Your brain physically changes when you work too much, scientists warn
Fox News | June 16, 2025 | Angelica StabileNew research has found that being overworked can physically alter the brain.
… there could be potential risks of prolonged or chronic alterations.
This could include neural strain, inflammation or maladaptive reorganization.
They just described a typical moment at IMAO.
Why every VPN should use post-quantum encryption
tomsguide.com | June 18, 2024 | Olivia Powell
And why every bleeding week IMAO gets bleeding hacked. We’re don’t have a post-quantum encryption keeper!
At the moment, a virtual private network (VPN) is a great way to protect your data from hackers. It offers sophisticated encryption that will keep your data hidden from third parties, including cyber criminals, government bodies, and advertisers.
However, not even all the best VPNs offer protection that’s future-proofed. You may not be aware of them yet, but there are already highly sophisticated quantum computers that use quantum physics to render their computations significantly more efficient than those performed by classical computers. Because of their superior processing power, these quantum computers have the ability to break encryption methods used to protect most of the data on the internet, including the algorithms used by a lot of VPNs.
There’s no need to panic just yet, as quantum computers are currently only being used for research purposes, meaning they can only be found in universities, science labs, and supercomputer centers. But once they become more widely available and powerful enough to break encryption, there will be catastrophic consequences for cyber security across the globe. This day is referred to as Q-day and experts predict it’s likely to happen in the next five years.
Wait. So today could be Q-Day? Or is it virtual Q-Day?
“Entanglement” and Q-Tips . . . sounds like we’re reverting to barber-ism.
Bullseye: Where Is The Center Of The Universe?
Study Finds | June 12, 2025 | Rob Coyne, University of Rhode Island
… Part of the reason this can be so challenging to comprehend is because of the way the universe is described in the language of mathematics. The surface of the balloon has two dimensions, and the balloon’s interior has three, but the universe exists in four dimensions. Because it’s not just about how things move in space, but how they move in time.
Our brains are wired to think about space and time separately. But in the universe, they’re interwoven into a single fabric, called “space-time.” That unification changes the way the universe works relative to what our intuition expects. And this explanation doesn’t even begin to answer the question of how something can be expanding indefinitely – scientists are still trying to puzzle out what powers this expansion. So in asking about the center of the universe, we’re confronting the limits of our intuition. The answer we find – everything, expanding everywhere, all at once – is a glimpse of just how strange and beautiful our universe is.
If you want a definitive answer, you may be on the wrong website.
We finally may be able to rid the world of mosquitoes. But should we?
US Headtopics | 06 03 2025Gene editing holds the potential of suppressing mosquito species that carry deadly diseases — and raises ethical questions.
The development of this technology also raises a profound ethical question: When, if ever, is it okay to intentionally drive a species out of existence?
My answers:
Why Isn’t an Atom’s Nucleus Round?
LiveScience.com | 5/31/25 | Victoria Atkinson
… About 90% of nuclei are shaped like an American football — technically termed “prolate deformed” — in their lowest energy state, with surprisingly few taking the opposite squashed-sphere, M&M-like shape, called oblate deformed.
OK.
The more exotic pear-shaped nucleus is restricted to certain areas of the nuclear chart, particularly around radium, while spherical nuclei are generally confined to atoms with “magic” numbers (or full shells) of nuclear particles.
Mm-hmm. I thought so.
Stay indoors!
They have dotted lines and arrows!!
That thing coming out of the water creeps me out.
Those trees didn’t look too healthy to begin with, to be brutally honest.
Um, can I get a sense of scale on these creatures? Are they all equal?
Source:
Mass Extinction Traced to Ozone Depletion: Fossil Pollen “Sunscreen” Evidence Emerges
SciTechDaily | January 29, 2023 | Chinese Academy of Sciences
Scientists from China, Germany, and the UK led by Prof. LIU Feng from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) have revealed that pollen preserved in 250-million-year-old rocks contains abundant compounds that function like sunscreen but are produced by plants to protect themselves from harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation.
The presence of these compounds suggests that a pulse of UV-B played an essential role in the end-Permian mass extinction event…
Accompanying this global warming event was a collapse of the Earth’s ozone layer. Support for this theory comes from the abundant occurrence of malformed spores and pollen grains that testify to an influx of mutagenic UV irradiation.
If someone asks me for my affiliation, I’ll tell them I’m a neo-Permian. Life extincts!
Breakthrough Discovery: Scientists Find Organism That Transmits Electricity Like a Wire
Daily Galaxy | May 06, 2025A newly discovered species of bacteria that conducts electricity like a living wire is shaking up the scientific world. Named Candidatus Electrothrix yaqonensis, the organism was found in Oregon’s Yaquina Bay mudflats and described in a study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. …
Unlike its microbial cousins, Ca. Electrothrix yaqonensis features pronounced surface ridges, up to three times wider than those of other cable bacteria. These ridges house highly conductive fibers made from rare nickel-based proteins, a previously unseen biological structure. …
The bacterium’s ability to transport electrons over long distances gives it an edge in the complex chemistry of marine sediments. These traits allow it to connect sulfide-rich layers deep in the mud with oxygen or nitrate at the surface, completing critical redox reactions.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
Microsoft rolls out AI screenshot tool dubbed ‘privacy nightmare’
BBC News | 4/12/2025 | Imran Rahman-JonesMicrosoft has begun the rollout of an AI-powered tool which takes snapshots of users’ screens every few seconds.
The Copilot+ Recall feature is available in preview mode to some people with Microsoft’s AI PCs and laptops.
… or you can just have the FBI agent in a folding chair sit next to you.
“We’re now publicly announcing that we already have this ability, but we totally are refraining from using it unless you opt in.”
Side question: why would it have to be “AI-powered,” if all it requires is basically a few-second timer and a screen-capture command?
Aging former research chimps move to Chimp Haven
NPR | 04/10/2025 | Nell Greenfieldboyce…
“There are no more chimps at Alamogordo,” Smith says.
I mean, what’s up with that reporter’s name? I checked, and that’s the way it is.
Gravity: mysterious, attractive, always available. Like Ginger. Always pulling in one direction. I’ll leave this PG.
I think that scientists posited “gravitons” as conveying this force . . . and they’re weightless, like photons.
Then they posited “anti-gravitons.” Maybe even made some out of quarks in a lab. It’s evident I don’t follow this stuff enough for a guy who writes about science thoughts.
The point is, I’d love to have a tankful of those anti-gravitons to power a George Jetson car.
The problem, as I see it:
How do you turn them off? I mean, do you go off through the universe anti-gravitying your way away from matter?
It’s similar to time travel: if you move through time, do you leave the Earth behind after two seconds and end up in space?
I’m going to leave these problems to the science guys. I’ve got enough to worry about.
