Salta al contenuto principale



Mario Tozzi: «Le spiagge, da ottobre ad aprile, dovrebbero essere libere. Tutto dovrebbe essere rimosso, e invece al massimo si tolgono solo gli ombrelloni. Sulle nostre spiagge date in concessione per decenni, praticamente a vita, ci hanno appunto costruito strutture stabili. Questo doveva essere vietato e oggi andrebbero abbattute. Sulla spiaggia deve esserci solo ciò che è removibile, e niente di più. Invece ci hanno messo ristoranti, trattorie, cabine, passerelle, docce, servizi. Non va bene. E, di fronte alla possibile opposizione “Ma come? Io ho investito in tutto questo!”, io non posso che replicare: “Sì, ma hai fatto male: va buttato giù”. Il fatto di aver investito non ti dà automaticamente ragione, c’è il rischio d’impresa. Anzi, sappi che fin dall’inizio si è trattato di un abuso edilizio, perché sulla spiaggia non si può costruire. Non esiste condono che tenga, lo dice anche il codice della navigazione. Quindi andrebbe demolito tutto».

micromega.net/mario-tozzi-si-d…



Iddio delle separazioni - zulianis.eu/journal/iddio-dell…
Una vignetta e una nota a margine sul prompt: "un personaggio con una moralità molto diversa dalla mia"


facebook.com/share/v/1B1AGks4x…
: a ogni immagine o video come questo, e alle migliaia e migliaia di testimonianze simili e rapporti sul #genocidio che abbiamo visto e registrato in questi ultimi due anni e nei 75 precedenti, la domanda è sempre la stessa: #israele , che giustificazione, che diritto hai di esistere, se il tuo esistere è QUESTO?

#Gaza #Cisgiordania #Palestina

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Riflessione sulla mobilità, l’ambiente urbano e la qualità della vita a Lugano

Negli ultimi anni, osservando le strade e i quartieri di Lugano, ho percepito una certa rassegnazione nelle abitudini quotidiane: traffico, rumore e inquinamento vengono spesso accettati come inevitabili. La cultura della mobilità resta fortemente centrata sull’automobile, una vera e propria motonormatività, che condiziona le scelte urbane e rallenta la diffusione di alternative più sostenibili, come la mobilità lenta o la micromobilità.

Ciò che colpisce è la difficoltà delle istituzioni nel favorire un cambiamento reale: interventi per ridurre il traffico, migliorare la sicurezza o rafforzare la sensibilità ecologica sono spesso limitati o tardivi. Al contempo, parte della popolazione ha adottato stili di vita rumorosi e motorizzati, poco integrati nelle abitudini locali, generando comportamenti che non rispecchiano la tradizione ticinese di rispetto dell’ambiente urbano e della quiete.

Un altro problema importante riguarda la presa di decisioni basata su statistiche e misurazioni obsolete o incomplete. Ad esempio, la misurazione del rumore urbano spesso considera solo medie generali e due fasce orarie, senza valutare i picchi né le condizioni reali dei quartieri. Questo approccio può portare a interventi inefficaci o mal calibrati. Inoltre, raramente vengono adottati criteri chiari per verificare a posteriori il successo delle misure implementate: diventa quindi difficile capire se le politiche adottate migliorino davvero la qualità della vita.

Accanto a questi aspetti, ritengo fondamentale la presenza della polizia nei quartieri e la qualità dello spazio urbano. Studi sul community policing in Svizzera evidenziano che una presenza stabile e visibile delle forze dell’ordine può rafforzare la percezione di sicurezza. Insieme a una progettazione urbana attenta — con riduzione del rumore, spazi verdi e percorsi per la mobilità lenta — questi elementi contribuiscono in modo significativo al benessere dei residenti.

Mi chiedo quindi se il problema non sia solo culturale, legato alla motonormatività o alla scarsa sensibilità ecologica, ma anche organizzativo e strutturale: senza interventi mirati, basati su dati aggiornati e criteri verificabili, la città rischia di restare ostaggio di abitudini consolidate, senza migliorare realmente la vita dei suoi abitanti.

È necessario un approccio integrato: ridurre il traffico motorizzato, promuovere una cultura più consapevole, garantire la sicurezza e valorizzare gli spazi urbani. Solo così Lugano potrà diventare una città in cui la vita quotidiana non sia solo tollerabile, ma davvero piacevole e sicura per tutti.

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Ieri a Santa Sofia d'Epiro (CS) ultima serata di questo interminabile filotto di concertini e concertoni in giro per il profondo sud 😋 In questa ospitale cittadina #Arbereshe ho incontrato un sacco di gente in piazza, c'era il mondo proprio, e tra tante persone anche il mio vecchio amico #ToninoCarotone, ospite d'onore di diverse edizioni del #ReggaeCircus, imbattibile campione di simpatia e artista sopraffino. L'ho trovato in forma smagliante, si preparava a una giornata di mare e di snorkeling (senza il fucile ha tenuto a precisare, da #antimilitarista renitente alla leva qual è) per l'indomani, e abbiamo anche improvvisato un pezzo insieme sul palco. Insomma, degna conclusione di questo minitour davvero memorabile, grazie Fjutur Aps per l'invito e grazie Santa Sofia d'Epiro tutta per l'accoglienza ♥️ Ora si può tornare a casetta davvero, che pure io mio cagnolone King non vede l'ora, è stanchissimo poretto 🐺🙌😅
in reply to Adriano Bono

Due uomini sorridono e si abbracciano in un'atmosfera festosa. L'uomo a sinistra indossa una camicia nera con ricami bianchi e pantaloncini mimetici, tenendo una bottiglia di soda verde. L'uomo a destra ha una barba folta e indossa una camicia azzurra con disegni colorati, un paio di jeans e una baseball cap con un logo. Entrambi sono in un'area urbana notturna, con edifici e altre persone in lontananza.

Fornito da @altbot, generato localmente e privatamente utilizzando Ovis2-8B

🌱 Energia utilizzata: 0.157 Wh



la vicenda di Bibbiano poteva aver almeno insegnato qualcosa. e invece encefalogramma piatto...


Il Massacro dei Cinesi in Perù

@Arte e Cultura

Introduzione La Guerra del Pacifico (1879-1884) è ricordata soprattutto come il conflitto che oppose Cile, Perù e Bolivia per il controllo delle ricchissime province di Antofagasta e Tarapacá, fonte di nitrati e guano, risorse strategicheContinue reading
The post Il Massacro



no dico... ma da 1 a 10 quanto si può riuscire a essere imbecilli? selezione naturale. per la protezione della specie.

informapirata ⁂ reshared this.

in reply to simona

ho dei dubbi che le generazioni precedenti non facessero queste cose. nelle versioni dell'epoca


Il Massacro dei Cinesi in Perù

@Arte e Cultura

Introduzione La Guerra del Pacifico (1879-1884) è ricordata soprattutto come il conflitto che oppose Cile, Perù e Bolivia per il controllo delle ricchissime province di Antofagasta e Tarapacá, fonte di nitrati e guano, risorse strategicheContinue reading
The post Il Massacro




Tiranni e dinastie in America Latina


altrenotizie.org/spalla/10760-…



Cos’ha davvero in mente Trump con l’AI Action Plan

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Con l’AI Action Plan, Trump propone una strategia per dominare il settore dell’intelligenza artificiale, fondata su deregulation, supremazia militare e controllo ideologico, ridisegnando i confini tra tecnologia e potere.



L’intelligenza artificiale non è (ancora) così intelligente

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Nonostante le grandi promesse, l'intelligenza artificiale delude sul campo: nuovi studi evidenziano cali di produttività, fallimenti operativi e un divario crescente tra percezione e realtà. La Nota di James Hansen

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The Oscilloscope from 1943


[Thomas] comes up with some unusual gear. In his latest teardown and repair video, he has a vintage 1943 Danish oscilloscope, a Radiometer OSG32 on the bench. It isn’t lightweight, and it certainly looks its age with a vintage cracked finish on the case. You can check out the tubes and high-voltage circuitry in the video below.

If you’ve only seen the inside of a modern scope, you’ll want to check this out with giant condensers (capacitors) and a slew of tubes. We love seeing the workmanship on these old chassis.

There was a significant amount of burned residue, likely from a capacitor inside the case. A visit to Radiometer headquarters netted a pile of old manuals, including one for this scope, along with schematics. However, the schematics may not have been totally accurate.

With power the CRT somewhat lit up, which was a good sign, although it had a smell. But there was at least one voltage deficiency. He eventually made partial progress with some modern substitutes helping out, but it looks like there’s still more to go. Given the appearance of the outside, we were surprised he got as far as he did.

This was actually a very nice scope for its day, if you compare it to some other typical examples. Did you ever wonder what people did for scopes before the CRT? We did too.

youtube.com/embed/S7MgHSlVTKQ?…


hackaday.com/2025/08/23/the-os…



Il lucroso (e inquietante) sottobosco dei creator di video con l’IA. Report Wp

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Si moltiplicano come funghi i video surreali e low-cost realizzati con l’IA da creator improvvisati, spesso senza alcuna competenza artistica, sollevando sconcerto tra i professionisti e

in reply to Informa Pirata

@informapirata ⁂

Molti gridano all'IA che "porterà via il lavoro".

Quella è solo una conseguenza, temo.

Il problema principale è che abbasserà terribilmente lo standard, la qualità.

@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)

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Perché sono sconcertato (e sgomento) per alcune pubblicità

L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
In un’epoca in cui si moltiplicano campagne contro stereotipi, sessismo e “body shaming”, certi settori pubblicitari - vedi quelli di prodotti sanitari e parafarmaceutici - sembrano immuni a queste sensibilità e

in reply to Informa Pirata

Onestamente... mi pare una cavolata. Non vedo body shaming e non vedo offesa per un uomo in slip che soffre d'incontinenza o una donna sul water che ha il ciclo... è una cosa naturale.

Questa mi sembra una proposta molto molto tirata con le pinze.

Vorrei capire quale e quanti utenti comuni se ne sono lamentati, cosa che nell'articolo viene omessa.

in reply to versodiverso

@versodiverso Sono d'accordo con te: l'intervento in questione che è rilevante solo in considerazione del personaggio che scrive ma ha un tono benpensante con un carattere più orientato al proibizionismo che alla proposta


Dealing With the 1970s EPROM Chaos in 2025


It could be argued that erasable programmable ROMs (EPROMs) with their quaint UV-transparent windows are firmly obsolete today in an era of various flavors of EEPROMs. Yet many of these EPROMs are still around, and people want to program them. Unfortunately, the earliest EPROMs were made during a time when JEDEC standardization hadn’t taken root yet, leading to unique pinouts, programming voltages, and programming sequences, as [Anders Nielsen] explains in a recent video.

[Anders]’s Relatively Universal-ROM-Programmer project recently gained the ability to program even the oldest types of EPROMs, something which required modifying the hardware design to accommodate EPROMs like Ti’s TMS2716 and the similar-but-completely-different TMS2516. Although not the hardest thing to support – requiring just a diode and resistor added to the BOM along with a firmware update – it’s just one of those pre-standardization traps.

As [Anders] put it, it’s sometimes good to be unencumbered by the burden of future knowledge. Who would have willingly subjected themselves to the chaos of incompatible pinouts, voltages, etc., if they had known beforehand that in a few years EEPROMs and JEDEC standardization would make life so much easier? Maybe that’s why messing with retro hardware like this is fun, as afterwards you can go back to the future.

youtube.com/embed/c-aocMVWFoA?…


hackaday.com/2025/08/23/dealin…



Picking an Old Operating System


We usually at least recognize old computer hardware and software names. But [Asianmoetry] taught us a new one: Pick OS. This 1960s-era system was sort of a database and sort of an operating system for big iron used by the Army. The request was for an English-like query language, and TRW assigned two guys, Don Nelson and Dick Pick, to the job.

The planned query language would allow for things like “list the title, author, and abstract of every transportation system reference with the principal city ‘Los Angeles’.” This was GIM or generalized information management, and, in a forward-looking choice, it ran in a virtual machine.

TRW made one delivery of GIM, but the program that funded it was in trouble. Since TRW didn’t protect GIM, Dick took his program and formed a business. That business sold the rights to the software to Microdata, a minicomputer company, which used it under the name ENGLISH.

After a lawsuit with Microdata, Pick was able to keep his software, but Microdata retained its rights. Pick dabbled in making hardware, but decided to sell that part of the enterprise and focus on licensing Pick OS.

The first sale was to Honeywell. The virtual machine concept made it easy to port to new machines. Pick had a very IBM-like structured file system, where all data is a string, and dictionaries organize the underlying data.

In addition to a database, there was a programming language like BASIC, a text editor, and even a spreadsheet program. Why haven’t we heard of it? Part of the problem is that the computers using it typically renamed it and didn’t say it was Pick under the hood.

In the early 1980s, Pick’s appearance on the PC and the ability to support ten users on a single PC were notable features. The resellers didn’t appreciate the thrust to sell directly to users, and more lawsuits emerged.

Pick also struggled to get a GUI going when that was taking off. After Dick died, the system sort of coasted through several acquisitions. There are echoes of it in OpenQM, and there’s at least one fork of that on GitHub.

It is amazing how a system can utilize something like this and then become locked in, even after things change. This explains why Japan still uses floppy disks for certain things.

youtube.com/embed/pWZBQMRmW7k?…


hackaday.com/2025/08/23/pickin…



LeRobot Brings Autonomy to Hobby Robots


Robotic arms have a lot in common with CNC machines in that they are usually driven by a fixed script of specific positions to move to, and actions to perform. Autonomous behavior isn’t the norm, especially not for hobby-level robotics. That’s changing rapidly with LeRobot, an open-source machine learning framework from the Hugging Face community.
The SO-101 arm is an economical way to get started.
If a quick browse of the project page still leaves you with questions, you’re not alone. Thankfully, [Ilia] has a fantastic video that explains and demonstrates the fundamentals wonderfully. In it, he shows how LeRobot allows one to train an economical 3D-printed robotic arm by example, teaching it to perform a task autonomously. In this case, the task is picking up a ball and putting it into a cup.

[Ilia] first builds a dataset by manually operating the arm to pick up a ball and place it in a cup. Then, with a dataset consisting of only about fifty such examples, he creates a machine learning model capable of driving the arm to autonomously pick up a ball and place it in a cup, regardless of where the ball and cup actually are. It even gracefully handles things like color changes and [Ilia] moving the cup and ball around mid-task. You can skip directly to 34:16 to see this autonomous behavior in action, but we do recommend watching the whole video for a highly accessible yet deeply technical overview.

LeRobot is a very flexible framework, capable of much more than just doing imitation learning on 3D-printed low-cost robot arms. But the main goal is to make this sort of thing accessible to just about anyone, as [Ilia] aptly demonstrates. We have seen tons of high-quality DIY robot arms, and since the LeRobot framework is both developing quickly and isn’t tied to any particular hardware, it might be powering the next robot project sooner than you think.

youtube.com/embed/DeBLc2D6bvg?…


hackaday.com/2025/08/23/lerobo…



l'invasione militare della cisgiordania e l'insediamento illegale di "coloni" è precedente a questa vicenda del rapimento di ostaggi e di gaza, per cui su quale base israele ritiene di essere, o di essere mai stata, dalla parte della ragione?


ESticky is a Paperless Post-It


A hand holds a charcoal-colored rectangle with a black and white screen in taking up most of its face. A bulleted list of items are displayed: "Start work on new blog, Update eSticky FW, Start working on eSticky PCB, New enclosure for eSticky, Buy 18650 battery, Buy 3DP extruder anycubic, FW Update Sigma 18-35."

E-paper screens have opened up a wide variety of novel use cases that just wouldn’t work with the higher power draw of an LCD. [gokux] thought it would be perfect for a digital sticky note.

Using a Waveshare 2.9″ e-paper display hooked up to a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3, a battery, and a switch all inside the 3D printed enclosure, the part count on this is about as simple as it gets. Once everything is soldered together and programmed, you get a nifty little display that can hold some of your thoughts without having to reopen an app to get to them.

Access is currently provided via a web page, and there are a few minor hiccups like text alignment and image upload support. This project is open source, so [gokux] has expressed interest in anyone wanting to help refine the concept. We think it might be nice to add a magnet on the back for an easier way to actually stick to things.

If you prefer a different way to use electricity for a sticky note, why not do it at 2,000 V? If that’s not your jam, how about a plotter that writes your label or message on masking tape?

youtube.com/embed/K4rOOIzgYZg?…


hackaday.com/2025/08/23/estick…



le piattaforme online non sono la soluzione. ci sono decine di serie che vorrei rivedere ma che non sono disponibili su nessuna piattaforma.

nonostante questo però non ho spazio per ampie collezioni di DVD o altro materiale.



MooneyGo, vieni qui che dobbiamo parlare!


@Privacy Pride
Il post completo di Christian Bernieri è sul suo blog: garantepiracy.it/blog/moneygo/
Venerdì sera, penultima di agosto, famiglia in spiaggia a giocare con le onde, io lavoro tranquillo in terrazza cercando di riempirmi l’anima con il panorama e gli odori della pineta. Bello, bellissimo. Voglio restare qui! Quasi quasi chiudo e faccio ape “bidong” 🔔 Ok,

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un politico da un indirizzo politico coerente. può tagliare a istituzioni non coerenti con le proprie linee politiche di indirizzo MA alimenta altre istituzioni in linea con la propria linea. trump che ha tagliato tutto indiscriminatamente,


Un giovane informatico attivista degli USA, nello stile di Julian Assange, ci offre sul suo sito una rivelazione scottante che chiama “Meta Leaks”.


La «bussola» (smarrita?) di Draghi e la nuova stagione europea


@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/08/la-buss…
Partiamo da un virgolettato attribuito a Mario Draghi (su «La Stampa»,23 agosto 2025) durante il suo intervento al Meeting di Rimini: «Il mio europeismo non parte dai grandi principi che lo hanno



Attenzione ai dipendenti insoddisfatti! 4 anni di reclusione per aver messo in ginocchio la sua ex azienda


Un ex dipendente è stato condannato per aver commesso intenzionalmente un sabotaggio digitale ai danni del suo datore di lavoro. Davis Lu, 55 anni, cittadino cinese residente a Houston, è stato condannato a quattro anni di carcere e tre anni di libertà vigilata dopo essere stato riconosciuto colpevole di aver danneggiato intenzionalmente computer protetti, causando mesi di interruzione e centinaia di migliaia di dollari di perdite, ha dichiarato il Dipartimento di Giustizia.

Secondo il fascicolo, Lu ha lavorato come programmatore presso un’azienda dell’Ohio dal 2007 al 2019. Dopo una riorganizzazione interna, le sue responsabilità e l’accesso ai sistemi sono stati ridotti, il che ha rappresentato un punto di svolta.

Nell’agosto 2019, ha introdotto frammenti dannosi nel codice sorgente che hanno causato crash del server e bloccato gli accessi degli utenti. Per farlo, ha utilizzato loop infiniti con la creazione costante di nuovi thread Java senza terminazione, il che ha portato al collasso dei servizi.

Ha anche eliminato i profili dei colleghi e installato un cosiddetto “kill switch” che si attivava automaticamente se il suo account era bloccato in Active Directory. Ha chiamato il meccanismo “IsDLEnabledinAD“, abbreviazione di “Is Davis Lu enabled in Active Directory”. Dopo essere stato messo in congedo amministrativo il 9 settembre 2019 e aver dovuto consegnare il suo laptop, il codice è andato offline, paralizzando l’accesso a migliaia di dipendenti in tutto il mondo.

Alcuni dei componenti aggiunti avevano nomi simbolici: “Hakai“, la parola giapponese per “distruzione“, e “HunShui”, la parola cinese per “sonno” o “letargia”. Il giorno in cui ha consegnato l’attrezzatura, Lu ha anche eliminato volumi crittografati, ha tentato di cancellare directory Linux e altri due progetti. Le sue ricerche su Internet hanno confermato che stava esplorando modi per aumentare i privilegi, nascondere processi ed eliminare file, il tutto nel tentativo di rendere più difficile il ripristino dell’infrastruttura. L’indagine ha concluso che queste misure avevano lo scopo di rendere il più difficile possibile la risoluzione dell’attacco.

Le azioni di Lu non solo hanno destabilizzato servizi chiave, ma hanno anche causato ingenti danni economici all’azienda. L’FBI ha osservato che l’incidente evidenzia la necessità di identificare le minacce interne alle organizzazioni prima che diventino catastrofiche. Il Dipartimento di Giustizia ha definito le azioni di Lu una violazione della fiducia e un esempio di come le competenze tecniche, se utilizzate impropriamente, possano diventare uno strumento di distruzione.

L'articolo Attenzione ai dipendenti insoddisfatti! 4 anni di reclusione per aver messo in ginocchio la sua ex azienda proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.



Per la prima volta nella sua storia, la Settimana liturgica nazionale approda a Napoli, dal 25 al 28 agosto, raggiungendo la sua 75ª edizione. Un appuntamento che quest’anno assume un valore particolare grazie alla presenza del card.




Who is Your Audience?


Here at Hackaday HQ, we all have opinions about the way we like to do things. And no surprise, this extends to the way we like to lay out circuits in schematics. So when we were discussing our own takes on this piece on suggested schematic standards, it was maybe more surprising how much we did agree on than how much we had different preferred styles. But of course, it was the points where we disagreed that provoked the most interesting discussion, and that’s when I had a revelation.

Besides torturing electronics, we all also write for you all, and one thing we always have in mind is who we’re writing for. The Hackaday audience, not to blow you up, is pretty knowledgeable and basically “full-stack” in terms of the hardware/software spectrum. This isn’t to say that everyone is a specialist in everything, though, and we also have certain archetypes in mind: the software type who is just starting out with hardware, the hardware type who isn’t as savvy about software, etc. So, back to schematic layout: Who is your audience? It matters.

For instance, do you organize the pinout for an IC by pin number or by pin function, grouping the power pins and the ADC pins and so on? If your audience is trying to figure out the circuit logic, you should probably go functional. But if you are trying to debug a circuit, you’re often looking at the circuit diagram to figure out what a given pin does, and the pin-number layout is more appropriate.

Do you lay out the logical flow of the circuit in the schematic, or do you try to mimic the PCB layout? Again, it could depend on how your audience will be using it. If they have access to your CAD tool, and can hop back and forth seamlessly from schematic to PCB, the logical flow layout is the win. However, if they are an audience of beginners, or stuck with a PDF of the schematic, or trying to debug a non-working board, perhaps the physical layout is the right approach.

Al Williams, who has experience with projects of a much larger scale than most of us self-taught hackers, doesn’t even think that a schematic makes sense. He thinks that it’s much easier to read and write the design in a hardware description language like VHDL. Of course, that’s certainly true for IC designs, and probably also for boards of a certain complexity. But this is only true when your audience is also familiar with the HDL in question. Otherwise, you’re writing in Finnish for an audience of Spaniards.

Before this conversation, I was thinking of schematic layout as Tom Nardi described it on the podcast – a step along the way to get to the fun parts of PCB layout and then to getting the boards in hand. But at least in our open-source hardware world, it’s also a piece of the documentation, and a document that has an audience of peers who it pays to keep in mind just as much as when I’m sitting down and writing this very newsletter. In some ways, it’s the same thing.

This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on the web version of the newsletter. Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning? You should sign up!

(And yeah, I know the featured image doesn’t exactly fit the topic, but I love it anyway.)


hackaday.com/2025/08/23/who-is…



L’Eucaristia è guarigione per il mondo ferito nella fraternità. Questa la convinzione profonda che attraversa le pagine di “Radunate i pezzi avanzati – L’Eucaristia Sacramento di fraternità”, l’ultima opera dell’abate di Montecassino, dom Luca Fallic…


Scientists filmed a bat family in their roost for months, capturing never-before-seen (and very cute) behaviors.#TheAbstract


Scientists Discovered Bats Group Hugging and It’s Adorable


Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that ruled the roost, warmed the soul, and departed for intergalactic frontiers.

It will be a real creature feature this week. First, we will return to the realm of bats and discover that it is, in fact, still awesome. Then: poops from above; poops from the past; a very special bonobo; and last, why some dead stars are leaving the Milky Way in a hurry.

Bat hugs > Bear hugs

Tietge, Marisa et al. “Cooperative behaviors and social interactions in the carnivorous bat Vampyrum spectrum.” PLOS One.

Welcome to The Real World: Bat Roost. Scientists installed a camera into a tree hollow in Guanacaste, Costa Rica to film a tight-knit family of four spectral bats (Vampyrum spectrum) over the course of several months. The results revealed many never-before-seen behaviors including bats hugging, playing with cockroaches, and even breaking the fourth wall.

“We provide the first comprehensive account of prey provision and other social behaviors in the spectral bat V. spectrum,” said researchers led by Marisa Tietge of Humboldt University in Berlin. “By conducting extensive video recordings in their roost, we aimed to document and analyze key behaviors.”

Spectral bats are the biggest bats in the New World, with wingspans that can exceed three feet. They are carnivorous—feasting on rodents, birds, and even other species of bat—and they mate in monogamous pairs, which is unusual for mammals. But while huge flesh-eating bats sound scary, the new study revealed that these predators have a soft side.

For example, the footage captured a “greeting” ritual that included “a hugging-like interaction between a bat already in the roost and a newly arrived bat,” according to the study.

“The resident bat may actively approach or greet the newcomer as it reaches close proximity in the main roosting area,” the team said. “The greeting behavior is comparable to the initiation to social roosting, where at least one bat wraps its wings around the other, establishing a ball-like formation for several seconds. This behavior is often accompanied by social vocalizations.”
youtube.com/embed/NF4hOKhdCOA?…
There’s nothing like coming home after a graveyard shift to a warm welcome in a fuzzy ball-like formation. In keeping with their gregarious nature, the footage also showed that the bats are very generous with sharing prey, with only a single instance of a “tug-of-war” breaking out over dinner.

“Prey provision was a clearly cooperative social behavior wherein a bat successfully captured prey, brought it to the roost where group members were present, and willingly transferred the prey to another bat,” the researchers said. “Audible chewing noises are a distinctive feature of this process.”

Loud chewers in any other context are profoundly irritating, but these bats get a pass because it’s kind of hard to be quiet while crunching through mouse bones perched upside-down.

In addition to all the hugging and prey-sharing, the bats were also observed playing together by chasing cockroaches or, in one case, messing with the camera by altering its position. I can’t wait for the next season!

In other news…

Skyward scat


Uesaka, Leo and Sato, Katsufumi. “Periodic excretion patterns of seabirds in flight.” Current Biology.

Speaking of putting cameras in weird places, why not strap them to the bellies of seabirds? Scientists went ahead and did this, ostensibly to examine the flight dynamics of streaked shearwaters, which are Pacific seabirds. But the tight focus on the bird-bums produced a different revelation: Shearwaters almost exclusively poop while on the wing.
youtube.com/embed/SnJLvNyMjUA?…
“A total of 195 excretions were observed from 35.9 hours of video data obtained from 15 streaked shearwaters,” said authors Leo Uesaka and Katsufumi Sato of the University of Tokyo. “Excretion immediately after takeoff was frequent, with 50 percent of the 82 first excretion events during the flying periods occurring within 30 seconds after take-off and 36.6 percent within 10 seconds.”

“Occasionally, birds took off, excreted, and returned to the water within a minute; these take-offs are speculated to be only for excretion,” the team continued. “These results strongly suggest that streaked shearwaters intentionally avoid excretion while floating on the sea surface.”

This preference for midair relief might allow seabirds to lighten their load, prevent backward contamination, and avoid predators that sniff out excrement. Whatever the reason, these aerial droppings provide nutrients to ocean ecosystems, so bombs away.

Please clean up after your 9,000-year-old dog


Slepchenko, S.M. et al. “Early history of parasitic diseases in northern dogs revealed by dog paleofeces from the 9000-year-old frozen Zhokhov site in the New Siberian Islands of East Siberian Arctic.” Journal of Archaeological Science.

Hold onto your butts, because we’re not done with scatological science yet. A study this week stepped into some very ancient dog doo recovered from a frozen site on Siberia’s Zhokhov Island, which was inhabited by Arctic peoples 9,000 years ago.

By analyzing the “paleofeces,” scientists were able to reconstruct the diet of these canine companions, which were bred in part as sled dogs. The results provide the first evidence of parasites in Arctic dogs of this period, suggesting that the dogs were fed raw fish, reindeer, and polar bear.

“The high infection rate in dogs with diphyllobothriasis indicates a significant role of fishing in the economic activities of Zhokhov inhabitants, despite the small amount of direct archaeological evidence for this activity,” said researchers led by S.M. Slepchenko of Tyumen Scientific Center. “The presence of Taeniidae eggs indicates that dogs were fed reindeer meat.”

The team also noted that after excavation, the excrement samples were “packaged entirely in a separate hermetically sealed plastic bag and labeled.” It seems even prehistoric dog poop ends up in plastic bags.

Kanzi the unforgettable bonobo


Carvajal, Luz and Krupenye, Christopher. “Mental representation of the locations and identities of multiple hidden agents or objects by a bonobo.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Playing hide-and-seek with bonobos is just plain fun, but it also doubles as a handy experiment for testing whether these apes—our closest living relatives—can track the whereabouts of people, even when they are out of sight.

Kanzi, a bonobo known for tool use and language skills, participated in experiments in which his caretakers hid behind screens. He was asked to identify them from pictures or voices and succeeded more than half the time, above chance (here’s a video of the experiment).

”Kanzi presented a unique and powerful opportunity to address our question in a much more straightforward way than would be possible with almost any other ape in the world,” said authors Luz Carvajal and Christopher Krupenye of Johns Hopkins University. “He exhibited not only strong engagement with cognitive tasks but also rich forms of communication with humans—including pointing, use of symbols, and response to spoken English.”
Kanzi was also a gamer who played Pac-Man and Minecraft. Image: William H. Calvin, PhD -
Sadly, this was one of Kanzi’s last amazing feats, as he died in March at the age of 44 in his long-time home at the Ape Initiative in Des Moines, Iowa. But as revealed by this posthumous study, Kanzi’s legacy as a cognitive bridge between apes lives on. RIP to a real one.

Zero to 4.5 million mph in a millisecond


Glanz, Hila and Perets Hagai B. et al. “The origin of hypervelocity white dwarfs in the merger disruption of He–C–O white dwarfs.” Nature Astronomy.

We will close with dead stars that are careening out of the galaxy at incomprehensible speeds. These objects, known as hypervelocity white dwarfs, are corpses of stars similar in scale to the Sun, but it remains unclear why some of them fully yeet themselves into intergalactic space.

“Hypervelocity white dwarfs (HVWDs) are stellar remnants moving at speeds that exceed the Milky Way’s escape velocity,” said researchers co-led by Hila Glanz and Hagai B. Perets of the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. “The origins of the fastest HVWDs are enigmatic, with proposed formation scenarios struggling to explain both their extreme velocities and observed properties.”

The team modeled a possible solution that involves special white dwarfs with dense carbon-oxygen cores and outer layers of helium, known as hybrid helium-carbon-oxygen (HeCO) white dwarfs. When two He-CO white dwarfs merge, it may trigger a “double-detonation explosion” that launches one of the objects to speeds of about 4.5 million miles per hour.

“We have demonstrated that the merger of two HeCO white dwarfs can produce HVWDs with properties consistent with observations” which “provides a compelling explanation for the origin of the fastest HVWDs and sheds new light on the diversity of explosive transients in the Universe,” the researchers concluded.

With that, may you sail at hypervelocity speeds out of this galaxy and into the weekend.

Thanks for reading! See you next week.






“Tutti i popoli, anche i più piccoli e i più deboli, devono essere rispettati dai potenti nella loro identità e nei loro diritti, in particolare il diritto di vivere nelle proprie terre; e nessuno può costringerli a un esilio forzato”.


ha valore una vita dove ti rendi conto palesemente di aver conosciuto solo automi o persone di scarso valore, o come minimo privi di empatia o sensibilità?



Candle Oscillator Really Heats Things Up


As the timebase for a clock, almost anything with a periodic oscillation can be used. Traditionally, that meant a pendulum, but in our time, we’ve seen plenty of others. Perhaps none as unusual as [Tim]’s candle flicker clock, though.

Candles are known for their flickering, a property of the wick and the fuel supply that candle manufacturers have gone to great lengths to mitigate. If you bring several of them together, they will have a significant flicker, with a surprisingly consistent 9.9 Hz frequency. This is the timebase for the clock, with the capacitance of the flame being sensed by a wire connected to a CH32 microcontroller, and processed to produce the required timing.

We like this project, and consider it a shame that it’s not an entry in our One Hertz Challenge. Oddly, though, it’s not the first candle-based oscillator we’ve seen; they can even be turned into active electronic devices.


hackaday.com/2025/08/23/candle…



“Il futuro della prosperità umana dipende da quale ‘amore’ scegliamo per organizzare la nostra società: un amore egoistico, l’amore per sé stessi o l’amore per Dio e per il prossimo. Noi, naturalmente, conosciamo già la risposta.