Leading off this week, it's mud: Special mud rubbed on all MLB baseballs has unique, 'magical' properties, study finds.
From Chris M., and it's an incredible story: Seem like peanut allergies were once rare and now everyone has them?
From Wally, and I only heard about it when it was going away: Amazon to shut down Kindle Vella serial book platform, saying it ‘hasn’t caught on as we’d hoped’. Allegedly: Scientists Just Named This 2024 Indie Horror Movie One of the Scariest Films Ever Made. They mention the Jaws theme: What makes music scary? Instrumentation, composition and your imagination. This was unfortunately inevitable: AI Is Fueling a Science Fiction Scam That Hurts Publishers, Writers, and Even Some of the Scammers. From the Midwest: Pasties, Our Regional Comfort Food.
From C. Lee, and it shouldn't be a surprise: Can video games improve your cognitive performance? Western-led study says yes. A fantastic essay: Why play a fascist? Unpacking the hideousness of the Space Marine. Alarming: Lawsuit: Chatbot that allegedly caused teen’s suicide is now more dangerous for kids. A wild story: Woman stuck upside-down between 2 boulders trying to retrieve her phone freed after 7 hours. Insane: The American Dream Now Costs $4.4 Million. Incredible: Scurvy Is Making a Surprising Comeback. The Chicago Manual of Style: A Venerable and Time-Tested Guide. A fraud, of course: The Inconvenient Scholarship of Kevin Roberts: Samuel G. Freedman traces the long and contradictory intellectual journey of the man behind Project 2025. Bizarre: Factorio has Silicon Valley tycoons like Elon Musk under its spell, and one $7 billion CEO is letting employees expense the game. Everything is bad for you, or isn't: Standing desks are bad for your health – new study. A fascinating possibility: Can walls of oysters protect shores against hurricanes? Darpa wants to know.