2025-12-16

etc

• Stagnant Construction Productivity Is a Worldwide Problem

  Overall, my take when looking at this data is that stagnant construction productivity is an extremely widespread problem. The trends we see in the US — flat or declining construction productivity — are also what we see in other large, wealthy countries over the past 30 years. Most countries that achieved construction productivity growth at one time haven’t maintained it. The countries that currently show improving productivity tend to be small (Ireland, Denmark, Estonia), poor (Colombia, Peru), or both. And construction productivity improvements in these countries tend to severely lag improvements in manufacturing, or what’s observed in the economy overall. Even sustained, large-scale building programs (such as China’s) or widely adopted factory-based construction (such as Sweden’s) don’t appear to have changed this.

Horseshit

• Dominatrix turns tech founder to combat revenge porn

• Nvidia-backed Starcloud trains first AI model in space, orbital data centers

• It's 2025. Why Can't Americans Use a Simple Roundabout?

• A dying mother's plan: Buy a gun. Rent a hotel room. Kill her son

• Why Young People Are Struggling to Communicate

• Sound Waves Can Fight Fires Without Water

• Should anti-bullying approaches encourage kids to be 'upstanders?'

• Mad scientist swaps bicycle suspension springs for magnets

• Lalanne Hippo Bar Sells for Record-Breaking $31.4 Million at Sotheby’s - Galerie Magazine

• How corrupt will it get before we notice?

  This is already becoming apparent within sports. Although sports betting has only widely been legal for a few years, it has begun to break the games it relies upon. Just this year, Cleveland Guardian pitchers threw balls to rig bets while an NBA player making 100 million a year sabotaged his teammates in order to make a few hundred thousand. Each pitch, stolen base, or foul is a moment to be sold. While this is all illegal, it’s all predicated on the predictable liquidity of legal sports betting markets. Sports become structrually unstable as the corruption spreads.

• A Physics Renaissance Is Coming - The Atlantic

  For most of the 20th century, physicists largely ignored living systems. They understood living things as machines, albeit ones made of gooey parts. A subfield called biophysics uncovered specific physical mechanisms behind those molecular machines. Organisms as a whole, however, were not a major concern. But today, many of my colleagues in physics no longer agree with such dismissals. Instead, we have come to believe that a mystery is unfolding in every microbe, animal, and human—one that challenges basic assumptions physicists have held for centuries, and could answer essential questions about AI. It may even help redefine the field for the next generation.

• The Psychic Conflicts of Oliver Sacks

• Crypto mogul aims to build Caribbean utopia outside local courts

celebrity gossip

• UK Influencer Livestreams Encounter with Ringo Starr, Whom He Doesn't Recognize

• 'I've been allergic to AI for a long time': an interview with Peter Thiel

Obit

• Police investigate deaths of filmmaker Rob Reiner and wife as apparent homicide

  Actor-director and political activist Rob Reiner and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, and police are investigating the circumstances as an apparent homicide, authorities said. While police declined to publicly identify the two people found deceased, Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom each released statements confirming that Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele, 68, had died.

  • Rob Reiner and Wife Found Dead as LAPD Investigates ‘Apparent Homicide.’

  • Rob Reiner and wife found dead

  • Rob Reiner has died

  • Rob Reiner has died

  • Rob Reiner and Wife Michele Found Dead At L.A. Home; Wounds Consistent With A Knife

  • Reiner and His Wife Michele Were Killed by Their Son

  Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were killed by their son, Nick, according to multiple sources who have spoken with family members. Police have not yet confirmed the account. On Sunday, Dec. 14, at about 3:30 p.m., the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) was called to a home to provide medical aid, the LAFD told PEOPLE. Upon arrival, they found a man, 78, and a woman, 68, dead. Sources confirm the victims were Rob and Michele. Police say Nick, 32, is alive and being questioned. No arrests have been made.

  • Rob Reiner's Son Nick Arrested Following Deaths of His Parents, Held on $4 Million Bail

  Nick Reiner has been taken into custody following the deaths of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner. Rob and Michele were killed in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, Dec. 14. Sources previously told PEOPLE they were found by their daughter Romy. According to Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records, Nick was taken into custody and is being held on $4 million bail. Sheriff's Department records online note he is charged with a felony but don't specify further.

  • Nick Reiner has now been arrested for the double murder of his father and mother.

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• (1996) Why Americans Hate the Media

• Fewer characters on TV had abortions this year

  Storylines about abortion and conversations about it showed up on television 65 times this year, on prestigious dramas like The Pitt and Call the Midwife, on reality shows such as W.A.G.s to Riches and Love is Blind and on lowbrow animated comedies like Family Guy and South Park. That's about the same as last year. In 2024, TV shows featured 66 such plotlines. ut in the past few years, there's been a significant drop in the number of characters who actually went through with an abortion. 37% obtained an abortion in 2025, a 14% decline since 2023.

• Why Nerds Are More Clippable

  A new dominant media format has emerged in the last decade: the combination and integration of longform source material into shortform clips. The “Podcast into posts” pipeline is now a standard way that news and entertainment gets prospected and packaged, and we take it seriously at a16z as a leading indicator of not only where media is going, but more generally, “who is influential, and why.” There is a deceptively simple trend here, which is only just beginning to play out, and is a pretty under-appreciated trend in world power dynamics: Nerds are more clippable; therefore, nerds have more power. This sounds silly but it is incredibly important. Just like pamphleting gave a platform to a certain kind of political theory nerd in the 18th and 19th century, which subsequently put those people in positions to shape the most important events in modern history, New Media is putting new kinds of people into very powerful situations.

Musk

• Starlink and Chinese satellites nearly collided last week

  • SpaceX Alleges a Chinese-Deployed Satellite Risked Colliding with Starlink

• Grok Is Glitching and Spewing Misinformation About the Bondi Beach Shooting

• El Salvador teams up with Elon Musk's xAI to bring AI to 5k public schools

• Tesla Is Testing Robotaxis Without Safety Drivers – Or Riders

  • Tesla Robotaxi spotted without a safety driver in Austin; Musk confirms testing

• Falcon 9 rocket launches Starlink satellites before making 550th SpaceX landing

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Mom and daughter find stranger in trunk of Waymo

• Electric vehicle owners face new pay-per-mile tax. What could be the environmental costs?

  In her speech, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said, "All cars contribute to the wear and tear on our roads. Drivers will be taxed on how much they drive, not just on the type of car they own." This new EV tax would add up to an extra cost of £300 annually, based on a vehicle traveling 10,000 miles per year. The government argues that this tax is needed to compensate for the reduction in fuel duty from the transition to electric vehicles, and because of its budget deficit.

• California's ban on self-driving trucks could soon be over

• Ford kills the All-Electric F-150

  • Ford Considers Scrapping Electric Version of F-150 Truck

  • Ford’s electric hopes unravel as it pulls the plug on battery-powered F-150 after $19.5bn loss

  • Ford pulls the plug on the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck

Robot uprising / Humanioid Helpers

• He's the Godfather of Modern Robotics. He Says the Field Has Lost Its Way

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Rural students more likely to get diplomas but are less likely to go to college

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Dell and Lenovo may limit mid-range laptops to 8GB RAM because of memory prices

• SK Hynix Forecasts Tight Memory Supply Lasting Through 2028

• Pluribus becomes Apple TV's most watched show

• Adafruit: Arduino's Rules Are 'Incompatible With Open Source'

  I asked Mitch Stoltz, EFF director for competition and IP litigation, who agreed that Arduino “isn’t imposing any new bans on tinkering with or reverse engineering Arduino boards. Nonetheless, Adafruit founder Limor “Ladyada” Fried says Arduino’s response “downplays how central the cloud and web tools have become to the Arduino experience.” “If you go to the Arduino software page and the cloud page, you’re strongly encouraged to use the cloud editor/web IDE and cloud plans, especially on platforms like ChromeOS where the cloud editor is the recommended or only realistic path,” Fried said. “So when Arduino says ‘These restrictions only apply to SaaS,’ that still means the restrictions apply to the tools many new users are being steered into as their primary Arduino environment.

• Hollywood warns: 'Extortionary' codec patent fees could hike streaming prices

• Grand Theft Auto game creator sacked us for trying to unionise

  • IWGB Union Says Rockstar's Statement Is Filled with "Disinformation"

• Google is discontinuing dark web reports

• LG TV users baffled by unremovable Microsoft Copilot installation

• Apple and Google will be asked to block nude photos unless user age is verified

• Verizon refused to unlock man's iPhone, so he sued the carrier and won

• Literal Enshittification: 'Smart' Toilets Play Fast and Loose with Pooping Data

• HDD prices spike as AI infrastructure and China's PC push collide

• China, Iran are having a field day with React2Shell, Google warns

• Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue

• Why does Netflix want to buy Warner Bros? To copy, not kill, traditional TV

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• The Osborne Computer Corporation

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Copywriters reveal how AI has decimated their industry

• Broadcom reveals its mystery $10B customer is Anthropic

• OpenAI sued for allegedly enabling murder-suicide

• Redfern Station Christmas artwork to be removed after complaints of 'AI slop'

• Stated kindly, this is "Credulous": Build vs. buy is dead – AI just killed it

  something fundamental has changed: AI has made building accessible to everyone. What used to take weeks now takes hours, and what used to require fluency in a programming language now requires fluency in plain English. When the cost and complexity of building collapse this dramatically, the old framework goes down with them. It’s not build versus buy anymore. It’s something stranger that we haven't quite found the right words for.

• British Airways fears a future where AI agents choose flights

• Nvidia details new software that enables location tracking for AI GPUs

• Nvidia Debuts Nemotron 3 Family of Open Models

• Disney and OpenAI, Totems in an AI World, Google versus the World

• AI coding is now everywhere. But not everyone is convinced

• Supersized data centers are coming. See how they will transform America

• Wall Street sees AI bubble coming and is betting on what pops it

• Estate sues OpenAI, Microsoft after woman is killed by her son

• Tech's Biggest Companies Are Offloading the Risks of the A.I. Boom

• The jobs where people are using AI the most

• Texas universities deploy AI tools to review how courses discuss race and gender

  • Simple ~6 token phrase analysis shows a lot of the biases off

• US Government launches 'Tech Force' to hire AI talent

• OpenAI Deal to License Disney Characters Is Entirely in Stock

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• 'A lot of stories but few facts': sceptics push back on buzzy UFO documentary

• Palomar Telescope images: No easy explanation: Debating a 70-year-old UFO mystery new images come to light

• not Avi Loeb: 3I/ATLAS's Moving Anti‑Tail Deepens Mystery

  On 16 November 2025, observers from small automated telescopes to large facilities published fresh images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS that reveal a pronounced anti‑tail — a narrow dust structure that points toward the Sun — and, crucially, signs that its orientation has changed as the object closes on its nearest approach to Earth on 19 December 2025. Amateur astrophotographers such as Satoru Murata and teams operating Canary and Nordic telescopes captured the structure; space and ground observatories including Hubble, Gemini and ALMA have added higher‑resolution imaging and spectra in follow‑up observations. The anti‑tail is rare but not unknown in cometary physics: under some geometric and particle‑size conditions the dust appears sunward from our viewpoint. What makes 3I/ATLAS notable is a cluster of properties that together are unusual — a large, sharply defined anti‑tail, multi‑jet structures in the coma, an elevated CO2-to-H2O ratio in early spectroscopic reports, and hints of non‑gravitational acceleration — and the recent change in the anti‑tail's direction has revived both conventional and more speculative explanations.

  Observers report that the anti‑tail's apparent orientation has shifted relative to earlier images taken weeks before, a behaviour some teams say is hard to reconcile with simple geometric projection alone. In parallel, spectroscopic campaigns have flagged an unusually high CO2 relative to H2O in the coma and compositional oddities such as elevated nickel signals in some reductions — data points that are still being assessed and calibrated by multiple groups.

• Space agency activates its largest planetary defense drill

  The European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, and more than 23 nations have launched the largest drill in history which will run through January 2026, using the suspected comet's harmless passage through the solar system as a test for tracking future threats from space. 3I/ATLAS is expected to come within 170million miles of Earth on Friday, and space agency officials have said there is no risk of a potential collision with the interstellar object.

• 2.8 days to disaster: Why we are running out of time in low earth orbit

Crypto con games

• JPMorgan Steps Further into Crypto with Tokenized Money Fund

Economicon / Business / Finance

• iRobot Files for Bankruptcy

  • Roomba Maker iRobot Files for Bankruptcy and Will Go Private

  • Roomba maker iRobot files for bankruptcy, pursues manufacturer buyout

  • After Amazon was blocked from buying Roomba maker iRobot last year by US and European regulators, the company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will be sold off to Shenzhen PICEA Robotics Co.

  • Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

  • Roomba Maker iRobot Swept into Bankruptcy

• Alphabet Poised for Another Paper Gain as SpaceX Valuation Jumps

• Oracle’s collapsing stock shows the AI boom is running into two hard limits: physics and debt markets.

• Secret Documents Show Pepsi and Walmart Colluded to Raise Food Prices

  To ensure that prices would go up at rival stores, Pepsi would adjust allowances, such as “adjusting rollback levers.” It would punish stores that refused to cooperate by raising wholesale prices. Retailers who were trying to discount Pepsi products to better compete with Walmart would find it increasingly difficult to do so; not only would Pepsi take away their promotional allowances, but they might find that discounting six-packs of soda would lead to Pepsi charging them higher wholesale prices for the soda.

• Nasdaq to submit paperwork with SEC for round-the-clock trading

• PayPal Applies to Become a Bank as US Loosens Regulatory Reins

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• NSF Launches "Tech Labs" to Fund Independent Research

• Lawmakers push bill showing fusion's bipartisan appeal

• More than 9,500 commercial truckers taken off U.S. roads nationwide

  “We’ve now knocked 9,500 truck drivers out of service for failing to speak our national language – ENGLISH!” Duffy said in an X post. “This administration will always put you and your family’s safety first.” The total includes combined enforcement actions taken nationwide since May, after Duffy signed new guidance to strengthen English language enforcement for commercial motor vehicle drivers.

Trump

• Trump mocks Rob Reiner's death after condemning Charlie Kirk jokes

  In a Monday morning post on Truth Social, Trump cast Reiner" as "a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star."

Democrats

• Even in a Populist Moment, Democrats Are Split on the Problem of Corporate Power

• New Records Reveal DOJ’s Yearslong Effor... | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Left Angst

• The left has become preserve of old white men

  Corbyn, Melenchon and Sanders have all achieved election to public office at different levels and, again, all three have led different attempts at left-wing projects with varying degrees of success since the 1970s. But surely their stint is now over and it’s time for them to stand aside, either to let a younger generation of leaders through – or, even better, to train up and facilitate that younger generation of leaders. However, by hanging around so long, they have made it difficult for others to develop social capital and take over – social capital comprising recognition, profile, contacts and credibility.

• New Bill That Would Ban 'Chemtrails' Advances in South Carolina Senate

• ASL interpreters 'intrude' on Trump's right to control image, U.S. DOJ says

  The Trump administration is arguing that requiring real-time American Sign Language interpretation of events like White House press briefings “would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public,” part of a lawsuit seeking to require the White House to provide the services. The National Association for the Deaf sued the Trump administration in May, arguing that the cessation of American Sign Language interpretation — which the Biden administration had used regularly — represented “denying hundreds of thousands of deaf Americans meaningful access to the White House’s real-time communications on various issues of national and international import.” The group also sued during Trump’s first administration, seeking ASL interpretation for briefings related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Well, at Least the Anti-States' Rights AI EO Spares AI-CSAM Laws

• Operation Catahoula Crunch

  By the time they arrived at the apartment complex, Bovino’s crew had amassed a following of protesters and journalists. As you can see in the footage below, the protesters grew as people came out of their homes — including one guy who immediately recognized Bovino. “It’s not Make America Great Again — y’all want it to be white again,” the guy said as he walked around Bovino’s SUV. The cooperation with local police makes Louisiana unique. In Chicago and Charlotte, journalists (and protesters) could follow behind Border Patrol, even as they drove erratically in an attempt to thwart us. In Louisiana, state police would shut down the roads for Border Patrol to get away from press and activists.

• 'I Didn't Vote for This': A Revolt Against Doge Cuts, Deep in Trump Country

• They were almost American – then Trump cancelled their citizenship ceremonies

• Vaccine adviser to RFK Jr. has some choice words for his critics

• U.S. Plans to Scrutinize Foreign Tourists' Social Media History

• US tariffs are having an uneven effect on holiday prices and purchases

• "Super secure" MAGA-themed messaging app leaks everyone's phone number

• The Year in Trump Cashing In

• The US Supreme Court's TikTok ruling is a scandal

• Stephen Miller's Dark Plot to Build a MAGA Terror State

  He is descended from Russian Jews—you know, the kind of people who were once denounced as alien and unassimilable. Today, his project is to unleash government persecution of those he deems alien and unassimilable. How far will Miller’s sadistic designs go?

  in a series of tweets, interviews in right-wing media, and statements made elsewhere, Miller has outlined something more comprehensive and sinister—an elaborate worldview that has escaped notice in the mainstream media. It centers immigrants as a threat to “civilization” in terms that echo the rhetoric of those determined to exclude people like his ancestors.

• Instacart director says she was fired for Democratic congressional campaign

  • Usually, running for office precludes other employment during that time; and holding office ought to.

• US puts £31B tech 'prosperity deal' with Britain on ice

• Trump Gov thinks Calibri is woke; US typography just regressed to 1931

• The Populist Revolt Against Cognitive Elites

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Person of interest in Brown University shooting released

  A 24-year-old man whom authorities apprehended in connection with the Brown University mass shooting was released from custody and the real gunman is still at large, authorities announced during a surprise press conference late Sunday. Benjamin Erickson was cuffed just before dawn Sunday at a Hampton Inn hotel near Brown — but now investigators are saying they had the wrong guy. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha explained that it was “difficult” to develop evidence and track down leads in the immediate aftermath of the shooting Saturday, in which two students were killed and another nine injured.

• FBI stops planned New Year’s Eve Los Angeles terror attack by pro-Palestinian cell.

  • FBI Foils New Year's Eve Attacks in Southern California

  The Justice Department on Monday said it has arrested four people in the Los Angeles area for allegedly working together on a bomb plot that was set to take place around the city on New Year’s Eve. The four people arrested – Audrey Ilene Carroll, Dante Garfield, Zachary Aaron Page, and Tina Lai – were identified as members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, which according to the Justice Department and FBI, has an anti-government ideology.

  “The subjects self-identified as members of a radical offshoot of the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF), an extremist group motivated by pro-Palestinian, anti-law-enforcement, and anti-government ideology. They were allegedly planning coordinated IED bombing attacks on New Year’s Eve, targeting five separate locations across Los Angeles,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement on X.

  • The question is always "How much support and organizing was done by FBI employees?"

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• They did issue NOTAMs: Pilot narrowly avoids 'midair collision' with US Air Force plane near Venezuela

  • JetBlue flight averts mid-air collision with US Air Force jet

  JetBlue Flight 1112 had departed the Caribbean nation of Curacao and was flying about 40 miles (64 km) off the coast of Venezuela when the Airbus A320 reported encountering the Air Force jet, which did not have its transponder activated, according to the recording captured by liveatc.net.

• Can Trump's Peace Initiative Stop the Congo's Thirty-Year War?

• Former CIA spy: agency's tools can takeover your phone, TV, and even your car

World

• Bondi Beach shooting: How the tragedy unfolded

  • Law enforcement source identifies Bondi gunman as Sydney man Naveed Akram

  One of two gunmen was also killed at the scene, while the other was injured and taken into custody in a critical condition, NSW Police said. It is not clear to the ABC at this stage which one is Mr Akram. NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon suggested that one of the shooters was known to authorities but "the person that we know has very, very little knowledge to the police". "So he's not someone that we would have automatically been looking at at this time," he said.

  • 'My son is a hero': Family of man who tackled Sydney gunman

  • The Prime Minister of Australia says the true threat is “right-wing extremist groups”

• Korea mandates switch to 5G standalone, warns carriers of measures

• How the ‘Brussels effect’ backfired

  Gone is the missionary zeal of 2019-2024 when Ursula von der Leyen’s first term as EU Commission president generated a mountain of new regulation. Pollution curbs, online privacy requirements, sweeping human rights obligations for EU companies and even their suppliers overseas — Brussels moved as if it could remake the world. Frans Timmermans, the former Commission vice-president, described the Green Deal as Europe’s “claim to a different destiny”. on der Leyen’s second term has a very different tone: the Green Deal has been watered down, regulatory “simplification” is in vogue, and investment is primarily flowing to Europe’s defence sector.

• Forget the far right. The kids want a 'United States of Europe.'

• Australia's social media ban in chaos as youths flock to Chinese alternatives

• Denmark plans to restrict social media use for young people

• UK Wants All iPhones to Block Explicit Images Unless You Prove Age

  • UK to "encourage" Apple and Google to put nudity-blocking systems on phones

• Germany has the highest proportion of rental tenants in the EU

• EU yields to pressure from automakers as it rethinks 2035 combustion car ban

• Bulletproof Cars See $660M Boom in Brazil

• During Zelensky's visit: Major internet disruption in the Bundestag

• Billionaire Marc Cuban invests in Ireland based sports-tech AI Startup

• French cancel NYE concert on Champs-Élysées as migrant violence grows.

• Australia's Social Media Ban Was Pushed by Gambling Ad Agency

• Will other countries follow Australia's social media ban for under-16s?

Israel

• ‘Gaza doctor murdered Israeli hostage by injecting air into her veins… before her father received video of her dying and begging for her life.’

  The father of an Israeli woman abducted on October 7 has revealed his daughter was murdered in Gaza by a civilian doctor – and that he was later sent a video showing the moment she was killed. In the footage, Avi Marciano said a medical worker is seen injecting air into his 19-year-old daughter’s veins as she lies on a bed inside Shifa Hospital, begging for her life.

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Intel, AMD Accused of Allowing Chips in Russian Missiles

• Ukraine willing to drop ambitions to join NATO, Zelenskyy says

• UK's new spy chief warns the 'front line is everywhere' amid threat from Russia

• Russian ban on Roblox gaming platform sparks rare protest

• Ukraine hits Russian submarine with underwater drones

  • Ukraine strikes Russian submarine in Black Sea port with underwater drones

  • Ukraine says underwater drones hit submarine

  • Ukraine Claims Naval First with Underwater Drone Strike on Russian Submarine

China

• Chinese billionaires having dozens of US.-born babies via surrogate

• China to regulate CEO romance micro dramas, warns against promoting materialism

• Hong Kong Court Finds Jimmy Lai Guilty in National Security Trial

  • Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national security trial

• Why Germany Wants a Divorce with China

• China's AI Power Play: Cheap Electricity from Biggest Grid

• Oh look, yet another Starship clone has popped up in China

Health / Medicine

• Rising Rates of Uninsured Children Will Increase Pediatric Cancer Deaths

• FDA approves first new antibiotics to treat gonorrhea in decades

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Why New York Has Backed Off on Addressing Climate Change

• Ssea urchin mass mortality suggest a worldwide Diadematid pandemic

• Why Florida Crocs Are Thriving Outside a Nuclear Power Plant

• Largest U.S. Recycling Project to Extend Landfill Life for Virginia Residents

• 20 km-thick rock layer discovered beneath Bermuda

  Researchers have discovered a massive, unusual rock layer hidden beneath Bermuda — an archipelago consisting of 181 islands, sitting below the oceanic crust where it does not belong. The layer is about 12.4 miles thick, or roughly 20 kilometres, making it far thicker than similar structures seen anywhere else on Earth.

• Raising strong yeast as a petroleum substitute

• Thousands of U.S. farmers have Parkinson's. They blame a deadly pesticide

• Italian bears living near villages have evolved to be smaller and less agressive

• World heading toward 'peak glacier extinction': up to 4k set to disappear a year

• Banned in 160 Nations, Why is Ractopamine in U.S. Pork?

• Spain's commitment to renewable energy may be in doubt

• Some dolphins have orca friends. Scientists have figured out what's going on