Gli squali sono davvero affascinanti. Non sapevo che la specie della Groenlandia potesse vivere fino a 400 anni e che avesse la capacità di "riparare" i danni agli occhi provocati dai parassiti che infestano i loro bulbi oculari.

#nature #shark #DeepSea

https://phys.org/news/2026-01-eye-greenland-sharks-vision-centuries.html

Happy birthday, Don Knuth! Great to see you rocking on at the age of 88! #donknuth #dek #computerScience

"My Japanese friends tell me that my birthday this year will be the best. My Brazilian friends tell me that I should celebrate that occasion with tapioca pancakes. (AI can explain this.)"

"(If you're depressed by current world news, you might find some solace by immersing yourself in a bit of research into eternally beautiful patterns.)"

→ quotes of his website
https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html

broadband will never replace that thrill of dialing into a server via a 9600bps modem

PROFESSOR IN PLANT MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Université de Sherbrooke

The Université de Sherbrooke invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in Plant Molecular Biology in the Department of Biology.

See the full job description on jobRxiv: https://jobrxiv.org/job/universite-de-sherbrooke-27778-professor-in-plant-molecular-biology/

#biology #molecularbiology #ScienceJobs #hiring ...
https://jobrxiv.org/job/universite-de-sherbrooke-27778-professor-in-plant-molecular-biology/?fsp_sid=7907

"A data-driven decomposition further showed that, whereas prior-driven behaviour in younger adults emerges from a flexible interplay between sensory and executive oscillatory systems, it becomes dominated in aging by a rigid, response-centred mode. Together, these findings uncover a large-scale reconfiguration of predictive computations with age, marking a transition from adaptive sensory-executive coordination to a more automatized, action-oriented predictive strategy"

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.09.698574v1?med=mas

ah, fresh scrutiny... the best kind of scrutiny :-P

Great new local arts event calendar from the editors of McSweeney's

https://www.sanfranciscoisdead.com/

@mitch that's the world they wish for :) too bad for them americans cannot be controlled by intimidation or violence, hopefully they will learn this lesson sooner rather than later

The abominations by #ICE continue to increase. #CHN_Action has simple letter to Congress asking them not provide more funding to ICE and DHS until they take responsibility for their abusive behavior - and change their approach. It's easy to send to your Congresspeople; it's easy to customize. You can send it from https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-congress-stop-funding-dhs-and-ices-inhumane-and-lethal-tactics-amidst-ongoing-investigations/?source=group-coalition-on-human-needs

There’s a shark called the cookiecutter shark because it leaves bite marks the shape of “neat, circular holes resembling the cut of a cookie cutter”. https://gizmodo.com/scientists-finally-figured-out-the-shark-that-bites-perfect-circles-2000704853

it has come to my attention that our country is losing its grip on food processing with all of these modern electric kitchen tools. it's time to make america grate again :-P

The Age of Fishes began with mass death, fossil database reveals https://phys.org/news/2026-01-age-fishes-began-mass-death.html

#MassExtinction triggered the early radiations of jawed vertebrates and their jawless relatives https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeb2297

"from this biological havoc, known as the Late #Ordovician Mass #Extinction, came an unprecedented richness of vertebrate life. One group came to dominate all others, putting life on the path to what is known today as jawed #vertebrates... they only became dominant because this happened"

A willow ptarmigan, Alaska’s state bird, in mixed spring plumage near Polychrome Pass in Denali National Park. By early May, they’re in the middle of their transition from winter white to summer brown, which gives them this patchwork look.

More Alaska wildlife here:
https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Galleries/Alaska-Photos/Wildlife

#alaska #wildlife #birding

January 9, 1912, meteorologist and geophysicist Alfred Wegener presents his “theory of horizontal displacement of the continents” in Marburg 🌍

https://history-of-geology-newsletter.beehiiv.com/p/january-6-1912-alfred-wegener-goes-public

Estonia’s Verge Motorcycles and Donut Lab are bypassing the roadmap of EV titans to ship solid state batteries in Q1 2026. The Verge TS Pro achieves 400 Wh/kg and a 600km range using ceramic electrolytes. This could be the start of a shift from lab to consumer validation for solid-state batteries.

Will Solid-State Batteries Tra...

Today in 1799, 227 years ago: in England, Prime Minister William Pitt imposes the first income tax to raise funds for the war against Napoleon.

#OnThisDay

"Using in situ labelling, we found that viral mRNAs and newly synthesized proteins were localized in the periphery of the viral factory, suggesting that APMV creates a discrete subcellular environment to facilitate translation."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02234-x

If you don't want ICE to know you were at a protest, taking a burner phone is not going to help you stay anonymous if you go home afterwards. https://www.404media.co/inside-ices-tool-to-monitor-phones-in-entire-neighborhoods/

The black cape.
Aubrey Beardsley, from "Salomé" by Oscar Wilde, London, New York: 1907 #illustration #art https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/black-cape/

you have to admit, they are demonstrating how badly government money gets spent :-P