Daniel S Helman, PhD

I'm an artist who turned tail and became a teacher—then geoscientist, working in mineralogy, sustainability and nonviolence.

[Daniel S Helman, PhD @HelmanDaniel]

If you are in another country and want to help with US:

Set up trade deals with co-operatives in the US. This will help create more co-ops in the US, and offset the influence of the horrible corporate culture here. Current US politics are an extension of their corporate culture.

[Hereafter @idyllicmusing]

Soil fertility alone explains 34% of the differences in national IQ. Countries on the best soils (Mollisols, Andisols) average 10–15 IQ points higher than those on the wort soils (Oxisols, Ultisols), even before accounting for education or income.
This geographic pattern is visible in real populations. Japan and Taiwan sit on volcanic Andisols and consistently rank among the highest in global intelligence metrics due to their nutrient‑rich, high‑CEC soils. Meanwhile, much of equatorial Africa rests on Oxisols, soils so weathered and nutrient‑stripped that they produce chronically low micronutrient availability.
The further a soil’s pH drifts from 6.5, the more national IQ (MNIQ) declines. If your soil is too acidic (like much of the tropics), zinc and iron become unavailable. If your soil is too alkaline (like the Middle East), micronutrients get locked up too. The correlation between soil fertility and national IQ is r = 0.58, meaning soil alone accounts for 34% of the variation. Explaining 34% of a complex human trait is extremely high.

[James 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇺🇦 @EasyPeasy_3]

His date of birth is 17 Dec 2005. Please retweet this. If you know him, please tell him to remain anonymous. He just needs to contact DKMS, even if it’s to say ‘no’. That would give us closure.

[Antonio Lupetti @antoniolupetti]

Most introductions to trigonometry define sine and cosine in terms of angles measured by arc length on the unit circle. There is a less familiar but remarkably rigorous approach that defines the angle through the area of a circular sector instead.

In this formulation, an angle is not associated with the length of a curve but with a quantity that can be computed directly using integral calculus.

It is an example of how calculus can provide a complete analytic foundation for trigonometry, avoiding some of the logical circularities that often arise in elementary presentations.

Here you can find a complete treatment of the foundations of trigonometry, from the unit circle to rigorous analytic definitions:

https://t.co/9YhdJVrAD4

[Larry Sanger @lsanger]

This has never happened on Wikipedia before.

Nearly 1000 Wikipedia editors have joined in solidarity with a union.

Yes, really.

They're threatening to strike: 961 accounts have signed a protest petition. It's fascinating and potentially historic. 👇

[Daniel S Helman, PhD @HelmanDaniel]

@LibyaLiberty I like the assignment.
No way she should be suspended.

But...

How do you explain Talwar's response to the Bondi beach shooting?

Read the article?

[Amitabha Bandyopadhy @abandopa]

I am happy to report that we have developed the world's first biomaterial capable of regenerating cartilage damaged by osteoarthritis (OA). @AdvSciNews
https://t.co/znptDKCPP2

Let me explain the significance in a🧵1/7

[Gianluca Martino @gianlucamart1]

🧵"Desidero che la Papamobile venga trasformata in una clinica mobile e donata ai bambini di Gaza"
Questa è una delle ultime volontà di Papa Francesco prima di morire.
Ad eseguire la disposizione di Papa Francesco, il Vaticano incarica il cardinale svedese Anders Arborelius che a sua volta incarica la Caritas svedese per la trasformazione del veicolo.

Quando la stampa dà la notizia dell'incarico alla Caritas svedese di trasformare la Papamobile in clinica mobile per i bambini di Gaza, scatta la solidarietà dei cittadini svedesi che in pochi giorni inviano alla Caritas cospicue donazioni.

Grazie alle somme raccolte, la Caritas, non solo riesce a trasformare la Papamobile in una clinica mobile fornita di attrezzature mediche di ultima generazione, ma acquista altre 12 ambulanze da inviare a Gaza.

A novembre dello scorso anno, quando i lavori sulla Papamobile sono ultimati, per celebrare l'evento e assolvere all'ultima volontà di Papa Francesco, il Vaticano sceglie Betlemme, la città simbolo per eccellenza della cristianità, la città dove nacque Cristo.
In Piazza della Mangiatoia, il cardinale Anders Arborelius benedice la Papamobile e le ambulanze in partenza verso Gaza.
La Papamobile viene rinominata "Veicolo della Speranza".

Passano giorni, settimane e poi mesi ma gli occupanti israeliani non consentono alla Caritas di fare entrare il Veicolo della Speranza a Gaza.
I rappresentanti del Vaticano e della Caritas chiedono più volte spiegazioni ma Israele si prende gioco di loro inventando storie assurde.
"Non è pervenuta alcuna richiesta di autorizzazione"
E poi ancora: "I materiali sanitari all'interno della Papamobile potrebbero finire nelle mani di Hamas ed essere usati come armi".

E intanto la Papamobile, trasformata in un gioiello della tecnologia medica, in grado di curare 200 bambini al giorno, è ancora lì, dopo sette mesi, sotto una teca in un parcheggio a pochi metri da Piazza della Mangiatoia in attesa di raggiungere i bambini di Gaza.

In uno stupendo articolo scritto dal cardinale Arborelius su ICN, Independent Catholic News (*link nel primo commento) il cardinale si rivolge alle autorità israeliane, chiede, quasi supplica, di lasciare entrare il Veicolo della Speranza ma non rinuncia a scrivere: "Negare le cure mediche ai bambini significa oltrepassare un limite morale che dovrebbe turbare tutti".

Limite morale che non turba i leader politici occidentali che ostentano senza ritegno la loro fede cristiana ma restano in un vile silenzio mentre la colonia di plastica denominata Israele umilia il Vaticano prendendosi gioco delle ultime volontà di un Papa.
Che schifo!

[Daniel S Helman, PhD @HelmanDaniel]

@FeralHeather I'm partial to Stephan Balkenhol.
I think his style is so very friendly.

https://t.co/qksl9nHUVg

[Daniel S Helman, PhD @HelmanDaniel]

@aliciaandrz Nutritional yeast helped me a lot with mood. A few teaspoons per day for a few days.

Your mileage may vary!!

[Daniel S Helman, PhD @HelmanDaniel]

@ggreenwald My 2¢:

The assignment is not the issue.

It's the professor's reaction to the Bondi beach massacre and how she treated her student then (and after) that set off this chain of events.

Read the article?

I rather like the assignment.
It's horrible that she was suspended.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

Glorification? There was zero glory in my addiction. It was truly the most excruciatingly humiliating and degrading experience you could possibly imagine. I wanted to commit suicide almost daliy, but didn’t have the courage for even that. Instead I’d reach for the pipe or the bottle. The cowards way out. The guilt. The shame. The hurt. The absolute misery of it. Yet here I am. And I am not alone. There are millions upon millions of us. We don’t all agree on politics or people or who we root for on Sunday. But we all have the shared experience of walking through that fire and surviving. I chose to live. That’s not a joke.

[Dr Tom Montgomery @DrTOMontgomery]

#Bees

Bumblebees: much more clever than previously thought.

A remarkable new study provides evidence that bumblebees can exhibit spontaneous problem-solving— challenging previous belief that such advanced cognitive abilities are exclusive to large-brained vertebrates.

Report and video in thread.

[Dr. Robert Rohde @RARohde]

Since the detection of New World Screwworm in Texas is all over the news, I am reminded of this Kurtzgesagt video that explains the unusual, unending war that has kept this parasite in check for decades.

https://t.co/iFuQgN5FJE

[Rohan Paul @rohanpaul_ai]

This Google DeepMind’s paper is a serious warning for anyone using autonomous agents today.

Gives the first clear taxonomy of 6 attack types where harmful websites can detect AI agents and show them hidden content humans never see, like

- Instructions buried in HTML comments or white-on-white text

- Steganography in image pixels

- Override commands in PDFs, metadata, or even speaker notes

- Memory poisoning that persists across sessions

- Goal hijacking and cross-agent cascades in multi-agent setups

The real security problem for AI agents is not just the model, but the environment it reads.

The web itself can be weaponized against autonomous AI agents. As agents increasingly browse the internet, read emails, execute transactions, and spawn sub-agents, the information environment becomes an attack surface.

In one cited benchmark, hidden prompt injections embedded in web content partially commandeered agents in up to 86% of scenarios, sub-agent hijacking working 58–90% of the time, and data exfiltration attacks clearing 80% across five different agent architectures.

That reframes the whole debate.

We usually talk about model safety as if the danger sits inside the weights, but agents do something more fragile: they browse, retrieve, remember, and act on untrusted material in real time.

Here’s the thing to worry about.

A web page does not have to look malicious to be dangerous to an agent, because the agent may parse what humans never see: hidden HTML comments, metadata, CSS-hidden text, formatting syntax, or adversarial content embedded in images and other media.

The threat gets more serious once memory enters the loop.

If an agent uses RAG or persistent memory, poisoning no longer has to win in one shot. It can sit quietly in a corpus or memory store and activate later, which is why the paper highlights results showing latent memory poisoning above 80% attack success with less than 0.1% data contamination.

---

ssrn .com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6372438

[Nirmalya Kajuri @Kaju_Nut]

Planning to be in Europe in July but in a bit of a pickle with Visa issues. I booked my return on 30 July, but my visit to CERN ends on the 17th. I need an official invitation for the interim.

Most of you will be away for summer, but if anyone in Schengen lands would be interested to host me at their uni bw July 20-29, DM me.

[Daniel S Helman, PhD @HelmanDaniel]

@gilbert CopyQ works very well, if you're in Linux.

Set to retain your five latest clipboard contents, but you can set it to retain many more than that.

Click on the icon and you get a menu from which you can paste your older contents.

[Citizen of EU @wavetossed]

@pierpi13 What a ridiculous moronic posting.
We know exactly what tools were used in Egypt and it explains why they never bothered mich with metals even though they knew about meteoric iron.

https://t.co/IIcd2EqBlX

[Courtney Ellis 🎈 @courtneyellis]

Time for my favorite end-of-school year tradition:

I write an email thanking amazing teachers for all they’ve done for our kids and name several specifics that made a difference in their learning.

And I CC the principal.

[Iain Cameron @theiaincameron]

Canada is the only country in the world that has an island inside a lake in an island inside a lake in an island inside a lake.

There are no known records of anyone ever having been here.

[澤田 涼 / Ryo Sawada @ryo_sawada]

京大の全学共通の人気(?)科目「宇宙科学入門」、書籍化されたんだ！著者が京大宇宙物理教室のスタッフ勢揃い。きっと分かりやすいと思うよこの本。買ってみよう

【新刊】『京大人気レクチャー　宇宙科学入門』(化学同人)
https://t.co/hqPsyqQNMO