cross-posted from: rss.ponder.cat/post/212339

Welcome back to the Abstract!

This week, we’re moving in next to anacondas, so watch your back and lock the henhouse. Then, parenthood tips from wild baboons, the “cognitive debt” of ChatGPT, a spaceflight symphony, and a bizarre galaxy that is finally coming into view.

When your neighbor is an anaconda

Cosendey, Beatriz Nunes and Pezzuti, Juarez Carlos Brito. 'The myth of the serpent: from the Great Snake to the henhouse.” Frontiers in Amphibian and Reptile Science.

Anacondas are one of the most spectacular animals in South America, inspiring countless myths and legends. But these iconic boas, which can grow to lengths of 30 feet, are also a pest to local populations in the Amazon basin, where they prey on livestock.

To better understand these nuanced perceptions of anacondas, researchers interviewed more than 200 residents of communities in the várzea regions of the lower Amazon River about their experiences with the animals. The resulting study is packed with amazing stories and insights about the snakes, which are widely reviled as thieves and feared for their predatory prowess.

“Fear of the anaconda (identified in 44.5% of the reports) is related to the belief that it is a treacherous and sly animal,” said co-authors led by Beatriz Nunes Cosendey of the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve and Juarez Carlos Brito Pezzuti of the Federal University of Pará.

“The interviewees convey that the anaconda is a silent creature that arrives without making any noise, causing them to feel uneasy and always vigilant during fishing…with the fear of having their canoe flooded in case of an attack,” the team added. “Some dwellers even reported being more afraid of an anaconda than of a crocodile because the latter warns when it is about to attack.”

One of the Amazonian riverine communities where the research was conducted. Image: Beatriz Cosendey.

But while anacondas are eerily stealthy, they also have their derpy moments. The snakes often break into chicken coops to feast on the poultry, but then get trapped because their engorged bodies are too big to escape through the same gaps they used to enter.

“Dwellers expressed frustration at having to invest time and money in raising chickens, and then lose part of their flock overnight,” the team said. “One interviewee even mentioned retrieving a chicken from inside an anaconda’s belly, as it had just been swallowed and was still fresh.”

Overall, the new study presents a captivating portrait of anaconda-human relations, and concludes that “the anaconda has lost its traditional role in folklore as a spiritual and mythological entity, now being perceived in a pragmatic way, primarily as an obstacle to free-range poultry farming.”

Monkeying around with Dad

Jansen, David et al. “Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Coming off of Father’s Day, here is a story about the positive role that dads can play for their daughters—for baboons, as well as humans. A team tracked the lifespans of 216 wild female baboons in Amboseli, Kenya, and found that subjects who received more paternal care had significantly better outcomes than their peers.

Male baboon with infant in the Amboseli ecosystem, Kenya. Image: Elizabeth Archie, professor at Notre Dame.

“We found that juvenile female baboons who had stronger paternal relationships, or who resided longer with their fathers, led adult lives that were 2–4 years longer than females with weak or short paternal relationships,” said researchers led by David Jansen of the Midwest Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Disease. “Because survival predicts female fitness, fathers and their daughters may experience selection to engage socially and stay close in daughters’ early lives.”

This all reminds me of that old episode of The Simpsons where . While Homer was clearly hurt, it turns out that baboons might not be the worst animal-based insult for a daughter to throw at her dad.

A case for staying ChatGPT-Free

Nataliya, Kosmyna et al. “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task.” arXiv preprint.

ChatGPT may hinder creativity and learning skills in students who use it to write essays, relative to those who didn’t, according to an exhaustive new preprint study posted on arXiv. This research has yet not been peer-reviewed, and has a relatively small sample size of 54 subjects, but it still contributes to rising concerns about the cognitive toll of AI assistants.

Researchers led by Nataliya Kosmya of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology divided the subjects — all between 18 and 39 years old — into three groups wrote SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT (LLM group), Google’s search engine, or with no assistance (dubbed “Brain-only”).

“As demonstrated over the course of 4 months, the LLM group's participants performed worse than their counterparts in the Brain-only group at all levels: neural, linguistic, scoring,” the team said. “The LLM group also fell behind in their ability to quote from the essays they wrote just minutes prior.”

When I asked ChatGPT for its thoughts on the study, it commented that “these results are both interesting and plausible, though they should be interpreted cautiously given the early stage of the research and its limitations.” It later suggested that “cognitive offloading is not always bad.”

This study is a bop

Berthet, Maximilien et al. “History of the space industry in Asia: A concert in three movements.” Acta Astronautica.

Even scientists can’t resist evocative language now and then—we’re all only human. Case in point: A new study likens the history of Asia’s space industry to “a musical concert” and then really runs with the metaphor.

“The region comprises a diverse patchwork of nations, each contributing different instruments to the regional space development orchestra,” said researchers led by Maximilien Berthet of the University of Tokyo. “Its history consists of three successive movements” starting with “the US and former USSR setting the tone for the global space exploration symphony” and culminating with modern Asian spaceflight as “a fast crescendo in multiple areas of the region driven in part by private initiative.”

Talk about a space opera. The rest of the study provides a comprehensive review of Asian space history, but I cannot wait for the musical adaptation.

Peekaboo! I galax-see you

Kniazev, Alexei and Pustilnik, Simon. “The Peekaboo galaxy: New SALT spectroscopy and implications of archive HST data.” Astronomy & Astrophysics.

In 2001, astronomer Bärbel Koribalski spotted a tiny galaxy peeking out from behind a bright foreground star that had obscured it for decades, earning it the nickname the “Peekaboo Galaxy.” Situated about 22 million light-years from the Milky Way, this strange galaxy is extremely young and metal-poor, resembling the universe’s earliest galaxies.

The Peekaboo galaxy to the right of the star TYC 7215-199-1. Image: NASA, ESA, Igor Karachentsev (SAO RAS); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

A new study confirms Peekaboo as “the lowest-metallicity dwarf in the Local Volume,” a group of roughly 500 galaxies within 36 million light-years of Earth.

“This makes the Peekaboo dwarf one of the most intriguing galaxies in the Local Volume,” said co-authors Alexei Kniazev of the South African Astronomical Observatory and Simon Pustilnik of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of the Sciences. “It deserves intensive, multi-method study and is expected to significantly advance our understanding of the early universe’s first building blocks.”

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

Update: The original headline for this piece was "Is ChatGPT Rotting Our Brains? New Study Suggests It Does." We've updated the headline to "ChatGPT May Create 'Cognitive Debt,' New Study Finds" to match the terminology used by the researchers.

---

From 404 Media via this RSS feed

Sen. Alex Padilla snapped back at JD Vance Saturday, calling him “petty and unserious” after Vance referred to the senator as “Jose” during a press conference in Los Angeles the previous evening.

The squabble between Padilla and Vance is the latest clash between Trump administration officials and California Democrats as hostilities brew over Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration in the city, which has seen numerous ICE sweeps and significant counterprotests in recent weeks.

“He knows my name,” Padilla told MSNBC Saturday morning. “Look, sadly it’s just an indicator of how petty and unserious this administration is. He’s the vice president of the United States. You’d think he’d take the situation in Los Angeles more seriously.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/21/alex-padilla-jd-vance-fight-00416393

cross-posted from: sh.itjust.works/post/40679506

So for Friday night, myself and my friends got rather board.
And as the resident "Things collector" i got 2 Maxtor touch sense 2 external hardrives. However those who were alive in 2000's know Maxtor went bankrupt and haven't made hardrives for a very long time.
One of these drive i got BRAND NEW, in box at a flea market. sadly time got to the platters first, i spent a few hours trying to reformat or partition them and all i got was write errors. I tried different utility's with no avail and decided to cut my losses, so i asked the boys what we should do with them? Immediately my friend had an idea, to bring out his 9mm and see how a hardrive would fair! We all took turns and they were pretty hard to hit (we made the mistake of drink soda before hand). We eventually landed some shots on the center of the drives and MAN it actually stopped 2 bullets!!!


going into this we all expected the disk to be unreadable after the fact, but didnt think the hardrives would stop a 9mm bullet!!

We then took the hdd's apart after are volley of bullets, and alot of the chips were damaged and all the platters were bent. But when we took off the top case, it looked so freakin cool i had to keep it

This needs to be a native feature due to its importance. Guess which browser had visibilitychange first. Quoum.

Visibilitychange is one of the many anti-features invented by Google. Mainly used to block background playback.

Document: visibilitychange event - Web APIs | MDN

The visibilitychange event is fired at the document when the contents of its tab have become visible or have been hidden.

^{MDN Web Docs}

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/rise-abu-shabab-mapping-gaza-militia-armed-israel

cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/41958593

Add yours here: metoffice.gov.uk/forms/name-ou…

thanks Mike Taylor for the inspiration

muzzle

2025-06-21 16:28:36

The Met Office (UK) invites you to suggest names for future storms

Add yours here: metoffice.gov.uk/forms/name-ou…

thanks Mike Taylor for the inspiration

Name our Storms

^{Met Office}

NFC is an increasingly useful technology in the modern world, and now it’s getting a range boost as the standard will now operate at 2cm away, nearly four times the previous requirement in a change aimed at improving the reliability of actions such as tap to pay.

NFC will work from further away to improve ‘reliability’ in tap to pay and more

NFC is an increasingly useful technology in the modern world, and now it’s getting a range boost as the standard...

^{Ben Schoon (9to5Google)}

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/technology/us-tech-europe-microsoft-trump-icc.html?unlocked_article_code=1.QU8.L7r1.jIQ5Sl08LtOG

I want to put together a stack for hobbyist midi music composition. I understand there are a few more components to it than one might expect, but I think VMPK and Qtracer are going to be part of it?

Any tutorial links or suggestions appreciated!

vmpk.sourceforge.io/

qtractor.org/

New York City on Friday announced new minimum-pay rules for rideshare drivers, settling on a smaller-than-proposed 5% increase following pushback from Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc.

Archived version: archive.is/20250620191051/bloo…

NYC Settles on Smaller Driver Pay Bump After Uber, Lyft Pushback

^{Natalie Lung (Bloomberg)}

The ice that makes up glaciers isn't 100% solid – it's actually full of air bubbles, some of which formed centuries ago. Inspired by this fact, scientists have developed a method of using bubbles to store coded data in ice. The technology could actually have some practical applications.

Ingenious ice-bubble coding could put data in long-term cold storage

^{Ben Coxworth (New Atlas)}

Supreme Court ruling allows fossil fuel companies to challenge California's vehicle emissions standards, sparking backlash from environmental advocates.

Case file: supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pd…

'Dangerous Precedent' as SCOTUS Sides With Big Oil in California Emission Standards Case

"I worry that the fuel industry's gain comes at a reputational cost for this court, which is already viewed by many as being overly sympathetic to corporate interests," wrote Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent.

^{eloise-goldsmith (Common Dreams)}

Voters described universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and higher taxes on the rich as top priorities in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. But they were less likely to believe that party leaders shared those priorities.

Hungry for Progressive Economics, Nearly 2/3 of Democrats Want New Party Leadership: Poll

^{stephen-prager (Common Dreams)}

Sydney (AFP) – Australia's world-leading ban on under-16s joining social media sites cleared a big hurdle Friday as a trial found digital age checks can work "robustly and effectively".

Sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and X could face fines of up to Aus$50 million (US$32 million) for failing to comply with the legislation, which was passed in November.

They have described the law -- which is due to come into effect by the end of this year -- as vague, rushed and "problematic".

There has been widespread concern over children's use of online platforms as evidence shows that social media can have negative effects on children's mental and physical health.

Digital age verification systems -- which would be critical to the ban -- can work, said the interim findings of an independent Age Assurance Technology Trial, conducted for the government.

"These preliminary findings indicate that age assurance can be done in Australia privately, robustly and effectively," it said.

There are "no significant technological barriers" to deploying age checking systems in Australia, said the trial's project director, Tony Allen.

"These solutions are technically feasible, can be integrated flexibly into existing services and can support the safety and rights of children online," he said in a statement.

In a separate interview with Australia's Nine Network, Allen said preventing children circumventing age verification tools was a "big challenge", however.

"I don't think anything is completely foolproof," he said.

There are a "plethora" of approaches to age verification but no single solution to suit all cases, said the trial report, in which 53 organisations took part.

Australia's legislation is being closely monitored by other countries, with many weighing whether to implement similar bans.

Greece spearheaded a proposal this month for the European Union to limit children's use of online platforms by setting an age of digital adulthood -- barring children from social media without parental consent.

Australian trial says tech for social media teen ban can work

^RFI

Hello,

I was gonna post this on Ask Lemmy, but then I thought maybe Technology would be a better fit for the theme. But then I saw it's mostly news, so I thought perhaps Ask Lemmy would indeed be a better fit. If this is not the case, please point me to the right direction.

As a heads-up, I am not 'Murican, and never been to 'Murica, so keep that in mind.

Seeing the recent news with France trying to age-restrict pornographic material online, I was wondering and have sort of an idea, that I wonder if it is actually doable and actually good.

Hear me out: the gobermint likely already has your data, right? At least stuff like name, date of birth, etc. The gobirment could have a private and secure service, which websites and services could use to confirm certain requirements.

For instance: A website wants to confirm if you're over 18. The website essentially asks the official gob. service, "is this user at least 18 years of age?". The official gob. service essentially has to answer "yes, your requirements are met" or "no, your requirements are not met", without giving away information on a person. The user gets prompted, being told what information is being required and whether they wish to share that. The official service wouldn't know where the request is coming from, but the original website requesting the information generates and shows a temporary code, which is not related to the website at all and is sent to the gob. service, so that the user can confirm it is indeed the website they were using that is requesting this, and not a hijack of some kind. The gob. service, if allowed by the user, sends out this confirmation to the original website, without the gob. service knowing the website and without the website knowing the user's info. The website then knows whether their requirements are met and can then act accordingly, such as by not allowing someone to access adult material if they do not meet the age requirement.

Does this make sense? Is it doable? Could it be a potential private and secure way of confirming user information without either party having access to the other's information? Obviously, the idea could be worked on and polished, but as a starting point.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer put off issuing any additional rulings and instead asked for briefings from both sides by noon Monday on whether the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil, is being violated in Los Angeles.

The hearing happened the day after the 9th Circuit appellate panel allowed the president to keep control of National Guard troops he deployed in response to protests over immigration raids.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in his complaint that “violation of the Posse Comitatus Act is imminent, if not already underway” but Breyer last week postponed considering that allegation.

Judge asks if troops in Los Angeles are violating the Posse Comitatus Act. What is it?

A federal judge is weighing whether troops deployed to Los Angeles during anti-ICE protests is a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

^{AP via Scripps News Group (News Channel 5 Nashville (WTVF))}

The alleged officers detaining hundreds if not thousands of people each day in California and across the country are often masked. They sometimes refuse to answer questions, including which agency they represent. They threaten force — and even use it to make arrests of bystanders — when they are challenged.

In the first video I watched, a man in an unmarked car detains another man sitting on a bus bench in Pasadena. The man presumed to be a federal agent has on a vest that simply says “Police” and a cheap black ski mask that covers every bit of his face — the kind that looks like it was purchased on Amazon and that we have previously most associated with criminals such as robbers and rapists. A few of his colleagues are in the background, some also seemingly masked.

If these men approached me or one of my kids dressed like that, I would run. I would fight. I would certainly not take his word that he was “police” and had the right to force me into his car.

In the second video, another presumed federal agent jumps out of his unmarked vehicle and draws his weapon on a civilian attempting to take a photo of the license plate.

Yes — he points his gun at a civilian who is not threatening him or committing a crime. Folks, maybe you consider it a bad idea to try to photograph what may or may not be a legitimate police operation, but it is not illegal. This alleged officer appears to have simply not liked what was happening, and threatened to shoot the person upsetting him. The man taking the photo ran away, but what would have happened had he not?

These actions by alleged authorities are examples of impunity, and it is what happens when accountability is lost.

Secret police have no place in democracy. But here they are

Federal authorities are increasingly hiding their identities, refusing to answer basic questions about their affiliations and deceiving the public to make arrests.

^{Anita Chabria (Los Angeles Times)}