🔗 Articles: Saturday 11.May.2024


Discover: Rare and Endangered, These Non-Parasitic Lampreys Are Far From Home

The endangered species is especially unusual because it is part of a paired species — meaning that it has a relative with some physical differences that is genetically similar. Its closest cousin, the short-headed lamprey (Mordacia mordax), attaches to its prey with a ring of sharp teeth, then sucks its blood. M. praecox, which is nearly indistinguishable from M. mordax, dines by straining water through a filter in its mouth.

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“Basically, there’s only a several month window in their entire lifespan were you can distinguish them, and it’s rather tricky,” says Carpenter-Bundhoo.


Manton Reece (micro.blog): Welcome Kimberly Hirsh! 👋

Excited to announce that @kimberlyhirsh is joining the Micro.blog team. She’ll be helping part-time with curation and community. We’ve been talking to Kimberly for a while and I’m happy she can join us as @jean moves on.


Kimberly Hirsh: My new role

Thanks to everyone for your kind words over on Manton’s post about my joining the Micro.blog team!

I want to be clear that I’m not taking over for Jean as community manager. I’m the first of I hope many people who will contribute to curation and community work.


The World (PRX): Once the epicenter of hydraulic engineering, Mexico City is now running out of water

Water supplies in Mexico City are at a historic low due to low rainfall, rising temperatures and outdated infrastructure. The World’s Tibisay Zea reports on the paradox of a sinking, thirsty city that was once surrounded by lakes.

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But environmental factors alone don’t explain the scale of the current water crisis in Mexico’s capital, according to Luis Zambrano, a professor of urban ecosystems at the National Autonomous University (UNAM). He said chaotic urban growth, leaking infrastructure and the overuse of water by large companies have also contributed to the problem.

Zambrano added that the city has a history of bad water management that goes back to colonial times.

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In recent weeks, residents in the Benito Juarez borough, primarily populated by the middle and upper-middle classes, started to notice that the water running from the tap smelled “like gasoline.” Resident Cristina Montemayor said she and her neighbors had a hard time getting the attention of the authorities, who initially dismissed their claims.

After days of protests, city leaders agreed to take and examine water samples in the district, but they are reluctant to publish the results, alleging “they could be misinterpreted”.


Guardian: She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all

But a little over a year later, when Spone finally appeared in court to face the charges against her, she was told the cyberharassment element of the case had been dropped. The police were no longer alleging that she had digitally manipulated anything. Someone had been crying deepfake. A story that generated thousands of headlines around the world was based on teenage lies, after all. When the truth finally came out, it was barely reported – but the videos and images were real.


Guardian: Tim Dowling: No focus, no fights, and a bad back – 16 ways technology has ruined my life

17.Feb.2024

Let’s be fair: technology has improved my life in ways that still surprise and delight me on a daily basis. My phone is also a torch! My TV remembers how far I got in last night’s episode, even if I don’t! The bus stop knows when the bus is ­coming, and I can watch my ­pizza’s entire journey from the restaurant to my house! These are, frankly, miracles.

But there have been corresponding sacrifices. Over 20 years, I have turned over whole areas of competence, memory, authority and independence to the machines in my life. Along the way, I have become anxious about problems that didn’t used to exist, indecisive over choices I never used to have to make, and angry about things I would once have been wholly unaware of.

There are probably hundreds of ways in which technology has ruined my life. But let’s start with 16 of them.


Last Updated: 11.May.2024 18:17 EDT

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