Watch it.

Nick Norwitz (MD Harvard, PhD Oxford) explains it all to you.

The Register (UK).

testing, the FAA has confirmed a small plane made a safe emergency landing completely guided by automation at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Colorado.

Garmin’s Emergency Autoland system is built to automatically take “complete control of the flight to land the airplane in an emergency where the pilot is unable to fly.” It can also be activated at the press of a button.

After initial reports speculated that the pilot or pilots may have been incapacitated after the plane, a Beechcraft Super King Air, had pressurization problems, the plane operator assured the public that triggering autoland was a deliberate act by the pilots. No passengers were on board on the flight, which according to the tail number given to the ATC, landed at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport on Saturday afternoon, after flying in from Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, also known as Sardy Field, a small mountain airport measuring just 573 acres.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed in a statement that the “Beechcraft Super King Air landed safely at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Colorado around 14:20 local time on Saturday, December 20, after the pilot lost communication with air traffic control.” The FAA added: “An onboard emergency autoland system was activated. Two people were on board. The FAA is investigating.”

While the aircraft did experience “a rapid, uncommanded loss of pressurization,” the pilots put on their oxygen masks, the CEO of the charter company, Chris Townsley, said in a statement to CNN. Townsley reiterated that the pilots had “made the decision to leave the system engaged,” and “automatically engaged exactly as designed when the cabin altitude exceeded the prescribed safe levels.”

Read it.

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have developed a new reactor that converts natural gas (a common energy source primarily composed of methane) into two highly valuable resources: clean hydrogen fuel and carbon nanotubes, which are ultralight and much stronger than steel.

Hydrogen is a promising green fuel because it burns completely, producing only water vapor and zero carbon dioxide. However, the way we make hydrogen today typically involves using high-pressure steam to break apart gas molecules, which releases significant amounts of CO2 as a byproduct.

To avoid this, the Cambridge team wanted to perfect a technique called methane pyrolysis, which converts methane into hydrogen and solid carbon without producing carbon dioxide. However, until now, no one has been able to perform this process efficiently enough for large-scale use because traditional reactors waste too much gas.

Read it.

A federal judge ruled Monday against a California school district’s policy ordering teachers to hide kids’ transgender identities from their parents, in a ruling that a lawyer hails as the definitive end to gender secrecy policies in the Golden State.

“The court has fully and permanently dismantled gender secrecy policies across the state of California,” Paul Jonna, a partner at LiMandri and Jonna LLP and special counsel to the Thomas More Society, told The Daily Signal on Tuesday.

The office of Attorney General Rob Bonta, D-Calif., told The Daily Signal that it filed an application to stay the injunction.

Read it.

The military reported its best recruitment numbers in more than 15 years in 2025, according to the Pentagon.

“In 2025, the department exceeded our annual active-duty recruitment accession goals across all five services,” Undersecretary of War for Personnel and Readiness Anthony J. Tata said Monday.

Tata credited President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth with the influx of new recruits.

Trump and Hegseth “are focused on our troops and our mission, and on ensuring that we remain the most lethal fighting force on the planet,” Tata said.

Watch it.

Ziroth runs a YouTube channel that keeps an eye on technological advances. Nothing needs technological advance more than the energy storage area.

The reason gasoline is so pervasive is that it is very energy-dense, pretty stable as commonly stored, reasonably safe (movie car gas tank explosions to the contrary notwithstanding—it’s actually very difficult to get liquid gas to explode), and we’ve got an extensive industry devoted to getting high quality stuff to consumers quickly and cheaply.

The use of electricity for transportation is hampered by the fact that electrons can’t just be stuffed into a tank for later use. You either have to generate them on-site (which is how hybrids operate) or store them chemically (via batteries). Energy storage for electrons is neither cheap nor efficient. So I keep an eye out for discoveries that will make our lives easier in this respect.

National Catholic Register.

On the heels of the skull of St. Thomas Aquinas touring the nation, a new study released this week gives Catholics a glimpse at what the “Angelic Doctor” may have looked like.

Liam Neeson, apparently. (What’s your guess?)

Check it out.

I am a sucker for maps. Granted that ‘the map is not the territory’, a good map will pull knowledge together like nobody’s business. One of the benefits of living in an advanced technological society is that a huge amount of knowledge can be pulled together in one convenient package.

Watch it.

The idea of a drone that can operate both in the air and underwater ought to be worth something.

Read it.

FOR MANY YEARS, doctors and technicians who performed medical ultrasound procedures viewed bubbles with wary concern. The phenomenon of cavitation—the formation and collapse of tiny gas bubbles due to changes in pressure—was considered an undesirable and largely uncontrollable side effect. But in 2001, researchers at the University of Michigan began exploring ways to harness the phenomenon for the destruction of cancerous tumors and other problematic tissue.

The trouble was, creating and controlling cavitation generated heat, which harmed healthy tissue beyond the target area. Zhen Xu, who was working on a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at the time, was bombarding pig heart tissue in a tank of water with ultrasound when she made a breakthrough.

The key was using extremely powerful ultrasound to produce negative pressure of more than 20 megapascals, delivered in short bursts measured in microseconds—but separated by relatively long gaps, between a millisecond and a full second long. These parameters created bubbles that quickly formed and collapsed, tearing apart nearby cells and turning the tissue into a kind of slurry, while avoiding heat buildup. The result was a form of incisionless surgery, a way to wipe out tumors without scalpels, radiation, or heat.

The Royal Society (UK).

Abstract
It is conventionally assumed that all evolutionary adaptation is produced, and could only possibly be produced, by natural selection. Natural induction is a different mechanism of adaptation. It occurs in dynamical systems described by a network of interactions, where connections give way slightly under stress and the system is subject to occasional perturbations. This differential adjustment of connections causes reorganization of the system’s internal structure in a manner equivalent to associative learning familiar in neural networks. This is sufficient for storage and recall of multiple patterns, learning with generalization and solving difficult constraint problems (without any natural selection involved). Various biological systems (from gene-regulation networks to metabolic networks to ecosystems) meet these basic conditions and therefore have potential to exhibit adaptation by natural induction. Here (and in a follow-on paper), we consider various ways that natural induction and natural selection might interact in biological evolution. For example, in some cases, natural selection may act not as a source of adaptations but as a memory of adaptations discovered by natural induction. We conclude that evolution by natural induction is a viable process that expands our understanding of evolutionary adaptation.

The Guardian, a Voice of the Crust.

The Danish postal service will deliver its last letter on 30 December, ending a more than 400-year-old tradition.

Announcing the decision earlier this year to stop delivering letters, PostNord, formed in 2009 in a merger of the Swedish and Danish postal services, said it would cut 1,500 jobs in Denmark and remove 1,500 red postboxes amid the “increasing digitalisation” of Danish society.

escribing Denmark as “one of the most digitalised countries in the world”, the company said the demand for letters had “fallen drastically” while online shopping continued to increase, prompting the decision to instead focus on parcels.

It took only three hours for 1,000 of the distinctive postboxes, which have already been dismantled, to be bought up when they went on sale earlier this month with a price tag of 2,000 DKK (£235) each for those in good condition and 1,500 DKK (£176) for those a little more well-worn. A further 200 will be auctioned in January. PostNord, which will continue to deliver letters in Sweden, has said it will refund unused Danish stamps for a limited time.

Read it.

Would you believe that a tiny British territory has been secretly growing for over 150 years? Welcome to Gibraltar, whose story begins with the stroke of a pen in 1713, when Britain gained control through the Treaty of Utrecht during the War of Spanish Succession. What started as a strategic military outpost has evolved into something far more expansive than those 18th-century treaty writers could have imagined.

Picture this: A limestone giant standing guard at the meeting point of two continents, where the Mediterranean kisses the Atlantic. That’s Gibraltar – but what most visitors don’t realize is that this iconic peninsula isn’t quite as nature-made it. In fact, today’s Gibraltar would be barely recognizable to someone from 1854!

A fascinating map by Abel Gil Lobo for El Orden Mundial tells this hidden story of growth. Like rings in a tree trunk, different colors reveal Gibraltar’s expansion through time:

Harvard Medical School.

A pair of landmark studies has genetically identified the originators of the massive Indo-European family of 400-plus languages.

Results of the international ancient-DNA studies, published Feb. 5 in Nature and supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, place these linguistic pioneers within the borders of current-day Russia during the Eneolithic or Copper Age about 6,500 years ago. They were spread from the steppe grasslands along the lower Volga River to the northern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.

The Times (UK).

Potholes are the £14.4 billion problem blighting Britain’s roads and leaving behind many a frustrated motorist.

Now engineers believe “self-healing” roads may be the solution. Research suggests that asphalt roads could be made far more durable by adding a new ingredient: recycled cooking oil.

Potholes typically appear when water penetrates cracks in the asphalt over the winter. When the water freezes, it expands, making the cracks larger and forming fresh ones. When the broken-up material is washed away, a pothole is left behind.

The research, which included input from Google and King’s College London, involved creating a sophisticated computer model of how this process unfolds at a molecular level. In particular, the team looked at how bitumen — the sticky black material used to bind together the asphalt mixture — becomes brittle and vulnerable to cracking as it reacts with oxygen in the air.

Read it.

A newly filed patent suggests Tesla may be preparing to embed Starlink dishes directly into vehicle roofs, bringing connectivity costs in-house under Starlink rather than continuing to pay third-party carriers like AT&T. Such a move would unlock space-based, high-speed internet for vehicles. Notably, some Tesla owners are already mounting Starlink Mini dishes onto their vehicles, offering an early glimpse of next-generation connectivity.

Tesla filed a patent covering a vehicle roof assembly that is transparent to radio frequencies, specifically noting that it allows for satellite communications to pass through.

“In some examples, this assembly enables the integration of overhead electrical modules and components, including antennae, directly into the roof structure, facilitating clear communication with external devices and satellites,” the patent explained in the abstract section.

Alma Boykin (“TXRed”).

Short Version: A very well written book about elements of the Medieval Catholic (and later) liturgy, and how they relate to church teachings, to music, and to art.

Long Version: “What color stole?” “Check the liturgical calendar.” Liturgy is a term associated with Christian worship, generally the more traditional denominations or “high church,” such as Anglican, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and the like. But Judaism also has a liturgy, as do other faiths. The Roman Catholic liturgy has had more cultural influence on Western Civilization over the years. Cosima Gillhammer’s book looks at a few specific points in the larger liturgical constellation, bringing in texts, music, images, and the rituals and patterns of worship and meditation. She focuses on the medieval and Dark Ages roots of the liturgy, and the emotions and “sense” of how texts and ideas were used.

The author begins by describing the darkness of the eve of Easter, and the vigil. Hushed darkness, fearful and waiting, then a light. One light, then more and more. Darkness remains outside the church, but fear shifts to hope. Dawn will come. That is the point of liturgy, to guide, and to bring emotion and power to what could be dry and confusing doctrines.

Alma T. C. Boykin is a prolific writer of excellent speculative fiction. She is one of few authors whose name on a book causes me to buy it automatically.

The Foundry.

DHS has added the names, photos, and criminal backgrounds of an additional 5,000 illegal aliens to the searchable platform, bringing the number of listed criminals to 15,000.

“This new update represents just a small sample of the total number of arrests we’ve made—70% of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] arrests are of criminal illegal aliens that have been charged or convicted of a crime in the United States,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

The website is searchable by state and city, providing Americans with the knowledge of “which dangerous criminal illegal aliens the Trump administration has removed from their communities,” McLaughlin said.

The Telegraph (UK).

The man believed to be behind the mass shooting at Brown University has been found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility, authorities said.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national who attended Brown 25 years ago, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Providence police chief Oscar Perez said on Thursday evening.

The shooter, who was found at a storage unit along with two guns, is believed to have acted alone.

“Tonight, our Providence neighbours can finally breathe a little bit easier,” Mayor Brett Smiley told reporters.

Investigators believe Valente is responsible for both the shooting at Brown, in which two students were killed, and the murder of Nuno FG Loureiro, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) science professor.

Read it.

These would make a great addition to the sourthern Border Wall. Weed out the weak and stupid and make sure only the truly deserving get across the border.

The Telegraph (UK).

Disney had the right to “resurrect” Peter Cushing in a Star Wars film, judges have ruled.

Don’t mess with The Mouse. He has way more money than you do.

The actor, who played imperial commander Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope in 1977, died in 1994, but the character was recreated in the spin-off using special effects.

The executors of Cushing’s estate agreed to his likeness being recreated for the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in a deal with Lunac Heavy Industries.

But in 2019 Tyburn Film Productions initiated legal proceedings against Lucasfilm, the studio behind the original Star Wars saga, and ?fellow Disney ?subsidiary Lunak, alleging “unjust enrichment” from the use of Cushing’s image in Rogue One without its consent.

Watch it.

Dead cow and spuds are the basis of all true civilization.

Watch it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

The Telegraph (UK).

Director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele have been found dead in their Los Angeles home, according to local media and police.

Investigators believe they suffered stab wounds. A family member is being questioned.

The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3:30pm on Sunday and found a 78-year-old man and 68-year-old woman dead inside. Reiner turned 78 in March.

Detectives were investigating an “apparent homicide” at Reiner’s home, said police.

Rob Reiner was also one of the most dependable Woke whiners in the U.S. When the police ask “Did he have any enemies?’, the pool includes millions.

Read it.

After years of market swings, regulatory uncertainty, and deep staffing cuts, America’s energy workforce is overdue for a stabilizing signal. December 10th provides exactly that: the first federal Gulf of America lease sale in nearly two years, offering long-awaited certainty for the companies and workers that power America’s offshore energy engine.

In 2024, Gulf of America oil and gas activity supported approximately 428,000 jobs across all 50 states, contributed $35.9 billion in spending, and generated $7 billion in federal revenues. Few industries deliver that scale of widespread economic impact.

Mandated by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, this sale is the first of 30 over the next 15 years, with additional sales offshore Alaska. After an unprecedented 24-month leasing gap, the door to America’s offshore future, anchored by Texan expertise, is reopening.

Read it.

The Trump administration said on Dec. 10 that it would transfer roughly 760 acres of public land along the U.S.-Mexico border in California to the Navy for three years to support border security operations.

While announcing the decision Wednesday, the Interior Department said the land would become part of a “National Defense Area,” or militarized zone, to bolster immigration enforcement.

The land stretches from roughly a mile west of the California-Arizona state line to the western edge of the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area in San Diego and Imperial counties, according to the Interior Department.

Read it.

Uruguay is one of Latin America’s safest and most prosperous countries. It is known for its political stability, tax-friendly policies, and high quality of life. This South American gem has become a haven for multiple expats, including digital nomads, investors, and retirees.

With its healthcare system and robust infrastructure, Uruguay is a country where expats can comfortably and rewardingly live full-time. What’s more, obtaining citizenship in Uruguay is straightforward!

That said, while many people choose Uruguay for residency or citizenship, this isn’t a recommendation to relocate there. The goal here is to outline how the process works so you can make your own informed decision.

After a few years of residency in Uruguay, you can obtain one of the strongest passports in the world, with visa-free and visa-on-arrival access to over 150 countries. This article will walk you through the timeline and steps to acquire Uruguayan citizenship.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do. It seems preferable to California.

Read it.

$2.90 per gallon on average as of Monday, according to data from GasBuddy, a company that tracks gas prices.

My wife filled up yesterday at $2.17.

Read it.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating edged up to 41% in the past week as Republicans warmed to his handling of the cost of living, a sign the administration’s new focus on affordability might be supporting his popularity, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The six-day poll, which closed on Monday, showed approval of the president rising from 38% late last month, which was the lowest since Trump returned to the White House in January. Trump started his second term with a 47% rating.

Republicans performed poorly in a handful of state elections in November as Democrats hammered the Trump administration over persistently high inflation. But in recent weeks Trump has engaged more forcefully on the topic, scaling back some of his tariff increases and pledging to combat high food prices.

Read it.

Well, I’ve always thought so.

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering.

The Foundry.

In a huge win for Republicans that could help keep them in control of the House, the Supreme Court allowed Texas’ GOP-friendly redistricting maps to remain in place for the 2026 midterms.

The maps could grant Republicans up to five additional seats in the House of Representatives.

Thursday’s ruling, a 6-3 unsigned opinion, comes after a lower court recently tossed out the maps. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott appealed that decision.

The Supreme Court decision was an ideological split, with the six conservative justices ruling in favor of pausing the ruling from a lower court, thereby allowing the maps to stand. Three liberal justices dissented.

Read it.

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has been renamed in honor of President Donald Trump on the eve of a peace agreement signing ceremony between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda.

The War Zone.

The Chinese trimaran craft is seen in what is the first widely circulated image of the vessel, but it leaves many questions unanswered. Not least, what is the actual purpose of this vessel? At the same time, details point to this craft being fully or nearly fully submersible, making it something of a hybrid design.

The photo, which began to circulate recently on social media and is republished at the top of this story, provides a profile view of the vessel in the water. While the date of the photo is unknown, the location is likely the Huangpu shipyard in Guangzhou province, where the vessel has reportedly been noted in satellite imagery over the last few months. Our previous understanding of the vessel’s appearance comes apparently exclusively from naval analyst H. I. Sutton, who looked at that imagery, in which the vessel was still covered with tarpaulins.

As had been apparent in the satellite imagery, the black-painted vessel incorporates features of both surface ships and submarines. The vessel’s slender shape had also previously been noted, pointing toward high efficiency. However, seen from this angle, the roughly 210-foot-long vessel doesn’t appear to have been necessarily tailored for high performance, at least not as an overarching priority.

Read it.

American military personnel have installed a high-tech radar system in Tobago, a move Trinidad and Tobago officials say is intended to strengthen surveillance of drug-trafficking activity in the southern Caribbean.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar confirmed that U.S. Marines set up the unit on the eastern end of the Crown Point runway at ANR Robinson International Airport, as reported by USA Today.

Tobago lies about 70 miles from Venezuela’s Paria Peninsula.

I’m sure the hose of U.S. taxpayer money they’re undoubtedly getting is very welcome too.

I’d love to have that duty station….

Read it.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday followed through on a pledge he made last week, announcing that he has “completely terminated” every action signed by former President Joe Biden using the autopen, declaring those measures null and void.

“Any and all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts, signed by Order of the now infamous and unauthorized ‘AUTOPEN,’ within the Administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., are hereby null, void, and of no further force or effect,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social.

“Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect,” he added.

Newsbusters.

My, what a surprise.

Read it.

President Donald Trump said Sunday his administration intends to maintain a pause on asylum decisions for “a long time” after an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House, killing one of them.

When asked to specify how long it would last, Trump said he had “no time limit” in mind for the measure, which the Department of Homeland Security says is linked to a list of 19 countries already facing US travel restrictions.

“We don’t want those people,” Trump continued. “You know why we don’t want them? Because many have been no good, and they shouldn’t be in our country.”

Read it.

President Donald Trump on Friday intensified his challenge to the legitimacy of former President Joe Biden’s official actions, declaring on Truth Social that “[a]ny document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby canceling and of no further force or effect.”

Trump claimed Biden didn’t even know what was being authorized in many cases, saying staff pushed documents through the signing machine without Biden’s awareness.

He warned that if Biden now claims he personally approved those documents, “he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”

Ah, ah, ah, ah, yankin’ their chains, yankin’ their chains….

UPDATE: Trump Moves To “Terminate” All Of Biden’s Autopen’d Orders

Watch it.

Having two rotors increases the amount of surface area between stator and rotor and gives you a lot more torque.

We live in amazing times.

Read it.

party that has surged from obscurity to become one of the most consequential forces in the region. A party that only recently entered parliament with two seats is now projected, according to the Catalan government’s Centre for Opinion Studies (CEO), to win 19 to 20 seats—putting it level with one of the region’s traditional pro-independence heavyweights.

For years, Catalan politics has revolved around a familiar trio. The PSC is the centre-left party aligned with Spain’s central government. ERC is a left-leaning separatist party. And Junts is a liberal-nationalist separatist party once led by Carles Puigdemont, the chief political figure of the 2017 independence crisis. It is Junts—formerly the standard-bearer of Catalonia’s independence cause—that is now suffering a dramatic collapse, falling from 35 seats to roughly the same level as Aliança. ERC would stay slightly ahead on 22 to 23, while the PSC would still win the election but shows clear signs of voter weariness.

Read it.

The Pentagon reported that it is preparing to end its partnership with Scouting America — formerly the Boy Scouts.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth said there are concerns that the group has shifted toward gender-neutral policies and DEI initiatives.

NPR first reported the possible break, citing draft Pentagon documents it reviewed.

Baden-Powell’s original vision was of Scouting as a sort of ‘farm team’ for military service.

Nowadays: Not so much.

Read it.

South Africa is back in the news yet again, and facing embarrassment yet again. South Africa’s far-left government was hoping that the G20 Summit held this week in Johannesburg would elevate the country’s global position and garner them international attention (and funding). It is the first time in history that the G20 has been held in South Africa.

However, the Trump Administration has made it clear that the South African event is a nothing-burger and the real G20 will be held in the US (in Florida) in 2026. The meeting was not only snubbed by Trump; China, Russia, Argentina, Mexico and Indonesia did not send representatives either, likely because the summit had no momentum without US participation.

Confusion arose when SA President Cyril Ramaphosa spread rumors that the US was actually participating in the talks, leading the media to suggest Trump had flip-flopped.

But he lied. As he does.

Read it.

Whether called homeschooling or DIY education, family-directed learning has been growing in popularity for years in the U.S. alongside disappointment in the rigidity, politicization, and flat-out poor results of traditional public schools. That growth was supercharged during the COVID-19 pandemic when extended closures and bumbled remote learning drove many families to experiment with teaching their own kids. The big question was whether the end of public health controls would also curtail interest in homeschooling. We know now that it didn’t. Americans’ taste for DIY education is on the rise.

 

Politico, a Voice of the Crust.

Justice Samuel Alito temporarily restored the state’s new map — expected to net Republicans up to five seats in the 2026 midterms — while the Supreme Court weighs a lower court’s decision to toss that map altogether.

Alito’s move allowing Texas officials to continue to prepare for primary elections under the new map came just after the state asked the Supreme Court for an urgent ruling to revive the redistricting plan adopted at the urging of President Donald Trump.

,,,

The emergency application went to Alito in the first instance because he oversees urgent matters arising in the 5th Circuit, which includes Texas. Alito, who is expected to refer the stay request to the full court, appeared to put it on a fast-track by giving the civil rights groups that sued to block the new map a deadline of 5 P.M. eastern time Monday to file a response.

Read it.

To test whether humans still use auricular muscles — which once helped move our primate ancestors’ ears to funnel sound — scientists attached electrodes to the sides of people’s heads, and asked them to listen closely to an audiobook. Different challenge modes were imposed, with the sound coming from different angles, and other competing sounds. The scientists found that, the more difficult it was for participants to hear the audiobook, the more the superior auricular muscles activated, as if participants were trying to prick up their ears like a dog or cat. When sounds came from behind a participant, the posterior auricular muscles contracted as if attempting to point the ears in that direction.

If you can wiggle your ears, you can use muscles that helped our distant ancestors listen closely. These auricular muscles helped change the shape of the pinna, or the shell of the ear, funneling sound to the eardrums. Millions of years ago, our ancestors stopped using them, so humans’ auricular muscles are only vestigial. But now scientists examining the function of these muscles have discovered that they activate when we’re trying to listen to competing sounds.

“There are three large muscles which connect the auricle to the skull and scalp and are important for ear wiggling,” explained Andreas Schröer of Saarland University, first author of the study in Frontiers in Neuroscience. “These muscles, particularly the superior auricular muscle, exhibit increased activity during effortful listening tasks. This suggests that these muscles are engaged not merely as a reflex but potentially as part of an attentional effort mechanism, especially in challenging auditory environments.”

Read it.

While former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calls for a fight against climate-driven global apocalypse at COP30, Brussels is being forced into political restraint by pressure from the US and Qatar. On the horizon, the end of the EU’s grand climate machinations is becoming visible.

November 13, 2025, could mark a turning point in European Union history. We may have witnessed the beginning of the end of European climate socialism.

Media coverage of the day in Parliament downplayed its significance, focusing instead on the reform of the supply chain law, while fundamental changes unfolded at a different level.

Politically, the event cannot be overstated; perhaps it should even be called a singularity in recent EU policy: The European Parliament paved the way for a dramatic dilution of corporate reporting obligations under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the so-called due diligence rules (CSDDD). The unstoppable march toward a climate dictatorship has been abruptly halted.

Read it.

Three more Republican members of the Indiana Senate reported this week that they were targeted in swatting incidents, as national GOP leaders continue urging Republican holdouts to reconsider their stance on redistricting, Fox59 in Indiana reported Thursday.

GOP state Sens. Dan Dernulc, Spencer Deery, and Rick Niemeyer each said they were targeted in separate swatting attempts, which Indiana State Police confirmed they are investigating.

Sen. Gregory Goode also reported a swatting incident over the past weekend.

Read it.

Five years after Boston Dynamics introduced the cute but creepy “Spot” robot dog, the 5-pound German Shepherd-sized robot dog is finding work.

With its ability to climb stairs, open doors, and dazzle inebriated suspects, police are now using it in situations including armed standoffs, hostage rescues, and hazardous materials incidents – things where sending in a human or a real dog could be life-threatening.

According to Bloomberg, over 60 bomb squads and SWAT teams in the US and Canada are now using Spot, Boston Dynamics has revealed.