The Best News of Last Week

1. Amazon deforestation falls over 60% compared with last July

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by at least 60% in July compared to the same month last year, the environment minister, Marina Silva, has told the Guardian.

The good news comes ahead of a regional summit that aims to prevent South America’s largest biome from hitting a calamitous tipping point.

2. 4,000 Rescued Beagles, Bred for Research, Found Homes and Best Friends

A heartwarming story unfolds as a beagle named Fin marks the end of a heroic 60-day mission to save almost 4,000 dogs from distressing conditions at a breeding facility. Beagles once underfed, sick, and mistreated have found their way into loving homes, enjoying grassy romps and birthday cake celebrations.

From "Sir Biscuit of Barkingham" to "Nervous Nellie," these four-legged heroes are adapting to their new lives with wagging tails and leaps of joy.

3. 'Cancer-killing pill' that appears to 'annihilate' solid tumours is now being tested on humans

A "cancer-killing pill" has appeared to "annihilate" solid tumours in early research - leaving healthy cells unaffected.

The new drug has been in development for 20 years, and is now undergoing pre-clinical research in the US.

4. Petting other people's dogs, even briefly, can boost your health

It turns out even short, friendly interactions with canines can be good for our health. Evidence is accumulating that levels of the stress hormone cortisol drop in people after just 5 to 20 minutes spent interacting with dogs — even if it's not their pet.

5. FDA approves first pill for postpartum depression

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the first-ever pill for postpartum depression.

The medication, called zuranolone, is taken daily for two weeks. In a pair of clinical trials involving women who experienced severe depression after having a baby, the drug improved symptoms — such as anxiety, difficulty sleeping, loss of pleasure, low energy, guilt or social withdrawal — as early as three days after taking the first pill.

6. Taylor Swift Gives Bonuses Totaling Over $55 Million to Every Person Working on Massive Eras Tour

The pop superstar recently gave bonuses totaling over $55 million to everyone (from her dancers to riggers, sound technicians and catering, among others) working on her massive show.

TMZ previously reported that Swift, 33, gifted truckers on her tour $100,000 each ahead of her concert stop in Santa Clara over the weekend.

7. Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

In summary, this paper provides confirmatory synthesis and enhanced magnetic levitation of LK-99 at room temperature. The results support the possibility of intrinsic high temperature superconductivity in this system, but lack electrical evidence. More measurements and theoretical work are still needed to conclusively demonstrate and explain claimed room temperature superconductivity in this apatite material.

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That's it for this week :)

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feeling normal about this also

Unexplored area of the map, it'll unlock once we start making advancements up the tech tree

it's unreal how shitty streamed music sounds after going back to local files for a while. how did we all just accept this downgrade, it's like the difference between playing something through speakers vs a phone

fun fact: if you pirated six full length albums from your favourite band, listened to them all back to back 5 times, and then sent them $20 on ko-fi or whatever, on average they would have earned slightly more money per play than they'd get from you streaming the same shit with ads on spotify.

invariably when I talk about media piracy people are like "but what!!! about creators!!! they need to make a living!!!" my homey in romey if you're that worried about it send your favourite artist $5 right now. do it. shut the fuck up.

I want to support artists but I can ONLY do it if I'm being drip fed shittier and shittier versions of the content a tech executive thinks I want. I have no choice in the matter because uhhhhhh other people won't pay for things if they're free. yeah that's right. other people are the problem.

here's the piracy secret big media don't want you to know: you can always give artists money if you want to.

ADDENDUM: woke up this morning and realised my math was off (I missed a decimal place). your favourite band would actually earn about 10x more per play from your $20 than they would from spotify.

That means you could pirate six albums and listen to them 50 times each, and you would only owe around $20 in spotify equivalent fees. Figures below the cut since people keep disputing them in various directions in my inbox:

fun fact: if you pirated six full length albums from your favourite band, listened to them all back to back 5 times, and then sent them $20 on ko-fi or whatever, on average they would have earned slightly more money per play than they'd get from you streaming the same shit with ads on spotify.

invariably when I talk about media piracy people are like "but what!!! about creators!!! they need to make a living!!!" my homey in romey if you're that worried about it send your favourite artist $5 right now. do it. shut the fuck up.

I want to support artists but I can ONLY do it if I'm being drip fed shittier and shittier versions of the content a tech executive thinks I want. I have no choice in the matter because uhhhhhh other people won't pay for things if they're free. yeah that's right. other people are the problem.

here's the piracy secret big media don't want you to know: you can always give artists money if you want to.

ADDENDUM: woke up this morning and realised my math was off (I missed a decimal place). your favourite band would actually earn about 10x more per play from your $20 than they would from spotify.

That means you could pirate six albums and listen to them 50 times each, and you would only owe around $20 in spotify equivalent fees. Figures below the cut since people keep disputing them in various directions in my inbox:

when you’re out at a restaurant or a coffee shop or a target or whatever with your friends and you overhear/eavesdrop the same snippet of some stranger’s conversation, and you look at each other for a second to check that you both heard this stranger say the same weird/funny/baffling thing and just break out in knowing grins and quiet laughter… that’s a love language

I was eating alone at a mexican restaurant once and a group of college kids were chatting over tortilla chips. There was some jabber and then..

“ ..we had to climb over the bob wire!”

“Dude, did you just say ‘bob wire’?”

“Yea man, that spiky shit!”

“You actually think it’s called bob wire? Like fucking Robert wire? You think it’s called Robert wire?”

“Well what the hell do you think it’s called?”

“It’s BARB wire you idiot! Like Barbara wire!”

*the third guy* “Oh my god. You guys. BARBED wire. Because the wire has barbs, it is BARBED.”

“Oohhhhh!”

“Fucking Robert and Barbara wire. Fuck you guys.”

I hope Robert and Barbara Wire are in a happy and committed relationship.

headcanon: since meeting ant man, no one dares to fuck with spider man cause they think he can control spiders and fuck that tbh. he defeats villains by threatening to order spiders to infest their house,, his success rate is 100%, new york is crime-free in less than a month,

antman:

villain: what you gonna do huh? steal my picnic food? lmao lemme get the magnifying glass

spiderman:

villain:

villain: ill just turn myself in,

Um actually,

it was bold of me to assume he wouldnt actually do this in canon,

There’s also Spiders-man who IS spiders

many many spiders forming a hive mind. Thought you might wanna know! Even if you didn’t want to - now you do! :D

I’m tired of advertising. All of it. I don’t want any ads even for things I like. Even if I would 100% buy it. It’s INSANE that we just accept that people can throw a business flier in our face at any time of day in any setting. Aren’t you mad? Don’t you just want to go apeshit?

dnd jokes that will always be funny no matter what your dm tells you

feel free to add more

“Why do you wear that one hat all the time?” “It makes me feel about +2 more dexterous somehow”

Subsection of adding “fantasy” in front of modern things: Referring to something or someone from real life as Elven, Dwarven, Orcish, etc. In origin. Ex: “Did you know David Bowie was actually fae?”

please do not mistake a small group of people on the internet doing something stupid, or something that makes you mad trending with 100-1000 tweets, for an urgent and widespread social issue. it’ll make you mean, complacent, and easy to manipulate before you realize it

also… if you see someone complaining about or arguing against an absurd position, that doesn’t always mean that the thing they’re complaining about exists or is common. lots of people use social media to win the arguments they have with themselves in the shower

IT KEEPS HAPPENING