Were we better off without the Internet?, the problems with beauty filters, Fallout on the Spectrum, the Third Man and six galaxies that shouldn't exist. All that and much more in this week's Recommended Links. Enjoy!
The Great Fragmentation: Weren't we better off without the Internet?: "The fundamental step in human decline was, in my view, the arrival of the smartphone, which promised freedom but actually meant a very long chain that now binds us, while allowing great freedom of movement, creating a trompe l'oeil of digital free will. That's when the Internet stopped being a place you went to and navigated through, and became the central backbone of our existence, when the boundaries between physical and digital reality began to blur."
TikTok: the problems that the app's controversial 'beauty filters' can generate: "As beauty filters become more sophisticated, new articles emerge denouncing their possible effects on all sorts of things, from our self-esteem to their power to popularize a certain standard of beauty. This week, the launch of TikTok's Bold Glamour filter - which has a surprisingly flawless effect - has led many users to wonder if technology has gone too far."
The Fallout saga arrives on the Spectrum: "We'll play as a wasteland explorer who sets out from Vault 128 (why would they choose that number?). Much of what is familiar in the saga will be here: vaults, cryogenic pods, terminals with their characteristic green tone that tell stories, Pip-Boy, assistant robots, mutant roaches, wastelanders, stimulants, etc. All well seasoned with RPG elements including experience-based combat, attack, defense, and HP."
The new period of maximum solar activity increases the possibility of a Carrington or Miyake event: "The Sun has just entered its period of maximum activity and, once again, it's time to roll the dice hoping that luck smiles on us and that the modern Novacene Age doesn't end in the Stone Age. According to experts, we are now a little closer to the possibility of suffering one of the two great existential dangers for a humanity that depends completely on electricity to function: the Carrington and Miyake events." Also, the 1859 solar storm.
The Third Man Syndrome, what happens to mountaineers during life-or-death traumatic experiences: "On their shoulders they also carried the responsibility of having to help the rest of their companions of the ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic. Only the three of them roamed the desolate Antarctica, Ernest, Frank and Tom, although if someone had asked them how many people made up that desperate party, they would probably have answered something different: that another person went with them, a fourth member, without a name, without a face... but undeniable."
Can we control what we dream? The science of lucid dreams: "If you are reading these lines, it may be because the title caught your attention because you hadn't considered this possibility. Or, on the contrary, you may be part of that percentage of the population that experiences lucid dreams. As often happens with topics related to brain function, answering the questions we raise is not easy, so let's go step by step." With NeoTeo you can make your own Lucid Dream Machine by following this guide.
Astronomers detect 6 massive galaxies so old that they cannot be explained by science: "An international team of astronomers discovered something intriguing: half a dozen massive galaxies that seem too old to be explained by current science. The work was published in Nature. The six galaxies appeared between 500 and 700 million years after the Big Bang. However, according to current cosmological models, there wasn't enough time for that to happen. This suggests that we are still missing one or two key steps in our understanding of the evolution of the universe."
Neither your company is your family nor are you your job: "In the last year, 250,000 workers at technology companies have been laid off. And with them, the rest of the world has said goodbye to the original Silicon Valley, with its transparent corporate culture aspiring to change the world, its happy employees, its flat hierarchies, its deification of creativity, and its siestas, foosball tables, and bikram yoga sessions during working hours. Most of the laid-off employees found another job within three months, but they have put an end to a way of understanding work. And life."
Antibiotic resistance. The countdown to a new global crisis?: "If Darwin has taught us anything, it is that biology and evolution are an arms race and adaptation. For every weapon a living being creates to defend itself from another, a counterattack is generated for survival or else the disappearance of the attacked species. Bacteria, as living beings, also adapt and evolve, and one of the mechanisms for their adaptation to living in organisms that consume AB is the generation of resistance to these compounds. These resistances can be classified into these 3 groups of strategies..."
This is what xenophorophores look like, the giant single-celled organisms of the deep: "The four species of giant unicellular xenophorophores described three years ago by a joint project between scientists from the UK's National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and the universities of Hawaii and Geneva surprised scientists. The finding, made in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, is detailed in the article (...) published in the specialist journal European Journal of Protistology, where the description of the new species is collected, classified into two new genera: Moanammina and Abyssalia."
When we started to understand animals: "When in 1872 Charles Darwin published his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, many frowned: emotions in animals? Today scientists continue to explore the complex hidden world of animal behavior, in which there are undoubtedly two pioneering figures who have in common having died on February 27: the Russian Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and the Austrian Konrad Lorenz. Curiously, Pavlov and Lorenz not only did not defend the same ideas, but to a large extent their theories were discrepant."
No, cockroaches wouldn't survive a nuclear catastrophe either: "Whether because of their appearance, their habits, or because they are almost impossible to eradicate, cockroaches are not among people's favorite animals. In fact, their resistance is the key to their evolutionary success. Born survivors, they have been on Earth for about 300 million years; they survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, have spent decades dodging all kinds of insecticides, and can even live a few weeks without a head. It seems cockroaches are here to stay, but are they really capable of surviving a nuclear disaster?"
Videos: Crab eating an onion ring, 1000 musicians playing 90s classics, Soviet paratroopers, the triplets experiment, shooting 400 little things with LEGO, the best way to boost your immune system, you haven't understood the metaverse, adolescents performing 'The Final Countdown', the best Fool Us tricks, composes a song with his neighbor's alarm, hacker hood, Castlevania on Tesla coils, iron bacteria cement, record for most selfies taken in three minutes, Punk Evolution by 1000 musicians, urine propulsion, and a full tour of the Giza Pyramid.
Galleries: Kristin Kwan's otherworldly paintings, photos of cats in history, photos from one of the first Antarctic expeditions, modernizing the old masters with immense talent, photorealistic paintings, de_dust2 modernized by AI, an amphibious Citroën, winners of the Skypixel contest, marine life, the color of the world of the past, women of other eras facing mirrors, the Animated Dump and the Visual Dump.
https://old.neoteo.com/el-incidente-max-headroom/Something for everyone and all tastes. I hope you liked something, and if not, we'll try again next week. Until then!
