Could play have evolutionary benefits? From sledding crows to roughhousing wolves to bees rolling balls, we examine how play shapes the animal kingdom. Plus, why children need risky play. It’s “The Play’s the Thing” this week on Big Picture Science.
Listen here: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-plays-the-thing
Me: my superpower is I always get free food when I least expect it
Orcas:
#PPOD: Naturally erupting dust streaks on Mars create structures that look surprisingly like trees near the planet's north pole. These streaks are dark basaltic sand pushed to the surface of sand dunes by sun-heated solid carbon dioxide ice, or dry ice, sublimating directly into vapor. The sand dunes form a nearly complete ring around Mars' north pole and are covered by a thin layer of reddish Martian dust and patches of dry ice. Credit: NASA, HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona)
Open letter from #EPA employees says their boss has
has been "adopting the messaging of political propaganda, rather than the #science that the EPA’s work relies on. This includes spreading misinformation about science through official EPA channels, claiming science is a 'religion,' praising 'clean coal'(which does not exist), and attacking members of Congress (which may have violated the Hatch Act, which disallows political campaigning by federal employees)."
https://electrek.co/2025/07/01/hundreds-of-epa-employees-have-asked-their-boss-lee-zeldin-to-stop-lying/
If Austrian economics is the only true economics, why isn't it taught in universities?
The answer is that the #bureaucracy, the state cannot profit from it. Because people who know the real economics will not allow the bureaucrats, the state to do what they can do now.
#economics #austrianeconomics #science #statism #education
My cartoon for this week's @newscientist.com #science #mattdamon
Scientists and engineers ask questions that lead to discoveries we can’t yet imagine, sometimes even trillion-dollar breakthroughs. And yet today, we're systematically undercutting their work.
https://open.substack.com/pub/sheril/p/the-end-of-american-dominance?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web #uspol #science
Breaking: Astronomers have found a likely new interstellar object passing through our solar system.
A11pl3Z seems to have the most extreme hyperbolic orbit yet measured. More observations coming soon.
https://earthsky.org/space/new-interstellar-object-candidate-heading-toward-the-sun-a11pl3z/ #science #nature #space
Call for papers:
(Un)natural Stevenson: Wild transgressions across literature, ecology, science & gender
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 11–12 May 2026
This conference aims to explore the concept of nature/natural in Robert Louis Stevenson’s work, & to investigate Stevenson both as a writer of dichotomies/dualisms & of their wild transgressions
@litstudies
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EoselkYayxzSXzW36aDZTbZv_SQt8cCG/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #LiteraryStudies #ecology #science #gender
The #FDA’s top #vaccine & #GeneTherapy official resigned on Tues after a public campaign against him led by the #FarRight influencer [& unofficial #Trump adviser] #LauraLoomer…
Over the past week, Loomer had taken to #socialmedia to attack the Dr. Vinay Prasad for a series of decisions denying approval of new drugs for rare #diseases. She highlighted past statements of support he had made for figures on the left, including #BernieSanders…
#science
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/health/vinay-prasad-fda-resigns-loomer.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
8 Things to Know About New Research on Earth’s Rapid Drying and the Loss of Its Groundwater
—
Decades of NASA satellite data reveal how quickly the planet’s underground stores of fresh water have been depleted and how their use is contributing to rising sea levels. Here are the key takeaways.
https://www.propublica.org/article/groundwater-fresh-water-depletion-research-science-advances-takeaways?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Science #Climate #Environment #ClimateChange #Water #NASA #Data
Christiaan Huygens and the Scientific Secrets of Saturn
Seventeenth-century science was so competitive that Christiaan Huygens used a cipher to conceal his Saturn observations when sharing them with interlocutors.
By: Danny Robb
https://daily.jstor.org/christiaan-huygens-and-the-scientific-secrets-of-saturn/
Christiaan Huygens at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5648
Our bodies are marvels of evolution, yet evolution is not a perfect engineer. It works with what it’s got, which explains our sore feet and aching backs. We look at our complicated evolutionary past and What Moves Us on this week’s Big Picture Science.
Listen here: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/what-moves-us
As I split my time between SF and Monterey:
If what I keep hearing in SF is ‘AGI’ (lol) what I keep hearing about in Monterey is ‘sea star wasting disease’
And they have finally found the cause for it. It’s a huge deal for climate, etc
https://apnews.com/article/sea-star-wasting-disease-epidemic-f2ab802ae8787618a5905c566d38e0c5
