

RECORD RETURNS
The West Vancouver Streamkeeper Society was established in 2001. Their objective is to restore and sustain local aquatic wildlife...
Mar 3, 20251 min read


"PHYLOGENETICALLY DISTINCT"
Somehow I missed obelisks . Well, I suppose everyone missed it — or them . Discovered in human gut and oral bacteria, researchers...
Mar 2, 20252 min read


SILLY WHALES
We’ve never really known a lot about blue whales ( Balaenoptera musculus ); yes, despite our long history near and on the sea, blue...
Feb 23, 20252 min read


IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME
Ziggy : I don't know. Is it just me? Tolga : What? Ziggy : Seems all the same people we all watched dedicating the last decade of their lives to the total rectification of language and society and being, or at least defended all that at great expense, are now suddenly on the other side. Tolga : Like running around renaming everything? Ziggy : In part. Sure. From mountains and parks, schools and universities — Tolga : To amateur and professional sports teams — Ziggy : W
Feb 22, 20251 min read


DODGEY
CONTEXT WHAT IS DOGE? Executive Order - ESTABLISHING AND IMPLEMENTING THE PRESIDENT’S "DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY" "DOGE Teams. In consultation with USDS, each Agency Head shall establish within their respective Agencies a DOGE Team of at least four employees, which may include Special Government Employees" "Each DOGE Team will typically include one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney. Agency Heads shall ensure that DOGE T
Feb 15, 20257 min read


"WE'RE AT WAR!"
After landing in Washington to start his second term, Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency under a temporary contract government organization titled "United States DOGE Service" (a renaming of the United States Digital Service created during the Obama administration.) Inaugurated through executive order , the stated purpose of this service is to eliminate excessive regulations, reduce wasteful and fraudulent federal spending, and modernize federal technolog
Feb 14, 202513 min read


REVENGE OF THE NEO-REPUBLICRATS
Much is being said about this US election and the folks coming to power. The only thing worth noting that I can spot, and something mostly ignored from what I can tell, is that many key Republicans and even lower level appointees are actually lifelong Democrats. Even their key supporters and consultants are not Conservatives but, by almost any metric, actually Liberals. Though I've seen and heard of some party flipping over the years, here and there, I don't think there has e
Feb 9, 20252 min read


PERFECTLY UNCLEAR
Nuclear power stations are like stars that shine all day long. We shall sow them all over the land. They are perfectly safe ! — Mikail Styrikovich in Ogonyok , 1980 The plants have safe and reliable controls that are protected from any breakdown with three safety lines. The odds of meltdown are one in 10,000 years. — Ukrainian energy minister in Soviet Life , 1986 I spent my mornings this week reading The Power of Nuclear: The rise, fall and return of our mightiest energy so
Feb 7, 202518 min read


WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
A 2021 study out of Denmark estimated the proportion of cases of schizophrenia associated with cannabis use in that country doubled in recent decades. Though cannabis remains illegal there, concern about this reality and threats of an explosion of psychotic disorders has persisted around any discussion of legalization. Relatedly, a team of researchers just completed a similar study to investigate the incidence of cannabis associated schizophrenia in Canada. Their study looke
Feb 4, 20252 min read


SWIFT
Kyagulani Mutumbo : Swift can't sing. Matudana Kyninyi : Totally. No one in the music industry can sing. Kyagulani Mutumbo : Yeah....
Feb 1, 20251 min read


ANOTHER MISNOMER
Previously, I’ve tried to understand the circumstances surrounding our local homeless and overdose catastrophes. And I’ve relayed my...
Jan 24, 20257 min read


DANG: MORE FAILURES TO REPLICATE or CONFIRMATION OF OUR LOVE OF FICTION
One famous finding from social psychology is that intergroup contact is the most highly effective tool for reducing prejudice. The more...
Jan 20, 20253 min read


NO BRAINER: HOW APHANTASIA IS LIKE ATHEISM
Maybe twenty years ago I was writing about the strangeness of finding myself labelled an ‘atheist’. To begin with, I argued that labelling others was a weird practice, and that gifting someone membership in a group that they themselves haven’t or wouldn’t was a mode of conduct we probably wanted to avoid. (No, I couldn't have imagined the era we were about to enter. And you can imagine my consternation.) But, if you still insisted, then it seemed to me like framing things in
Jan 12, 202510 min read


NEW IN PERU
A team of researchers from Conservation International conducted a survey in the heart of Peru during the summer of 2022. Their rapid assessment bulletin was just now published. In their report, Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program team (a kind of biologist Special Forces unit, like the Green Berets but instead of suppressed rifles and thermal goggles they come carrying microscopes and PhDs in butterfly reproduction) revealed a remarkable diversity in Peru’s A
Dec 23, 20245 min read


HOW THINGS WERE
So many such odd things these days. So many such things and so very odd that it’s hard to differentiate what is normal and what is perfectly mad. While packing food home from the market yesterday I passed a small house with a crow on its front door. Dead, clearly, crucified-like, the bird had nails, clearly seen at a distance, through its upper arms. The crow looked fresh, with all its feathers clean, intact, and in place. It was as though it was put there with care — rather
Dec 23, 20242 min read


NOTHING TO SEE
I was perfectly happy to disregard the “drone” reports as media-induced mass panic. And then government officials began assuring the...
Dec 19, 20243 min read


THE OTHER REPLICATION CRISIS
A paper was just quietly published showing several independent large language models, all the latest versions of the big ones from all...
Dec 12, 20241 min read


GREASE FIRES AND PEEPHOLES
CANDISS: But you could be setting fire to things while adding fuel. BARTHALAHMEU: What do you mean? C: Well, you have no information....
Dec 9, 20242 min read

























































































