I try to learn something new every day — this wasn’t one I was expecting for today — but handy knowledge. Turns out there’s a primate that can kill you with its elbows. A whale that escapes predators by essentially detonating a cloud of its own excrement. An armadillo that…
Education
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College Students Are Arriving Without Basic Math Skills, and AI Isn’t the Only Culprit
A group of University of California math and science professors just sent a letter to campus leadership with a blunt message: incoming students no longer understand middle school math. Not “struggle with calculus” — can’t handle fractions, basic algebra, foundational concepts that used to be settled by eighth grade. Nearly…
Culture
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The Distance Between USA on July 4, 1976 and Today — Measured in Collapsed Certainties
Colorado Springs, July 4, 1976. Eleven years old. Standing in line to sign a ledger — name, age, city. Farmington Hills, MI. The oldest sibling, the one trusted to write legibly, the one who did the math: if I live to 111, I’ll come back for the Tricentennial. The idea…
Money
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Alaska Senator Pleads Poverty — Then Drops $21K on Lavish French Dinners
Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan sent emails last month asking donors for $3, $5, maybe $10 — just enough to fill up his tank so he could visit isolated parts of the state. Heartstring-tugging stuff. The kind of pitch that makes you picture a guy thumbing through his glove box for…
Global Trends
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Meteorologists Are Watching September 2026 for Super El Niño — And They’re Not Optimistic
I studied meteorology during my four years in college, as I have written about before. As I have stated, I was terrible at actually predicting the weather — but I learned enough to know when something genuinely fascinating is happening. And right now that “something” is happening, in the Pacific…
Health
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Americans Dying Younger: The Generation That Lost the Longevity Lottery
For most of the 20th century, a quiet assumption ran through American life: each generation would outlive the one before it. Better medicine, better food, better lives. It held true, decade after decade, until it stopped. A new analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds…
Health
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AI Doctors Are Coming to America — And They Don’t Carry Malpractice Insurance
There’s a push underway to bring AI doctors into American medicine, and it’s got Trump’s backing. Not AI-assisted diagnostics or decision support tools — actual AI systems making medical calls, triaging patients, prescribing treatments. The kind of thing that sounds like science fiction until you realize venture capital has already…
Culture
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When Your Zoo Loses a Crocodile, a Mob of Kangaroos, and All Credibility
There’s a Nile crocodile loose somewhere in central Louisiana. Not “loose” in the metaphorical sense — actually missing. Gone. Vanished from a horse trough after eating a bird, leaving behind only cinder blocks and questions. The crocodile, which can grow to 16 feet and 1,000 pounds, is somewhere out there…
Culture
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Why Reading Beats Scrolling (Besides the Obvious)
You probably already know — somewhere beneath the guilt of your phone’s screen-time report — that reading a book beats doomscrolling. One spikes your cortisol; the other doesn’t. One leaves you wired at 2 a.m.; the other puts you to sleep in the best way possible. But the case for…
Environment
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Google Wants to Release 64 Million Mosquitoes — Yes, on Purpose
Google’s Debug program just filed a request with the EPA to release up to 64 million mosquitoes across California and Florida over two years. Not a typo. Not a leak from a dystopian screenplay. An actual permit application to flood two of the nation’s most populated states with tens of…