Mike

[Perry E. Metzger @perrymetzger]

Only a tiny fraction of the world’s mosquito species prey on humans. All of these are invasive across essentially their entire range, having tagged along with humans as we moved around the world. Multiple careful studies say that eliminating these species would have little or no impact on the environment. However, it would save at least a million human lives a year, and get rid of a constant source of discomfort that prevents people from safely spending as much time outside as they would prefer. Malaria is only one of dozens of diseases, many potentially fatal, spread by mosquitoes. Gene drives can safely and relatively inexpensively eliminate these parasitic insects; we can create male mosquitoes that can only have male offspring and which then crash the population. It’s well past time that we did it.

[Mike @mikekish]

Conspiracy theory: The recent spate of AI doomerism is a classic reverse psychology ploy to get Very Smart People to support unrestricted, unregulated AI growth.

[Nick Stewart @NStewWX]

Reports of an explosion hears around Boston I believe are going to be a rather significant bolide/meteor entering the atmosphere. Very large "flash" detected by GOES-19 GLM that does not correlate with active thunderstorms. #MAwx

[Kyle 🚄 @KyleTrainEmoji]

PICARD: Data, shields up

DATA: Brilliant! Shields can reduce damage we sustain. Not immunity. Not hubris. Just prudence. It's not precaution—it's strategy.

[camera shakes]

WORF: HULL BREACHES ON NINE DECKS

DATA: Here's what happened: you told me to raise shields, and I didn't

[Neil Renic @NC_Renic]

Need the Pope to release an encyclical against Teams calls

[Nick Burns @NickBurns]

Wine is just wine to most Americans, and Grana Padano is as good as parmesan is as good as pecorino. But just see what happens when you say that Coke Zero is the same as Diet Coke. Like Robert Conquest said, everyone is an Italian about what they know best.

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

The USDA has kept raccoon rabies out of the central United States for over 30 years by air-dropping fish-flavored ravioli from helicopters.

Each one is a small packet coated in fishmeal with an oral rabies vaccine inside. Raccoons, foxes, coyotes, and skunks find them by smell, bite through, and swallow.

Many animals that consume the bait develop immunity, helping build a protective barrier across populations.

The bait is generally considered safe for pets and tested in many non-target species.

The USDA's Wildlife Services has been running this since 1995. Without the bait program, raccoon rabies very likely would have spread much further west.

A federal program you've probably never heard of is protecting your pets and your kids by feeding wild animals ravioli from a helicopter.

[Elizabeth Barnes @BethMayBarnes]

(1) We are likely on track to develop AI systems capable of causing human extinction/permanent disempowerment, quite possibly within the next few years

[Alan Cornett @alancornett]

Buy physical books and hold on to them. If you have a niche interest have a collection of books from that interest and protect them.

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

Haunted by this passage from Fahrenheit 451 in which a retired professor describes how the abolition of reading began with the shuttering of newspapers and the closing of college humanities departments.

[Mike Konczal @mtkonczal]

Released this morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ labor share of income for Q3 2025 is the lowest on record.

[Mike @mikekish]

@ashishkjha @TheLancet @bhrenton What happened during the Reagan years to reverse the trend (temporarily)?

[Mike @mikekish]

@ghostofchristo1 All that is solid melts into air; all that is holy is profaned.

[Mike Bird @Birdyword]

Big Goldman Sachs report on US housing unaffordability. They estimate 3-4 million new homes needed to return affordability to 1990s levels. If America looked more like the least restrictive quartile of its cities in terms of land use, it would generate 2.5m homes.

[Mike @mikekish]

@henrysparker What happened around 2017 that caused scores to start dropping nationally?

[raina douris @RahRahRaina]

it's a fabulous time to be alive if you love:
- verification codes
- verifying your email
- yelling "REAL PERSON" into a phone at a robot
- reading nightmarish news all day every day
- hot

[Mike @mikekish]

@dilanesper Adjusting for inflation, $500k for a custom house by a star architect is still laughably cheap by today's standards. For comparison, here's what $500k buys you in metro Boston: A 60-year-old BASEMENT condo: https://t.co/1aODMi1Moy

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

Incredible.

Roland Reisley is 101 years old, the last original client of Frank Lloyd Wright. He still lives in the 3,200 square foot home that Wright built for him in 1952.

The price? $40,000. Or a little less than half a million in today's money.

[Mike @mikekish]

@DKThomp Did nothing happen between 1880 and 2020? Was 2020 the height of telecom spending?

[Mike @mikekish]

@ednyoka They're cute! 😊