Residents forced to abandon homes as coastal community faces worsening crisis — here's what's happening

The net of the story is that it's *related to* climate change….however, the biggest contributing factor is that the government put in a dam that caused the environment in this community to be altered. 

But yes, they put in the dam to protect agriculture due to a changing climate. 

So it's sort of an indirect sort of effect. Even though there has been some amount of sea level rise that was also affecting them.

https://www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/thailand-coastal-village-sea-levels-tourism/

Soarin into 3rd place

My program continues to run well. I have a few issues here and there with it not selecting an answer, which I think is due to how it "sees" the question (there is sometimes hidden text and other times the answer is too close to the question so it appears like it's not a match). And there's the issue of "map questions" where it asks you to touch where a city is. These don't follow the standard A B C D answers. 

Louvre heist reveals museum used ‘LOUVRE’ as password for its video surveillance, still has workstations with Windows 2000 - glaring security weaknesses revealed in previous report | Tom's Hardware

Well. Alrighty then. 

Windows 2000, with all of its outdated and unsupported security issues. Unchanged and easy to guess passwords. It sounds like the Louvre didn't take its technical security seriously enough.  

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/louvre-heist-reveals-glaring-security-weaknesses-previous-reports-say-museum-used-louvre-as-password-for-its-video-surveillance-still-has-workstations-with-windows-2000

Common Sweetener Could Damage Critical Brain Barrier, Risking Stroke : ScienceAlert

First off, I'm glad to see that there are still scientific studies ongoing at US universities. And sincerely hope that they are able to, and do, continue. 

Second, what they found in their study is that eryththritol, which was heralded as a great breakthrough in alternative sweeteners, may actually be (very) bad for brain health. 

I've tried it in a few drinks and thought it tasted weird, and so I've stuck to sugar. But it's interesting to learn more about these chemical compounds that are engineered. 

https://www.sciencealert.com/erythritol-sweetener-blood-brain-barrier-study#

Bob Iger Interview: Podcast Shares His Disney Successors and Legacy

Bob Iger provides a look into his tenure as ceo, and gives a few insights into the role and what it's like to follow in Walt's footsteps. 

The linked podcast is about 30 minutes and is a good listen…and the podcast has a few other episodes related to Walt and the company that are now on my playlist. 

"That's really constant innovation, a constant exploration, a constant essentially desire to reinvent and or to invent even more than anything else. That's what I'd want," he continued. "But I think we do occupy a place in the world as great storytellers, perhaps maybe the greatest in many respects. And I would hope that that position would continue for years and years."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/bob-iger-successors-legacy-podcast-1236420559/

Space power: The dream of beaming solar energy from orbit

A company tested the feasibility of beaming energy from space by testing out a land based solution. 

They took their prototype system to a football field and beamed the energy across that expanse. 

You can't fault them for proving out their equipment without having to launch into space, for now. 

And now they're about ready to take it to that next step. And with the cost to launch being at a reasonable place, it's certainly feasible. 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251029-the-beam-dream-should-we-build-solar-farms-in-space

Female-Led Arab Team Turn Coffee and Plastic Waste into Activated Carbon, Capturing CO2 in the Atmosphere

The outcome - using coffee and plastic to create a carbon capture device  to reduce CO2 - is pretty cool. 

But more than that this was brought about by a group of women who are Arabic. In some places, women are not allowed to work  as researchers, so it's good to see something positive like this. 

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/female-led-arab-team-turn-coffee-and-plastic-waste-into-activated-carbon-capturing-co2-in-the-atmosphere/

Reversing peanut advice prevented tens of thousands of allergy cases, researchers say : NPR

This is a remarkable story. It's peculiar how peanut allergies spiked for around 20 years and became a thing so a researcher started studying what was going on. 

He got the peanut industry to fund the research and then studied children in Israel who had a lower incidence of peanut allergies against children from similar backgrounds who lived in the US. 

And what he found was that children in Israel were given a peanut snack fairly commonly from a very young age, where children in the states were not. 

And after studying further the conclusion was that avoiding peanuts in young children actually increased the likelihood of peanut allergies. 

The recommendation, then, was to introduce peanuts early, and the number of cases we y down. 

Science for the win. 

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/21/nx-s1-5580211/peanut-allergy-study

Scientists May Have Found a Simple Way to Reverse Aging Eyes

Well that's cool.

Working with lab animals, a group of researchers have determined that a lack of fatty acids reduces eyesight. And by reintroducing them, the aging of eyes can be reversed. 

I wonder if there's a course of action we can take as humans to help maintain healthy eyes. Time will tell…

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-may-have-found-a-simple-way-to-reverse-aging-eyes/

Hidden pathogens uncovered in Napoleon’s doomed Russian invasion

As the article notes, Napoleons march to Moscow was one of the costliest war efforts, ever. 

The cold, the distance, and most notably disease wiped out his army. 

Now, we are learning through dna research that the biggest factor was disease.  And not just a single strain of typhoid, but rather a host of diseases that ravaged his army. 

I find it kind of fascinating to think about how perhaps things could have gone differently if we had antibiotics or vaccines. 

And it should serve as a reminder to us about what could (and perhaps will) happen to the US population if we don't immunize against diseases. 

The attached pictograph is one of the most famous depictions of the effort, it shows the size of his army as it left France, in brown and the returning army in black. It also has a  scale for time and relative temperature along the bottom. 

https://www.wesh.com/article/napoleon-1812-invasion-army-diseases-dna/69151987

Scientist develops game-changing new compound that solves major issue with plastics: 'People told me I was wasting my time'

Sometimes you just have to ignore the voices that tell you no, or that you are wasting your time. 

Enter a professor at Boise state who had never worked with polymers before, but who decided that plastic waste was a problem he could help with in some way. 

So over the course of several years, he self taught about polymers and their reactions. 

And he came up with an engineered form of a polymer that's stable under most conditions, but can be easily broken down into its base elements for re-use. 

Sure, it's nowhere close to be a commercial product, but it could (and probably will) be at some point. 

It's pretty cool what a little ingenuity and some commitment can do. 

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/closed-loop-recycling-plastic-waste-sustainable/

Transparent solar windows hit Chinese homes — Energy everywhere you see

This is pretty cool. A thin, clear coating is placed on a window to collect solar radiation. This radiation is then transferred to photovoltaic cells on the edge of the window. 

And … voila. Energy is easily stored and can be used in the building that has the windows. 

https://www.ecoportal.net/en/transparent-solar-windows-chinese-homes/13594/

Japan to Beam Energy Down to Earth From Space in First Real Test of Orbital Power Transmission

While no launch date has been announced, the plan is still to launch a washing machine sized object into space. This device will collect the suns rays and then beam the energy that is collected down to an earth station using microwaves.  Then, this microwave energy will be used to provide power, like a power station. 

So it quite literally is beaming energy from space. Something Arthur C Clarke had hypothesized about more than 50 years ago. 

How cool!

https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/10/japan-to-beam-energy-down-to-earth-from-space-in-first-real-test-of-orbital-power-transmission/

Watch "What Happened to Walt Disney’s Weird Cinema Lens?" on YouTube

This is a well thought out story about the CinemaScope lens - the same one that Walt Disney used while filming 20,000 leagues under the sea. 

Your host not only tells the story, he got his hands on a lens, and was able to test it out … and in short it was amazing!

This story covers cinematic history in a fun way. It's worth 15 minutes of your time. 

https://youtu.be/Vg0ftclnwzI?si=iVGGyhdeU5k8T8Co

Wireless EV Charging Inches Closer as Breakthroughs Emerge - Autoblog

Here's an article about how different companies are taking on the idea of wireless ev charging - and how they're having great success in their laboratory environments. 

Now the real test will come in deploying it to the real world and ensuring cars manage to connect to them "right" or if somehow the devices can adjust to the receiver. 

But it is another cool leap forward. 

Imagine charging without having to plug in, in under 20 minutes. 

https://www.autoblog.com/news/wireless-ev-charging-inches-closer-as-breakthroughs-emerge

Soarin’ Round 2

I had a weird notion to restart a quest to top the soarin' game again 

So I started writing some code. And this time, I decided to capture the questions and answers in a database and use that to help up the percentage of correct answers. 

The game is "quirky" in the way it works, and there is some weird spacing that happens on some questions, but not others. 

So I had to write some additional functions to account for that. 

And the early results are good. It didn't take me long to get to a million and a half points. 

But with the top being at 13.6 million, it'll take some time to catch up; and no telling if that person will start playing as I catch up.