To tell if a maze is solvable, just hang it by its corners If it tears into pieces, you’ve found a solution

Devastating to see the scale of destruction in Nepal's flash floods www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

See How Nepal’s Flash Floods Caused Widespread Destruction

Floodwaters swept away villages near the border between Nepal and the Tibet region of China.

nytimes.com

There is a lot we don't know about the Nepal Tibet flood. Here are some things I suspect, as someone who studies risk just a couple hundred miles away: andrewrumbach.substack.com/p/seven-expe...

Seven expectations about the Nepal & Tibet flood, from a long-time student of disaster risk in the region

Like many of you, I’ve been watching in horror as video clips of the disaster unfolding along the Nepal and Tibet border have gone viral.

andrewrumbach.substack.com

Ansel Adams on assignment for IBM - one of my favourite shots. Not the usual landscape but the skill of a woman weaving magnetic core memory. The beat up nails captures total “woman in STEM” vibes.

Terry Tap as always with the most careful and gentle analysis of ai and its effect on mathematics: arxiv.org/abs/2608.16753

Mathematics in the age of AI

An essay, based on a public lecture delivered at the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians, on how the mathematical community might respond to the arrival of artificial intelligence tools that...

arxiv.org

Come work with my team on the very best beat: the Economics of Climate Change!!! Excited to make many beautiful charts with whoever gets this gig :) job-boards.greenhouse.io/thenewyorkti...

New from 404 Media: we solved which AI company is buying massive shipments of rare books, scanning and destroying them to train AI. We put an Apple AirTag in a rare book, followed it. It ended up at an Amazon facility. Its logo is a dinosaur ripping through a book www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility

We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.

404media.co

It's happening. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonp...

This piece is so cool. pudding.cool/2026/06/mow/

Why some people mow a lawn better than others

We analyzed 132,003 attempts to mow a virtual lawn efficiently.

pudding.cool

This is a fun album to work to: patrickbelaga2.bandcamp.com/album/solar-... Feels like the sounds of neurons firing.

Solar Calf, by Patrick Belaga

9 track album

patrickbelaga2.bandcamp.com

Striking before/afters showing what the heat waves did to UK vegetation www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

UK heatwaves: Satellite images show how UK landscape has changed

BBC Verify's analysis indicates “vegetation stress” in many areas, which may affect wildlife and farming.

bbc.co.uk

Medical scientist 1: so how's the research going? Medical scientist 2: we're just titling our paper Medical scientist 1: it's not another pop culture thing is it? Medical scientist 2:

ATLANTA (AP) — US surpasses 2025’s record-breaking tally for measles cases, with 2,318 cases and 5 more months left in the year.

My new piece is finished! I'm really happy with how the artwork turned out. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! 😉 #Illustration #CommentPls #RTpls

Solar power made up 12.9% of US electricity this May, a new record high that's up from 11% last year Over the last twelve months, solar has made up 9% of US electricity, another record high!

Official monthly data is in today, and US solar power generation hit a new record high, up 21% compared to this time last year!

I really want to go looking for four leaf clovers now. 🍀 Another delightful rabbit hole video. m.youtube.com/watch?v=XfUF...

How rare is a four-leaf clover, really?

YouTube video by Rabbit Hole

m.youtube.com

Could Excel be conscious? We surveyed more than Jan 1 1900 people to find out.

very very excited to be launching Wrong Number with my buds @christinezhang.bsky.social and @jdharden.bsky.social! It’s a newsletter dedicated to all of our weird data obsessions: our first posts cover Law & Order, trees, and theme park accidents wrongnumber.beehiiv.com/p/about-wron...

About ‘Wrong Number’

What this newsletter is, who we are, and why we named it that.

wrongnumber.beehiiv.com

NEW: The Trump admin finalized a regulation which makes the largest changes to the student visa process in 50 years, along with changes to rules for exchange visitors and international journalists. 🧵on some of the most consequential changes set to go into effect in September.

AILA@aila.org · last mo.

DHS has published its Final Rule to eliminate "duration of status" for F, J & I nonimmigrants. One of the most significant changes to international student, exchange visitor & foreign media programs in decades, it will be costly, cause chaos, and cut legal immigration.

Time Change xkcd.com/3272/

More signs of resurging HIV after USAID’s closure. African Neonatal Network reported at IMNCH (a global health conference): HIV+ pregnant women ↑50% & those not on antiretrovirals ↑>300%, year-on-year, across 22 hospitals in 5 nations. @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social

I'm been wondering if it would come to this and apparently it has. huge move from cloudflare, which hosts a fifth of all websites on earth.

Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search

The nuclear option is gaining traction as web traffic collapses and Google refuses to negotiate with content creators

adweek.com

Students have long been given the idea that the goal of taking classes is to get good grades, learning is just a side effect. Now it’s not even a side effect.

Mike Boylan-Kolchin@mbkplus.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is so depressing. The models have incredible power and good use cases but I’m becoming more convinced we need to structure assessments around not being able to use LLMs. They are good for doing certain tasks, not knowledge or understanding, and we are not in the business of task mastering.

GET HEARING AIDS ❤️ stop worrying if they're cool they're like glasses just get them and wear them this one's for the dads out there (except my dad, he's cool and wears his aids)

"Our real duty as teachers has always been challenging students to think. The task now is finding ways to engage them in the painful, essential work of critical thinking in a world where machines are willing to do it for them." www.science.org/content/arti...

Instead of banning AI, I made a classroom contract with my students

“I used AI daily—how could I expect my students to avoid it entirely?” this computer scientist writes

science.org

Two years ago we made >25 offers and had a class of 17.... This past year we offered a gut wrenching 8 offers and got a class of 5... SO many talented and deserving students did not get offers that normally would have. not sure how to fix it but i hope we do sooner rather than later

Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD@prasad.bsky.social · 2mo ago

www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/u... an ominous trend: graduate admissions are down 15 percent from last year, on top of an 11 percent decrease from the previous year we are destroying our seed corn

Enjoyed this sentence: "That cliff is the matrix confessing that, although it is technically full of numbers, its real content lives in only a few directions." stillthinking.net/posts/connec...

Please help me finish my thesis so I can finally be free of academia 🫶✨ aidetectionsurvey.carrd.co