Archaeologists Recruited a Group of Amateurs—and Uncovered a Collection of Roman Treasures

What's not to love? A group of amateurs that included school kids, families, and assorted others went on a hunt for treasure in England. And quickly found some. 

Fun stuff. 

Archaeologists Recruited Amateurs—and Uncovered Roman Treasures https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a68990619/group-of-amateurs-roman-treasures/

New Alzheimer's Treatment Clears Plaques From Brains of Mice Within Hours : ScienceAlert

This is a novel approach to finding an Alzheimer's treatment.  Scientists working in collaboration in China and Spain are looking at the blood brain barrier, to see if enhancing its protective boundary can help clear plaque.

And in early tests, using mice, they've had some success.  Meaning that this approach could have some potential to provide a new treatment option.  As they say, stay tuned…

One aside I will note is that it would seem (in general) more innovative research is happening outside of the US, which is feeling sad in many ways. 

https://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimers-treatment-clears-plaques-from-brains-of-mice-within-hours

james Webb Space Telescope

The telescope is an amazing leap forward, and it gives us a unique ability to understand our cosmos.

Over the last few months, there have been some amazing discoveries that I'd like to share:

1. They managed to capture the before and after of a supernova.  It was a fortuitous moment, but it will help us to understand how these events occur.
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2.  They captured two black holes orbiting each other; something that had never been detected previously.
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3. Following the black hole notion, they saw a black hole that "tore through" a galaxy and left a scar.
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4. Astronomers think they have found a new kind of dark energy, and in this case, they believe it powers a star - contrary to what we thought we knew about dark energy
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5. NASA made an estimate of the size of a celestial object (3I/Atlas - one of those "mystery objects" we detected).  The JWST looked at it more closely and the astronomers determined it was much larger than they estimated; it’s nearly twice as big as earth. And, they were able to obtain chemical readings of the object, in order to better assess & understand what it is.
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Its truly amazing what we are able to do and see using this telescope.

ESPN

I watched a video this morning about the rise and fall of ESPN. It was interesting and covered all the broad points, talked about how they changed their model from a financial standpoint (moving from a cable model to streaming), how the studio shows and hosts changed with the times (more discussion, and more social-media focused), and how they've paid more to get rights to games. 

Honestly, I thought it was pretty even in the way they laid it out.

However, there were a series of comments attached to the video that explained in MAGA-related terms why ESPN failed! 

In summary:

• They are "woke" (yeah, this was a comment on several times)
• They went away from just focusing on the scores of games, and have too many "stories"
• They are actively engaged in politics 
• "Disney" (several comments related to how Disney messed it all up)
• They cover non-mainstream sports
• They try to fan the flames of this, that, or the other 

I'm thinking to myself that it's interesting that Dan Le Batard was at one point the most popular host on the network, and he talked about politics a lot - he got  admonished for it, and was later removed by Disney in spite of his popularity. So I think you can simply ignore that line of reasoning.  Disney has its faults (no doubt!) but they're running it like a sporting behemoth should, I think.  Lots of content that appeals to very many people, and (as much as I hate it), including information about betting because its what people want. (and to be fair, their price point for the streaming service is absurd, but they are giving viewers lots of sports)

And as to the other stuff?  Well of course "woke" is just a word like "idiocy."  But what became clear was that commetors didn't like the fact that there are women and african american hosts! (the horror!). They didn't like the fact that they talked about anything related to race or a general sort of equity *in the context of the story*.  And they didn't like the fact that they're covering things like the WNBA. Racism and misogyny on full display!

Because, according to the context, their love of sport is about their team, and those gladiators.  I would summarize the general thought as athletes need to "just shut up and dribble." 

Its wild to see things through their eyes sometimes.

Book club?

My not-at-all-religious mom was telling me that someone invited her to Bible study "anytime she'd like" ... she politely declined.

My response to her was a little more snarky "oh you have a book club! But no thanks, because you keep talking about the same book week after week."

This is somethin’

I somehow missed this…

…what an absolute buffoon…