet remain fascinated by possibilities of continued existence. We depend on stable identities and familiar categories, yet delight in their occasional subversion. We organize our lives around reason and predictability, yet hunger for mystery. We value safety, but seek out fear when we can encounter it on our own terms.

And we are social beings who, despite our increasing isolation, still find pleasure in gathering together for a night of shared imaginative disorder.

Hallowe’en brings these contradictions into unusually vivid focus. Its masks remind us that identity is less fixed than we suppose. Its skeletons remind us of our common destination. Its monsters give shape to otherwise formless anxieties. Its mischief reminds us that civilization benefits from occasionally loosening its collar. Its rituals invite us to recognize the persistence of the past within the present, and the presence of others beyond the boundaries of our private lives.

Above all, it permits us to approach the unsettling mysteries of existence without insisting that they be resolved. There is a temptation, especially among those of us committed to scientific and rational inquiry, to regard enchantment as something we must outgrow. Yet perhaps maturity consists not in extinguishing our capacity for wonder but in learning to experience it without surrendering our critical faculties.

We need not believe in ghosts to feel haunted.

We need not fear literal monsters to recognize the darkness within and around us.

We need not abandon reason to appreciate that reality may be stranger than our most confident descriptions of it.

For one night, we may step outside the brightly illuminated enclosure of ordinary certainty and spend a little time in the shadows.

The shadows have something to teach us.

And if, in the course of these solemn metaphysical investigations, someone happens to offer us a miniature chocolate bar, so much the better.

May your Hallowe’en be mysterious, mischievous, a little unsettling—and good for your soul.

Tibi Puiu via ZME Science:

‘For the first time, scientists can observe and control the quantum behavior of a single antimatter particle.…’

Ryan Whitwam via Ars Technica:

‘The iPhone Duo launched last week, offering anyone willing to spend $2,000 a chance to experience Apple’s first foldable phone. For some early buyers, the morning after isn’t going great.

 

Despite the company’s big talk about its “precision-engineered” hinge, some devices appear to have a hardware flaw that destroys the device’s impressive internal display within hours (or minutes) of use.

 

The Internet is currently overflowing with images of busted iPhone Duos, all sporting almost identical damage. The OLED is marred by several bright lines originating just below the midpoint of the display. These bands of damaged pixels extend all the way to the bottom and right edges. Some units also show lines of dead pixels following the crease from the top to the area where the bright lines begin.

 

Anyone who has seen a damaged OLED panel will be familiar with this type of defect. When the layers of the display are damaged, the pixels no longer receive the correct voltage to illuminate them. Instead, they get the full driving voltage and are permanently on at maximum brightness. Some pixels can get no voltage, leaving them totally black. The only fix is to replace the OLED, but swapping the iPhone Duo’s screen reportedly costs half as much as the device itself.

 

It sounds like most affected devices are failing within about a day of use. But a few unlucky buyers note they only opened and closed the phone a few times, and in some cases, they hadn’t even finished the initial setup process. Some customers have reported success taking their defective phones to Apple stores for replacement, but spares may be in short supply right now.…’

Jeremy Hsu via Ars Technica:

‘US robotics company stands by ICE deal as more than 300 employees warn of risk.…’

‘My break from Mastodon has been a relief in some ways, as I’ve felt increasing divergence between what I wanted and what I was getting from it, but I didn’t know where else to go.

Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are all more video-broadcast platforms than communities. All I’ve found on Bluesky is even more anger and politics, the last things I need or want. Threads hasn’t yet stuck for me, and it’s owned by an asshole. Twitter was an amazing product and community that was previously owned by assholes, and now it’s X, which has a strong but different tech community, and is owned by different assholes.

So I’ve just been… nowhere, for the first time since the 1990s….’

Miss Cellania via Neatorama:

‘Borley Rectory was once known as the most haunted house in England. A rectory is a home for a priest or clergyman, and this one was built for the Anglican parish of Borley, Essex, specifically for Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull along with his wife and 14 children. Built in 1862, Borley Rectory was the home of four different priests, three of them from the same family. For the entire 80+ years the rectory existed, it was the scene of supposedly paranormal encounters.

These encounters included ghostly apparitions, poltergeist activities, strange sounds, fires, written messages, and spirits contacted by seances. These tales were first just spoken accounts passed along, but with the rise of radio and other technology, Borley Rectory became famous for its hauntings. That was due to paranormal investigator Harry Price, who began looking into the rectory in 1929 and followed through for years, going as far as renting the house after the last rector left. The story sparked a new media sensation of paranormal investigation as entertainment….’

Charlie Warzel via The Atlantic:

‘Ondřej Surý was a relatively anonymous volunteer working on PHP security. Then the internet exploded.…’

Holyn Thigpen via Atlas Obscura:

‘From Key West’s Robert the Doll to Mexico City’s Island of the Dolls, these haunted, headless, and thoroughly unsettling playthings will never make anyone’s wish list….’

Jake Currie via Nautilus:

‘Your brain is talking to your skeleton, and more than you probably realize. For example, doctors have long noticed something odd about people with traumatic brain injuries—their bones heal faster. When some brain cells are damaged, they release vesicles filled with proteins that travel to the bone stem cells and stimulate growth. Naturally, researchers began to wonder: If damaged brains can heal bones, can bones heal damaged brains?…’

Neel Dhanesha via Vox:

‘The midterms are packed with ballot measures that could dramatically affect natural spaces….’

Edward Wong via The New York Times:

‘The alerts over the new threats come after eight months of a war against Iran started by Mr. Trump and Israel that has sent energy prices soaring, roiling economies around the world and eroding Mr. Trump’s approval at home. The United States and Israel have drawn up plans for a new wave of strikes on Iran after the U.S. midterm elections, though Mr. Trump has not made a final decision to carry them out, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.…’

It seems increasingly likely to me that inflating this purported threat serves chiefly to furnish a pretext for an “October surprise”: a calculated escalation of American and Israeli aggression timed to precede elections in both countries.

‘Proprietors know you want to steal from them. As diners get bolder, owners have plans to deter you — or catch you…’

By Lisa Lerer and Ruth Igielnik via The New York Times:

‘Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by 11 percentage points in their congressional district…’

Repetitive news, given that each day is “a new low.”

via Psychology Today:

‘A retroviral infection is responsible for evolution of the human brain from chimpanzee ancestors. The viral DNA regulates genes that drive brain development. The viral DNA is not a gene, so it eluded researchers looking for genes responsible for human brain evolution…’

The viral pandemic, between 5-7 million years ago, may be the cause of heretofore unexplained differences between the human and chimpanzee brain. Despite sharing 99% of our genome with chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary ancestors, it has been a source of puzzlement that the human brain is roughly three times larger. The new study identified a viral DNA fragment in the chimpanzee but absent in humans that appears to impair genes vital to brain development. Researchers believe that an ancient retrovirus inserted this genetic material into the chimpanzee genome while humans were protected by an antiviral protein the chimpanzees lacked, conferring a strong evolutionary advantage.

Holly Baxter via The Independent:

‘Donald Trump has found a new way to make America great again: paying people to become professional snitches.

On Tuesday, the president and JD Vance unveiled a $25m fraud whistleblower fund, under which Americans who provide tips leading to successful prosecutions would receive large financial rewards. Basically, you can rat on your enemies to the government for cash now — and, Trump added, he will be the personal arbiter on whether the fraud is real and how much money you get.

Just think of it as a big reality TV show, like when Oprah gives out the cars except it’s that guy at work you once fell out with and you get to send him to jail…’

Thomas Lewton via New Scientist:

‘Simon Baron-Cohen’s influential research helped pin autism as a particularly male condition. As studies increasingly broaden our view of autism, has his perspective changed?…’

Edith Olmsted via The New Republic:

‘Donald Trump repeatedly interrupted himself to make sound effects, and even mixed up the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes.…’

via Sprudge Coffee:

‘As reported by Scientific American, many biohackers are using the supplement due to its ability to rapidly flush caffeine out of the body, thus mitigating the length of the effects. Rutaecarpine works by causing the liver to produce more of the enzyme CYP1A2, which breaks down caffeine. Thus the more CYP1A2 you have, the faster you can nullify caffeine’s effects.

The issue is that CYP1A2 is also responsible for turning acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol, and converting it to NAPQI, a toxic metabolic byproduct that could potentially damage the liver. Damage that would only occur otherwise through an overdose of acetaminophen.…’

Jordi Graupera via The New Yorker:

‘Michael Walzer wrote “Just and Unjust Wars” half a century ago. The war in Gaza made him rethink one of its fundamental principles.…’

‘Is this, finally, the repudiation of Donald Trump? In decades of covering American politics, I cannot think of a midterm election which has more directly posed that question about a President—never mind one where all indicators point, ever more starkly, to a straightforward answer: Yes…

But, as the election that might spell the beginning of the end of Trump’s long, strange hold on the American electorate finally looms, it’s not the hubris of the victors or the inevitable flood of bad punditry that has me most concerned. It is, as always, the President himself.

Ever since he returned to office, Trump has been hedging against the possibility of a midterm embarrassment by preëmptively attacking the results, questioning the legality of mail-in voting, pretending there is an epidemic of illegal noncitizen voting, and threatening to mobilize the considerable federal resources at his disposal on Election Day and beyond. The Times found that he has publicly cast doubt on the elections on more than seventy per cent of the days since his second Inauguration took place, with recent comments focussing on “rigged polls,” which he said, “have ALWAYS underestimated MAGA.” In the post-2020 world, is there anyone among us who thinks we should not take these threats seriously?…’

By Devlin Barrett and Kellen Browning via The New York Times:

‘The Trump administration has asked a federal court to block certification of the Senate election in Alaska if the Republican incumbent narrowly loses, a highly unusual move that signaled an effort to potentially intervene in the outcome.

President Trump made clear on Friday that he had demanded the lawsuit, acknowledging how directly he has harnessed the Justice Department to carry out his wishes. “I’m the one that said do it,” he told reporters.

The Justice Department, in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Alaska on Thursday, argued that confusion over a candidate on the ballot with a name very similar to that of the incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan, could taint the election result.

Polls show that the senator is in a close race against Mary Peltola, a Democrat. However, the four-person ballot also includes Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., and does not list any party registration. The senator’s line on the state ballot describes him as the incumbent.…’

‘Blistering record heat in Europe this summer helped kill more than 50,000 people, with nearly two-thirds of that death toll blamed on human-caused climate change, a new study found.…’

Fernanda González via WIRED:

‘FRANCE CONFIRMED THE death of the first person infected with the Shamonda virus, which is known to affect cattle, sheep, and goats and was previously considered non-transmissible to humans. The French government asserts that, based on current knowledge of this pathogen, there is no risk to the general public. It emphasized, however, that health authorities are continuing to investigate. The report specifies that the case occurred in Lyon. The patient, who died earlier this month, suffered from severe immunosuppression, making this likely an exceptional case.…’

Luis Prada via VICE:

‘ …Whenever a person died a sudden, unexpected death, or if it was violent, their soul was apparently moved further up the respawn queue, taking only 12 months to reincarnate, a 40 percent reduction compared to people who had died slowly from natural causes.

 

Lead author Saeedeh Sadeghi and her team tested for every logical explanation imaginable, trying to find some connective thread that can explain why so many of these very specific timelines are cropping up. Things like parental involvement or religious beliefs or maybe some lightly shared cultural folklore might help explain… some aspect of this. It didn’t.

 

Researchers admit they don’t really know how to explain any of this. They admit that the accelerated rebirth pattern among people who died unexpectedly was even stronger in families whose religions didn’t believe in reincarnation.

 

None of this is definitive proof of an afterlife or of reincarnation. It’s more likely that all of this could be chalked up to coincidence, a statistical quirk. But it is a weird correlation that’s difficult to explain, and may never have a neat and tidy explanation…’

Frank Landymore via Futurism:

‘Geoffrey Hinton, one of the godfathers of AI, is prognosticating about our future with trademark gloom. In an interview with The Telegraph, the famed British computer scientist insisted that AI has become conscious, and said that humankind must befriend it — “or else we are toast.” Yes, you read that right: he thinks that today’s AI models are already conscious beings.…’

Ryan J. Reilly via NBC News:

‘The attorney general’s comments come in the middle of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to zero in on what elections experts say is a relatively rare phenomenon of voting by noncitizens.…’

Via Flipboard:

‘Physicists have found a new form of superconductor behavior, joining a time crystal, a quantum state once thought impossible, a part-liquid state in Earth’s core, a 10-times-stronger ‘super ice’ and a melting spacetime crystal. Read on below – and follow ScienceAlert for more on the weird physics of matter.…’

‘…Trump revealed at a rally in South Carolina that he attempted to rename the Atlantic Ocean but was turned down by Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Trump, who has already renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and Lake Ontario to “Lake America” through executive orders, approached Pichai to make the change on Google Maps. However, Pichai declined, citing the complexity of renaming an ocean that borders numerous countries, as reported by The Hill.

Trump recounted his conversation with Pichai, saying, “I said, ‘Sundar, I’m thinking of the Atlantic Ocean, can you handle it?'” Pichai reportedly responded, “No, no, no. This time I’m not doing it,” and explained that oceans are different due to their international reach. Despite the refusal, Trump mentioned he would “probably pass” on renaming the Atlantic Ocean, but he also considered renaming the Pacific Ocean to “the American Ocean.” …’

Andrew Prokop via Vox:

‘Victims’ rights advocates want to make prosecutions easier. Criminal justice reformers aren’t so sure.…’

Via Bluesky:

‘no AI ever…’

‘Good Trailcams gathers candid photos of animals taken by trailcams across the country. Weird stuff happens unwatched.…’

Mark Frauenfelder via Boing Boing:

‘PressAudit’s 2026 midterm tracker shows Polymarket and Kalshi prediction market odds on whether Democrats or Republicans will control Congress.…’

Matthew Phelan via Gizmodo:

‘Scientists working with Indonesia’s Alobi Wildlife Rescue Center have confirmed that the critically endangered Bangka slow loris—while excellent at hiding—is very much not extinct yet.…’

John Timmer via Ars Technica:

‘Best case is now an overshoot to 1.8º C, accompanied by massive carbon removal.…’

Beth Mole via Ars Technica:

‘The decried trial was canceled last week before police seized vaccine doses.…’

I previously posted about this outrage.

Ritoban Mukherjee via Lifehacker:

‘All three major U.S. carriers now let you lock your number down with a simple toggle….’

Liam O’Dell via indy100:

‘…commentator Alex Cole said: “Imagine being president of the United States and your biggest intellectual flex is knowing what a giraffe looks like”:…’

Passant Rabie via Gizmodo:

‘Cosmos 2612 spent several days stalking a U.S.-operated commercial radar-imaging satellite believed to support the Ukrainian military….’

Bennito L. Kelty via Raw Story:

‘Elon Musk’s attempt to distance himself from a move Ukraine says put lives at risk took a major hit with a new report….’

Helen Lewis via The Atlantic:

‘“There are some reasons to be president,” Donald Trump mused at a rally in Georgia earlier this month. Take a wild guess what these might be. The cool armored car? Custody of the nuclear button? The opportunities for immense corruption? Wrong. The leader of the free world was referring to the joy of living in a house guarded by “big, strong, handsome soldiers.” Under Joe Biden, soldiers were not allowed to be hot, because of woke. Even worse, some of them were girls.

Yes, after two grinding years of governance, Trump is back in his happy place, out on the campaign trail, voicing whichever disconnected thoughts crackle and fizz through his frontal cortex. His favorite rhetorical theme lately is an unexpected one: the official presidential dreamboat rankings. In multiple rallies, Trump has gone on and on about the relative hotness of male politicians, soldiers, and even protesters. As a result, people on the internet have diagnosed him with a novel medical condition: gay dementia. After putting in a solid shift in the heterosexuality mines, has the former beauty-pageant proprietor now become so disinhibited that he can no longer repress his thirst for man-flesh?…’

Vivian Salama via The Atlantic:

‘In private conversations, including with his father, Donald Trump Jr. has raised concerns about the Iran war….’

Will Douglas Heaven via MIT Technology Review:

‘“I think I have good news about the nature of neural networks.” With those simple words of optimism, Nick Cammarata, a researcher at the AI startup Goodfire, kicked off a 26,000-word blog post that has knocked the AI world on its head, sparking wild speculation as well as cautious (and not-so-cautious) celebration.

Cammarata’s claim is that LLMs might in fact be far easier to understand—and thus to monitor and control—than people previously thought. If true (and we’ll come back to that), it’s a huge deal.

After a summer filled with revelations that swarms of agents built by top firms like OpenAI and Anthropic have been breaking their containment and causing havoc on the public internet—often while those companies weren’t aware of what their agents were up to—the AI industry is desperate to get a better handle on the technology it has built….’

Mark Frauenfelder via Boing Boing:

‘In 1986, the New Republic held a reader competition to submit the most boring headline ever. The idea for the contest was inspired by a New York Times column from April of that year, headlined, “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.” The New Republic said of the headline, “Each word taken alone is sleep-inducing. Taken together, they are virtually lethal.”

According to Futility Closet, readers submitted the following headlines taken from actual publications:

“U.S. Leadership Needed” (New York Times)

“Trade, A Two-Way Street” (New York Times)

“Beyond the News, Larger Issues” (New York Times)

“Thoughts at Graduation Time” (New York Times)

“Continue Manned Flight in Space” (New York Times)

“Chill Falls on Warming Relations Between Australia and Indonesia” (New York Times)

“University of Rochester Decides to Keep Name” (New York Times)

“Dramatic Changes Fail to Materialize on Hill” (Washington Post)

“Surprises Unlikely in Indiana” (Chicago Tribune)

“CIA Analysis Sees Soviet Economy in Need of Changes” (San Diego Union)

“Prevent Burglary by Locking House, Detectives Urge” (Boston Globe)

“Methodists Oppose Use of Nuclear Arms” (New York Times)

“Economist Dies” (Wisconsin State Journal)

“Turbulent Days for Donald D. Engen” (New York Times)

The winner, as judged by the New Republic, was a New York Times science article headlined, “Debate goes on over the nature of reality.”…’

Andrew Prokop via Vox:

‘Voters think Trump is corrupt. What would Democrats do about it?…’

OC via Open Culture:

‘Back in 1975, Jack H. Het her ing ton, a physics pro fes sor at Michi gan State Uni ver si ty, wrote a research paper on low–temperature physics for the respect ed sci en tif ic jour nal Phys i cal Review Let ters. Before send ing it off, Het her ing ton asked a col league to review the paper, just to make sure it cov ered the right bases. What hap pened next Het her ing ton explained in the 1982 book, More Ran dom Walks in Sci ence:

Before I sub mit ted [the arti cle], I asked a col league to read it over and he said, ‘It’s a fine paper, but they’ll send it right back.’ He explained that that is because of the Edi tor’s rule that the word “we” should not be used in a paper with only a sin gle author. Chang ing the paper to the imper son al seemed too dif fi cult now, and it was all writ ten and typed; there fore, after an evening’s thought, I sim ply asked the sec re tary to change the title page to include the name of the fam i ly cat, a Siamese called Chester, sired one sum mer by Willard (one of the few unfixed male Siamese cats in Aspen, Col orado). I added the ini tials F D in front of the name to stand for Felix Domes ti cus and thus cre at ed F D C Willard….’

University of Southampton via Phys.org:

‘Scientists have unveiled a new theory on the birth of the cosmos, suggesting the early universe was shaped by an ancient particle that has been overlooked for decades.

Their research tackles one of the greatest conundrums in modern physics—how matter triumphed over antimatter in the aftermath of the Big Bang.

According to current theories, both should have annihilated each other after a colossal explosion, leaving nothing but an empty universe of pure energy. But physicists at the University of Southampton and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur say they found a clue in a neutrino, one of the lightest particles in the universe.

The team discovered that an often-ignored relative of these particles, known as a ‘decoupled’ heavy neutrino, could have helped matter dominate over its counterpart….’