the full Science article is paywalled, so I'll have to track down and read it from the preview, basically the lab used an LLM trained on phage genomes to generate new genomes of 1000s generated, they synthesized and tested 300, of which 16 were viable & infective in E. coli

Generative design of bacteriophages with genome language models

Many important biological functions arise not from single genes but from complex interactions encoded by entire genomes. We report the first generative design of complete bacteriophage genomes using g...

science.org

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 4d ago

Breaking news: Scientists in the US have for the first time used artificial intelligence to create viruses unknown in nature, a milestone that promises advances in healthcare but also raises important biosafety and biosecurity concerns. ft.trib.al/Uk6VCRG

🚨Blue Team Con 2026 Talk Alert🚨 Talk Title: Defending the Credential Reset Process Presented by: Tom Cross Learn more and see all 2026 talks: blueteamcon.com/talks-blue-t...

Here’s YoY growth in professional/business services employment. The white collar employment hangover is over:

Greenland issues ‘strong warning’ as Trump-linked oil firm prepares to drill

Greenland issues ‘strong warning’ as Trump-linked oil firm prepares to drill

Island’s government says no approval given after Greenland Energy brings kit ashore for exploratory drilling An American oil company connected to Donald Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities. As the US president renews his threats to claim the vast Arctic territory, materials to prepare for drilling were brought ashore in recent days on Greenland’s eastern coast. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

One of the broken things about the American experience with the cold war is the persistent belief that the problem with communism was the redistribution of wealth rather than the undemocratic authoritarianism.

post malone ergo propter malone@proptermalone.bsky.social · last wk.

and GOD IS EMPTY JUST LIKE ME

Ordering in rather than eating out is a pandemic habit that has stuck: almost three of every four restaurant meals in America were consumed off-site in 2025. But deliveries have allowed eateries to expand their customer base

The restaurant business is changing beyond recognition

Blame technology, inflation and customers’ shifting habits

bit.ly

👀 "How China Keeps Tabs on Foreigners. An unsecured police dashboard was a rare window into how the authorities track foreigners by collecting and aggregating vast amounts of private data." www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/w...

How China Keeps Tabs on Foreigners (Gift Article)

An unsecured police dashboard was a rare window into how the authorities track foreigners by collecting and aggregating vast amounts of private data.

nytimes.com

The coalition of people who vote for Democrats is broader than some people realize. The core of the coalition is an amalgamation of white liberals and black and brown moderates. And, in the last few years, it’s expanded with the addition of a lot of white former Republican voters.

It's pretty infuriating that Trump is denying disaster aid to Oregon for political reasons and I have barely heard anything about it, while Biden was falsely accused of doing the exact same thing to North Carolina and millions of people believed that

This is an excellent post on the analytic capabilities of LLMs. I think it is important in thinking through this to understand the limits of what LLMs can do, and avoid assuming that LLMs will soon be able to do things that they cannot do. But they can use known methods to solve novel problems.

John C. Baez@johncarlosbaez.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Fields medalist @wtgowers.bsky.social on how large language models are improving, and the dangers this poses. "I would judge the level of the result that ChatGPT found in under two hours to be that of a perfectly reasonable chapter in a combinatorics PhD." gowers.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/a...

2027 is going be awesome... "A shortage of Navy destroyers, used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks, will force the head of U.S. European Command to prioritize the U.S. homeland instead, officials said." www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

U.S. general warns Pentagon he lacks sufficient forces to protect Israel

A shortage of Navy destroyers, used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks, will force the head of U.S. European Command to prioritize the U.S. homeland instead, officials said.

washingtonpost.com

Social Media Lab@socialmedialab.ca · 2w ago

Iranians, Russians & Chinese are planning accordingly: "Researchers from the Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank estimated that fewer than 827 Patriot interceptors remain in US stockpiles, & fewer than 278 THAAD ballistic missile interceptors are left" www.cnn.com/2026/07/29/p...

But it does. It allows people to connect and exchange information. There's no way to stop fascism without those things, and no substitute for how the Internet, including via its social media faculties, helps us do it.

Charles Johnson@charles.littlegreenfootballs.com · last wk.

social media doesn’t cause fascism but it certainly doesn’t do anything to stop it, either

This is an interesting thought - that US security guarantees no longer apply to blue states. One of those Wile E. Coyote things that you hope no one has the balls to test.

Lindsay Beyerstein@beyerstein.bsky.social · last wk.

I can't stress enough what a crisis this is. Trump's own intelligence agencies concluded that Iran attacked Minnesota's critical infrastructure and Trump is saying that it's Minnesota's own fault and denying it was Iran. The federal government won't defend blue states in a literal war.

👀

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Trump: "We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota."

Reiterating that Musk's literal voter bribery last time was an unambiguous go-directly-to-jail felony, for which people have been successfully prosecuted over vastly smaller amounts. It wasn't just pouring money into a PAC, whatever one thinks of that. It was a black-letter plain-as-day crime.

Yes, Elon Musk’s Vote-Buying Is Against the Law

People have gone to prison for comparable schemes.

thebulwark.com

Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 2w ago

Musk got away with his $1 million vote-buying scheme in 2024. Why wouldn't he try something similar this November?

This Roman ring, wishing good life to Senicianus, was found in Silchester. It’s now on display in The Vyne. Its fame derives from the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler consulting Tolkien on it in the ‘20s. Tolkien was inspired by the idea of a lost cursed ring & the rest is literary history. 🕰️C4thAD

I wrote about the Nolan Odyssey for the LRB. I'll summarize some of my main points below, in case you don't feel like reading all that. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated Man

As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my...

lrb.co.uk

The Worst Person You Know Just Filed A Good First Amendment Lawsuit Against A Very Badly Drafted Nudify App Ban There's been a bunch of news this... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/30/the-worst-person-you-know-just-filed-a-good-first-amendment-lawsuit-against-a-very-badly-drafted-nudify-app-ban/

I think it's important not to lose sight of the fact that we're not seeing an understandable if regrettable mistake. We're seeing a worldview empowered at the expense of others and deliberately put into action, then failing in exactly the ways its critics said it would.

“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Our court system is good at making decisions:

Captain Blight@chuckdavis666.bsky.social · 2w ago

Everybody! Pay attention! I have only one underscore in my e-mail address. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

When Elon Musk says "zero" children died in Africa from his DOGE cuts, he really means zero children died who are *worthy of any concern.* It's vile coded signaling to his global fascist audience. From me and @polphilpod.bsky.social, a deep dive into Musk's fascism: newrepublic.com/article/2135...

The Real Reason Elon Musk Keeps Insisting DOGE Cuts Killed “Zero” Kids

In his explosive interview with The Economist, the SpaceX billionaire inadvertently revealed something darker about his true vision for the future—and about his affinities with global fascism.

newrepublic.com

This:

Dead Carl@deadcarl.bsky.social · 2w ago

The value of conventional resistance has to do directly with its political effects. If there’s no popular support for an invasion, unarmed resistance is likely as or more effective, for the usual reasons that nonviolent movements generate superior political effects.

Elon Musk is a creature of the federal government. Do you want a future Democratic administration to keep paying him?

David Kaib@davidkaib.bsky.social · 2w ago

www.congress.gov/119/meeting/...

Nearly every thread I see about border searches has someone in it who mistakenly thinks the government’s position is that the Constitution doesn’t apply because you haven’t crossed the border yet. That isn’t their position:

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius.bsky.social · 2w ago

That isn’t what they are claiming. The argument is that the 4th Amendment only prohibits “unreasonable” searches, and searches at the border are “presumptively reasonable” due to long standing historical practice of searching bags at places like Castle Garden.

Anyone who doesn’t see how very satisfied I’ve been throughout production doesn’t get what I most want out of an adaptatation. Mind you, that does tend to happen.

Important context for this story is that this appears to be a case where the border search exception was used pretextually to go after someone for political reasons.

Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker.com · 2w ago

New, by me: The Justice Department is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. border agents with a "duress" passcode that wiped the contents of his phone when they entered it. We've confirmed the phone was running GrapheneOS. Bypass for ad-blockers: web.archive.org/web/20260724...

New, by me: The Justice Department is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. border agents with a "duress" passcode that wiped the contents of his phone when they entered it. We've confirmed the phone was running GrapheneOS. Bypass for ad-blockers: web.archive.org/web/20260724...

US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a 'duress' password during border search | TechCrunch

A U.S. citizen has asked a court to throw out the government's claim that he gave over a passcode to border authorities that wiped his phone's data, opening up fresh questions about a person's constit...

techcrunch.com

BREAKING: Prodigious US Supreme Court lawyer and SCOTUSblog co-founder Tom Goldstein was sentenced to six years in prison on Friday following his convictions on federal tax and mortgage fraud charges early this year.

Goldstein, 44-Time Supreme Court Lawyer, Sentenced to Six Years

Prodigious US Supreme Court lawyer and SCOTUSblog co-founder Tom Goldstein was sentenced to six years in prison on Friday following his convictions on federal tax and mortgage fraud charges early this year.

bit.ly