Martin Ruskov @mapto@social.cleverlibre.org

When sperm whales need a nap, they take a deep breath, dive down about 45 feet and arrange themselves into perfectly-level, vertical patterns. They sleep sound and still for up to two hours at a time between breaths, in pods of 5 or 6 whales, presumably for protection. No one knew whales slept vertically until a 2008 study documented the behavior. And no one captured really good photography of it in the wild until 2017 with Patrick Dykstra documenting sperm whales.
Credit - Mr. Patric Dykstra

Pandemic-era cycling fever appears to be lingering, with the number of average daily bike trips per 1,000 people increasing in almost every major U.S. metro area between 2019-2022. https://t.co/LqH8IEEGQb

We are capable of detecting even very small nuclear tests. We don't need any new tricks to do that.

Nuclear #militarism masquerading as "security"

"How an underground explosion in Nevada will help the US detect nuclear tests"

#nuclear #NuclearWeapons

https://www.popsci.com/technology/nevada-underground-test-explosion/

Swimmers and sunbathers at Old Frontier Village watch a distant mushroom cloud from the Nevada Test Site (1957). This would be about 100 miles away.

#NTS #Nevada #nuclear #NuclearWeapons #ColdWar @histodons

Physicist Lise Meitner died on this day in 1968 just before her 90th birthday, having discovered fission, having been excluded from the Nobel Prize for her own discovery, and having paved the way for women in science anyway. This is her remarkable story: https://t.co/WJ9kLAYhbV

Bellingcat isn't just a news site, we have a collection of tools and resources on our page to help individuals in the open-source research field. You can find the full archive here: https://www.bellingcat.com/category/resources/

We've written up a short guide on how to navigate social media at a time rife with misinformation. Read our tips here: https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2023/10/26/separating-fact-from-fiction-on-social-media-in-times-of-conflict/?utm_source=mastodon

@pluralistic How to check a friends house for a listening device. Always do this!

The Committee to Protect Journalists "has documented the deadliest period for journalists covering conflict since CPJ began tracking in 1992."

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza

https://cpj.org/2023/10/cpj-statement-on-news-blackout-in-gaza/

Elon Musk knew he made a bad bet on Twitter. He was right. https://t.co/Oy1F2pE3HL

Designing algorithms to return definitive results and then getting duped by conspiracy theorists is embarrassing; doing the same and getting pwned by the hapless stupidity of large language models is malpractice.

IMO this is not simply a matter of Google's algorithms being no good. What's going on here is that Google is playing a losing game by trying to extract true information from the web algorithmically. Why would Google choose to play a game it could only lose?

Garbage aka providing relevant Ads 😂 comic credit https://supercombodeluxe.com/gmen/ #privacy #security uBlock Origin, FTW.

We thought Google hit rock bottom with #privacy.

Its new beta feature on Google Files for #Android called “Smart Search" is the trap door.

This creepy new feature on by default & scans every file on your phone. Why is this bad? Because it could potentially ruin your life. (1/3)

"Backed with US weapons and munitions, Israel has dropped over ten thousand bombs in Gaza in just a week, twice as many as the US dropped in Afghanistan in a year and, according to UN sources, the equivalent to a quarter of a nuclear bomb."

A quarter of a nuclear bomb worth of explosives in one week. Let that sink in.

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/israel-gaza-bombing-air-strikes-civilians

Now would be a good time for all European politicians and journalists to setup accounts on Mastodon.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-considers-removing-x-platform-europe-over-eu-law-insider-2023-10-18/

Just so proud of Mastodon today.

These times are very challenging. Rather than descend into an abyss of fake news and stident acrimony, somehow Mastodon seems to be largely maintaining a civil tone and self regulating misinformation.

It is pretty amazing to see an open social media community functioning this well given the meltdown across other platforms.

Let's continue to demand accuracy and civility while we debate these seminal issues. Let Mastodon be the beacon in these dark times.

I spend several hours a week writing letters of recommendation for students and faculty. It's important.

But...today I learned that for the past 6 years, the NSF has been throwing away up to 40% of my graduate fellowship recommendations, unread.

It's an infuriating disregard of faculty time.

https://www.research.gov/research-web/content/rlsprocess