Flipso

The Small Web is back.

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Just in time for the @digg shutdown, here comes https://t.co/jBqBcjqY66 🙋🏼‍♂️

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How Spiders Spin Silk Dope Into Nature’s Toughest Material - Biologists are uncovering how spider silk dope reorganizes into condensates and then a strong, flexible fiber. New work on black widow silk points to weak interactions between specific amino acids that help guide the m…

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Rising colorectal cancer rates now affect nearly all age groups - A new study finds colorectal cancer incidence is rising across younger and older age groups, with increases now extending to nearly all ages up to 65–69. Researchers say the trend could increase demand for treatme…

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How the Wedgewood fake polls story spread - News of Wedgewood’s admission was quickly amplified and recast into multiple rumors and narratives, revealing how a single claim can evolve as people contest its meaning and frame its implications.

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Closing the Sea: Lessons from Ancient Mediterranean Blockades - Ancient Mediterranean blockades—from Samos and Syracuse to Rhodes and Lilybaeum—show that maritime superiority is not enough on its own. The real challenge is sustaining control of the sea long enough to deny suppli…

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Ole Bielfeldt wins Nikon Small World with ink droplets in motion - A 25-year-old German experimental photographer won the 2026 Nikon Small World photomicrography competition with a microscopic image of inkjet droplets mid-flight. He beat 1,802 entries from 69 countries and captu…

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Tiny Tracking Tags for Big Monarch Journeys - Researchers are tagging Monarch butterflies with tiny solar-powered BluMorpho tags to learn more about fall migration patterns and follow their journeys across the landscape. The project uses Apple’s Find My technology and a free app…

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How to be a (Roman) man - Cicero’s ideal of manly virtue stressed self-control, courage, and public service rather than boastful domination. In late republican Rome, masculinity was a political performance shaped by rhetoric, dress, and public conduct, and Cicero’s exile and the…

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Extinguished or overlooked? An examination of lost firefly species of the US and Canada - An examination of U.S. and Canadian firefly species that may be lost, overlooked, or misclassified, with implications for documenting biodiversity loss.

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Did an Alternative-Medicine Guru Accidentally Kill Patients? - In Switzerland, Thomas Rau offers treatments that many conventional doctors would question. Now he’s accused of lethally negligent care.

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How solar became bigger than nuclear - After defying early projections, solar has grown into a major global power source and is now overtaking nuclear in capacity. The piece looks at the forces behind solar’s rise and where the technology may go next.

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Just Imagining a Workout Can Make You Stronger - Motor imagery activates many of the same brain systems as real movement, so mental practice can support motor learning and performance. Studies cited here suggest it can improve tasks like putting and even modestly increase finger…

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The mystery of the nameless girl found dead in a Spanish border town - A long read on the unidentified young woman found hanging near Portbou in 1990, and the decades-long effort to learn who she was. The case later shifted from a presumed suicide to a deeper investigation that…

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The End of the Internet - Ben Thompson argues that the old open web—where anyone could host a server and build an audience—has been steadily eroding through advertising pressure, platform centralization, and now AI-driven security and content risks. He also suggests the next pha…

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One of the Greatest Inventions in the History of Human Transport - Blaise Pascal invented fixed-route public transport in Paris in 1662: the carrosses à cinq sols, an early network of horse-drawn carriages running on predictable routes and frequencies. The post argues that this…

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How Europe's emptying countryside is fuelling a new wildfire crisis - Tinder-dry stretches of untended forest and shrubland served as the perfect fuel for Spain’s biggest wildfire in recent history.

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Cognitive Mercantilism - AI panic echoes the anxieties of early mercantilism: a world where wealth seemed finite, elites sought to hoard it, and most people were treated as passive laborers. Venkatesh Rao argues that today’s fears about intelligence may reflect a similar mindset…

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Birdwatching rewires the brain and slows cognitive decline - Birdwatching can help slow brain ageing and is increasingly being used as therapy for dementia patients.

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A Texas Cop Signed on to Help ICE Deport His Neighbors. It Tore the Town Apart. - Ingram, Texas, was rebuilding after a devastating flood when its police department joined ICE’s 287(g) task-force program. Within a year, local officers had handed over roughly 10% of the town to i…

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Amazon’s toddler tablets raise screen-time concerns - Amazon’s new kids tablets are pitched to parents of children as young as 3, with features like an all-day battery, kid-proof case, and generative AI tools. The post argues the marketing clashes with pediatric research linking…

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Huge Iron Age salt-mining complex found beneath Hallstatt, Austria - Archaeologists have uncovered a network of Iron Age salt-mining chambers beneath Hallstatt that stretches at least 300 meters. The deposits preserve tools, textiles, wooden bowls, food remains and even DNA, off…