The prospect of speaking dolphin or whale is irresistible. And it seems that they are just as enthusiastic. In November last year, scientists in Alaska recorded an acoustic “conversation” with a humpback whale called Twain, in which they exchanged a call-and-response form known as “whup/throp” with the animal over a 20-minute period. - The Guardian
Technically speaking, an algorithm wrote the text, but a human had to prompt the algorithm. So who or what is the author? Is it the algorithm, or the human, or a joint venture involving both? Why does it even matter? - Noema
I’m not claiming that most people are saying “Let’s get rid of capitalism,” because it still delivers the bacon, to some extent. But I do think that many people are looking for a way to make it work better for everybody, and not just for the few. - Yale Review
When you listen to a steady rhythm, your brain doesn’t just process it—it reconfigures itself in real time. A new study introduces FREQ-NESS, an advanced neuroimaging method that reveals how different frequencies of brainwaves form dynamic networks across the brain. - Neuroscience News
“The structures are built using a range of materials and passive cooling principles. The facade of the Bima microlibrary in Bandung was built in 2015 with 2,000 discarded ice cream buckets.” - The Guardian (UK)
A professor of political science writes that there's “extensive research finding correlations between one’s tendency to believe in the bootstraps version of the American Dream and exposure to shows like America’s Got Talent, American Idol, and Shark Tank.” - Salon
“In the cutthroat world of food social media, recipe photos need to look not just good but incredible. People eat with their eyes, and that applies doubly when they’re choosing recipes to make from a vast online catalog that can often feel overwhelming.” - Slate
Maybe - but no sarcasm, please. "We already have umpteen animated takedowns – Robot Chicken’s fever-dream dismemberments, Family Guy’s fart-laced remakes – and they’re fine, in their way.” But not from the franchise itself. - The Guardian (UK)
Psychological studies have long shown how memories can be shaped by cues, doctored images, or repeated misinformation. What AI adds is scale and precision. - 3 Quarks Daily
It was simply that, when people who once functioned on a need-to-know basis were all of a sudden forced to adjudicate all of the information all of the time, the default heuristic was just to throw in one’s lot with the generally like-minded. - The New Yorker
Colour, as many people understand it, is the property of a thing. That light is green. The sky is blue. But scientifically, that’s not quite true. No one can experience the exact same colour as you do. Colour is a perceptual experience created by our brains. - The Conversation
Venturing even a tiny bit beyond the red edge of the rainbow, into the undiscovered country of the infrared, is a transformative experience: it reveals an entire hidden Universe, a previously walled-off layer of reality that we are now exploring every day as results pour in from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). - Aeon
Rutger Bregman, 37, is a Dutch historian who has written best-selling books arguing that the world is better (mostly meaning wealthier, healthier and more humane) than we’re typically led to believe, and also that further improving it is easily within our reach. - The New York Times
