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Bopping Sea Lion Can Keep a Beat Better Than Many Humans (Maria)
The author writes, “For years, scientists believed that rhythm was a skill exclusively reserved to humans, out of all mammals. But a rescue sea lion from California has proven otherwise, with her outstanding ability to synchronize her movements to a beat, with such precision that she’s even outperformed humans in controlled tests. Back in 2013, Ronan made headlines when scientists discovered her uncanny ability to bob her head in sync with music. … In a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers put Ronan’s beat-keeping to test again.”
Trump Officials Are Stockpiling Household Supplies Amid His Trade Wars (Sean)
From Rolling Stone: “Two Trump administration officials and a Trump aide tell Rolling Stone that they have done some stockpiling of their own in recent weeks or months, and that they know others working in Republican politics — inside and outside of the administration — who are doing the same. One of the Trump officials says they have already run to Target to bulk-buy toilet paper, some types of food, and other household supplies. When asked why they’re doing this, the Trump aide — who says they and their partner have done similar household-supply hoarding lately, and are also ‘stashing cash’ reserves in their DC-area home — simply replies: ‘Because it would be stupid not to!’ The aide adds that they still believe in Trump’s tariffs regime, though, citing the supposed advantage of ‘short-term pain’ in exchange for long-term ‘prosperity.’”
Despite Trump’s Promised cuts, US Spent About $220 Billion More in First 100 Days Than Last Year (Dana)
The author writes, “Some might ask how that’s possible given the high-profile repeated announcements of layoffs, canceled contracts, claims of fraud elimination by Mr. Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and belt-tightening across the administration. The answer partly lies in the fundamentals of the government’s budget when it comes to big-ticket expenditures that the White House can’t fully control or massive changes to the way the US pays for aging Americans’ retirements and medical care. The rest of the answer is politics. The conservative base that elected Mr. Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress may not support cutting the other biggest share of federal spending, the operations of the U.S. military and caring for veterans.”
International Doctors Forgo US Medical Meetings, Citing Detention Fears (Mili)
From MedPage Today: “Some international doctors are skipping medical conferences in the U.S. this year out of concern over the Trump administration’s treatment of foreign visitors at the country’s borders. While none of the American medical associations contacted by MedPage Today reported a major dip in conference attendance this year so far, at least one doctor in the U.K. suspects that fewer international physicians will attend the upcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in late May.”
Justice Department Sues Hawaii, Michigan, Vermont, and New York Over State Climate Actions (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “The US Justice Department filed lawsuits against four states this week, claiming their climate actions conflict with federal authority and President Donald Trump’s energy dominance agenda. The DOJ on Wednesday filed lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan over their plans for legal action against fossil fuel companies for harms caused by climate change. On Thursday, the DOJ sued New York and Vermont, challenging their climate superfund laws that would force fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on previous greenhouse gas emissions. ‘These burdensome and ideologically motivated laws and lawsuits threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security,’ Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement, noting the office hopes to stop ‘these illegitimate impediments to the production of affordable, reliable energy that Americans deserve.’”
The Great Language Flattening (Laryn)
From The Atlantic: “In at least one crucial way, AI has already won its campaign for global dominance. An unbelievable volume of synthetic prose is published every moment of every day — heaping piles of machine-written news articles, text messages, emails, search results, customer-service chats, even scientific research. Chatbots learned from human writing. Now the influence may run in the other direction. Some people have hypothesized that the proliferation of generative-AI tools such as ChatGPT will seep into human communication, that the terse language we use when prompting a chatbot may lead us to dispose of any niceties or writerly flourishes when corresponding with friends and colleagues. But there are other possibilities.”
