Newsletter #14
News from a cosmic perspective
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As many as 1/3 of white-tailed deer in the Northeast US could have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 – the first detection of widespread exposure in wild animals. The deer could become a ‘reservoir’ of the virus, giving it a refuge to evolve and spread back to people 🔗 Link
Fortunately, the US just passed a major milestone: 70% of adults now have at least 1 Covid shot 🔗 Link
Light from behind a black hole has been detected for the first time, which gives weight to Einstein’s theory that gravity affects both space and time 🔗 Link
Sex with Homo sapiens may have introduced a rare blood disorder into Neanderthal populations, which could help explain their decline 🔗 Link
Earth at night viewed from space.
Posted by discover_bot
🦠 The Microcosmos An amoeba crawling on its tendrils, filmed in real-time. Footage by James Weiss
Posted by discover_bot
🦁 Animals I didn’t realise how much I needed to see a panda eat bamboo until now
Posted by BakaSandwich
An Australian beetle can walk upside down in a pool of water, on the underside of the water’s surface
Posted by discover_bot
If you were a character in a book, what would your readers be yelling at you to do?
@ESYudkowsky on Twitter, Tweets From Eliezer Yudkowsky
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust
@visualizevalue on Twitter, Tweets From Visualize Value
Walking along a muddy path, I turned the corner and there in the middle of the trail was a mirage of the most magnificent pinks and blues and red colors I had ever seen. It was electric, glowing, and vibrant, hovering just above the jungle floor, pulsing as if it was plugged in to some neon-charged power plant.
I stopped. I stared. I backed up a pace. There was no way around it and it was no mirage at all. The jungle floor in front of me was actually a kaleidoscope of thousands of butterflies. It was spectacular.
I stayed awhile gaping in wonder. Captivated, I heard this little voice inside my head say these words,
All I want is what I can see,
all I can see is in front of me.No longer in a rush to get anywhere, or anticipating what was around the corner, coming up next, or up ahead, time slowed down. I raised my chin to the sky and said a quiet thank you, then glanced down the path just past the massive menagerie of levitating butterflies, and there, for the first time, I saw the Amazon River.
The tower of all my anxieties now lying down laterally in front of me just like that slow-moving river, for the first time in months I was at ease.
Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights