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The Jesus and Mo artist has resurrected a strip called Fluid, called “a Friday Flashback from almost exactly 8 years ago.” It’s a classic, with Mo donning a niqab as an expression of his feminine side. Unfortunately, that side applies only to his garments, not to his temperament.

There are a few simple things you can do to make your digital life much more secure, says cybersecurity expert Jake Moore - follow these tips to tighten up your passwords

A trumpet-shaped, single-celled organism seems able to predict one thing will follow another, hinting that such associative learning emerged long before multicellular nervous systems

Abby Thompson, a UC Davis mathematician, is back with more photos (and a video!) from the intertidal of northern California. Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Jellyfish!

I thought I’d throw some jellyfish into the lull between the great winter tides and the great summer ones.

The reproductive cycles of the tidepool creatures are wildly varied, with behaviors ranging from maternal (see Epiactis prolifera from my last post), chancy (see mussels), through incessant (see nudibranchs).   But for sheer baroque complication, I vote for the jellyfish.    Many who stroll on a beach will see the quivering gelatinous masses of jellyfish stranded by the tide, and the less fortunate will have encountered their stinging tentacles while in the water.  This describes, a little, how they get there.

There are several jellyfish species common on the Northern California beaches; here are some of them:

Aurelia labiata (Greater Moon Jelly):

Chrysaora fuscescens (Pacific sea nettle):

Chrysaora colorata (purple-striped sea nettle) These are big, about a foot across:

Another Chrysaora colorata (handsome creatures):

Genus Aequorea (crystal jelly):

Polyorchis haplus:

Scrippsia pacifica (giant bell jelly):

The Chrysaoras and Aurelia labiata are in the class Scyphozoa; the rest are in the class Hydrozoa.

For all of these, males and females get together in the same vicinity, and release eggs and sperm (see “chancy” above), which form little “planulae”.    Then things get complicated.     Because (usually) the planulae settle down and attach themselves to something, and become polyps.  Like these tiny things:

Genus Sarsia:

Hydrocoryne bodegensis:

But how do they get from here (e.g. something like Sarsia) to there (e.g. something like Polyorchis haplus)?   Well they don’t, always, and sometimes they don’t get from there to here, either, but here’s an illustration of the process when it goes through a “typical” complete cycle:

And in fact if you look closely at that photo of H. bodegensis, you can see a little medusa just budding off, circled in the photo below:

Here’s a video of a set of newly-formed “baby jellyfish” (they look excited) which swam into my microscope view.    I didn’t know what I was seeing, so don’t have a photo of the polyp from which they likely emerged.   This means I have no idea of the genus (or even the class- if these are Scyphozoa then these are really ephyrae which will turn into medusae).

There seem to be many species for which the complete reproductive  process is not documented –  for example, if you search for the polyp stage of Polyorchis haplus, the answer is that we don’t know what it is, nor where it can be found.

 

A final oddity of this elaborate reproductive process is the existence of the so-called “immortal” jellyfish. (not found in the cold waters of Northern California).  If damaged at the medusa phase, this one can revert to its earlier (genetically identical) polyp phase- and so on ad infinitum, apparently.  As though, when things go wrong in your life, you could go back to your childhood and try again.

I’m grateful for help with IDs from experts on inaturalist and elsewhere.    All mistakes are mine.

A growing body of research shows that we tend to discount a person’s good deeds if they stand to benefit from them. Columnist David Robson explores where this instinct comes from – and whether we should resist it

Time is running out to grab one of the few remaining cabins for Málaga, Spain to Nice, France on the SV Royal Clipper AND announcing our next adventure to New Orleans followed by the Mysteries of the Maya cruise to the Yucatán Peninsula!

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

With Dr. Jay Bhattacharya in power, the headlines now read "Americans Trust Fauci Over RFK Jr. and Career Scientists Over Trump Officials."

The post Now That It’s His Job to Control Measles, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Suddenly Expects People to Trust Everyone & Everything He Spent 6 Years Attacking first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

The errors that quantum computers make are holding the technology back. But recent progress in quantum error correction has excited many researchers

Gold and other heavy elements are born in some of the universe’s most violent events—but scientists still struggle to understand the nuclear steps that create them. Now, nuclear physicists have uncovered three key discoveries about how unstable atomic nuclei decay during the rapid neutron-capture process, the chain reaction responsible for forging elements like gold and platinum.

Gold and other heavy elements are born in some of the universe’s most violent events—but scientists still struggle to understand the nuclear steps that create them. Now, nuclear physicists have uncovered three key discoveries about how unstable atomic nuclei decay during the rapid neutron-capture process, the chain reaction responsible for forging elements like gold and platinum.

As AI systems began acing traditional tests, researchers realized those benchmarks were no longer tough enough. In response, nearly 1,000 experts created Humanity’s Last Exam, a massive 2,500-question challenge covering highly specialized topics across many fields. The exam was engineered so that any question solvable by current AI models was removed. Early results show even the most advanced systems still struggle — revealing a surprisingly large gap between AI performance and true expert-level knowledge.

Scientists have found a promising new way to manufacture one of industry’s toughest materials—tungsten carbide–cobalt—using advanced 3D printing. Normally, producing this ultra-hard material requires high-pressure processes that waste large amounts of expensive tungsten and cobalt. The new approach uses a hot-wire laser technique that softens the metals rather than fully melting them, allowing manufacturers to deposit the material only where it’s needed.

Scientists analyzing a gravitational-wave signal have discovered that a neutron star and black hole spiraled together on an oval-shaped orbit just before merging. This unusual motion, detected in the event GW200105, contradicts the long-held expectation that such pairs settle into nearly perfect circles before collision. The eccentric orbit suggests the system likely formed in a chaotic stellar environment with strong gravitational interactions.

Toys powered by AI show a worrying lack of emotional understanding. But we need to understand the risks and benefits of the technology so the industry can be regulated, not outright banned

What happens when a solar superstorm hits Mars? Thanks to the European Space Agency’s Mars orbiters, we now know: glitching spacecraft and a supercharged upper atmosphere.

• Any group differences in outcomes can be traced to systemic racism.
• If systemic racism exists at all, it works against so-called privileged groups.
• Abortion is murder, period.
• The sanctity of human life is a made-up concept.
• Jews have a biblical right to Israel.
• Hitler was right about a few things.
• Masculinity is inherently toxic.
• If women ran the world, we would still be living in grass huts.
• The colonialists need to give back the land they stole.
• Indigenous people need to get over the fact that they were conquered.
• Providing sex is an obligation within a marriage.
• Any sexual coercion constitutes rape.

Do any of these statements resonate? Make you angry? Do some not even merit a response?

I can’t tell you exactly how I would respond to someone who defended Hitler, but I know what I would not do: stalk him on social media, contact his employer to try to get him fired, or ask my government representative to help criminalize such talk. 

Does this make me a free speech absolutist? Not quite. Like Robert Jensen, a professor emeritus at the University of Austin and prolific blogger, I suspect that most people who call themselves free speech absolutists don’t actually mean it. They wouldn’t countenance speech like “let’s go kill a few Germans this morning. Here, have a gun.” Instead, Jensen writes they’re prepared to “impose a high standard in evaluating any restriction on speech. In complex cases where there are conflicts concerning competing values, [they] will default to the most expansive space possible for speech.”

In other words, they’re free speech maximalists. A more contemporary and nuanced variant of absolutism, the maximalist position grants special status to free speech and puts the burden of proof on those who wish to curtail it. While accepting some restrictions in time, place, and manner, free speech maximalism defaults to freedom of content. It aligns with the litmus test developed by U.S. Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, which holds that government should limit its regulation of speech to speech that dovetails with lawless action:

Let’s go kill a few Germans? Not kosher. 
The only good German is a dead one? Fair game.

Some pundits view this position as misguided. A 2025 Dispatch article titled “Is Free Speech Too Sacred?” laments America’s descent into an era of “free speech supramaximalism,” in which “not only must speech prevail over other regulation, but nearly everything is sooner or later described and defended as speech.” A New Statesman essay about Elon Musk, written a few months before he acquired Twitter (now X), decries Musk’s “maximalist conception of free speech usually adopted by teenage boys and libertarian men in their early 20s, before they realise its limitations and grow out of it.” The implication: free speech maximalism is an unserious pitstop on the way to more mature thinking. Only testosterone-soaked young men, drunk on their first taste of freedom, would spend more than a minute on such a naïve view.

This 69-year-old woman disagrees. I grew into my passion for free speech during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the pressure to conform in both word and deed reached an intensity I had never witnessed before. Any concerns about the labyrinthine lockdown rules elicited retorts like “moral degenerate” or “mouth-breathing Trumptard.” (Ask me how I know.)

Unexpectedly jolted into awareness of free speech principles, I began reading John Stuart Mill and Jean-Paul Sartre and writing essays about freedom of expression in the COVID era. One thing led to another, and in 2025 the newly minted Free Speech Union of Canada found a spot for me on its organizing committee. What most of us in the group shared, along with age spots and facial wrinkles, was a maximalist position on free speech. Perhaps we’re all immature. Or maybe we’ve lived long enough to understand exactly what we lose when free speech goes AWOL.

But but … critics sputter … what about hate speech? Free speech maximalism posits that you can’t regulate an inherently subjective concept. As Greg Lukianoff and Ricki Schlott note in their 2024 book The Cancelling of the American Mind, “as soon as you start legislating based on a concept as loosely defined and subjective as offense, you open the floodgates to every group and individual claim of offense.” This argument may well explain why Canada’s proposed Bill C9—the Combatting Hate Act—remains stalled after protracted parliamentary debate.

Is “you cannot change sex” hate speech or merely opinion? Is “you have a big Black butt” an offensive remark? It depends on who says it, how it’s said, and who hears it. One person may react to the big butt comment with reflexive outrage, while another may simply shrug. When said tenderly to a lover, the statement may elicit a full-throated laugh. Offense is in the eye of the beholder. 

Someone can tell you that the sky is green, or that women can’t think logically, or that Hitler was right about some things, and you allow the words to bounce off your emotional core. It’s a liberating habit of mind. 

A case in point: In 2017, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refused to register the name “The Slants” (an Asian rock band) because of its derogatory, or hateful, connotations. The bandleader sued and the Supreme Court ultimately agreed that “giving offense is a particular viewpoint” and a law restricting expression on the basis of viewpoint violated the First Amendment.

Here’s the thing: when you embrace viewpoint diversity as an ideal, you tend to get less offended about things. You may profoundly disagree with a statement, but it won’t cause you to puff up in outrage. Someone can tell you that the sky is green, or that women can’t think logically, or that Hitler was right about some things, and you allow the words to bounce off your emotional core. It’s a liberating habit of mind. 

And if you do get offended? Big whoop. You’ll survive. During a recent bus trip from Whistler to Vancouver my seatmate, a doctor, took it upon himself to share his candid opinions about women with me: they can’t take a raunchy joke, they make poor leaders, they’re responsible for cancel culture, and society would work better if they stayed home. Ugh. Seriously? But I survived. I wasn’t traumatized. Truth be told, I quite enjoyed our conversation. He listened as much as he spoke. I even found a few grains of value in his arguments, and perhaps a couple of my retorts gave him pause. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Humans of all stripes challenging and learning from each other. 

Here I must pause to express disappointment in my own sex. Women, I have found, value free speech less than men do, and studies corroborate my perception. In one survey, 71 percent of men said they gave priority to free speech over social cohesion, while 59 percent of women held the opposite view. An article reporting on the survey affirmed that “across decades, topics, and studies, women are more censorious than men.” Boo.

Even with carte blanche to express ourselves, it’s impossibly difficult for us humans to lay bare our true thoughts. Self-censorship is baked into our DNA. Free speech maximalism serves as a counterweight to this force. It allows us to rise, even if timidly, above the lead blanket of social conformity flung over us by the finger-wagging classes. By exposing little bits of our true selves, we shed light on the glorious contradictions in the human condition—a benefit that serves not just angry young men, but women with age spots and everyone else.

To those concerned about the dangers of loosening our tongues, I offer Greg Lukianoff’s bracing maxim: “You are not safer for knowing less about what people really think.” 

Rocky planets are found in abundance around M-type stars (red dwarfs), so finding another one doesn't always generate headlines. But an international team of astronomers say that one recent M-dwarf rocky planet found by TESS is especially noteworthy. This one can serve as a benchmark for comparative studies of this type of exoplanet and their at-risk atmospheres.

Astronomers say unusual readings from a star system 11,000 light-years away suggest that two of the planets circling the star crashed into each other, creating a huge, light-obscuring cloud of rocks and dust.

A neutron star merger is an extraordinary event. It features extremely powerful, chaotic magnetic fields that generate extremely energetic photons. Supercomputer simulations show that the extreme gamma-ray photons created in the mayhem can't even escape the chaos.

Body mass index (BMI) is used as a global standard for measuring health, but does it actually tell you anything about how healthy you are on an individual level? Carissa Wong explains the problems with this flawed tool