your science briefing for 01.02.2025

CIA's aspiring psychic spies, a supermassive black hole that's lying down on the job, the ridiculous plan to flood social media with bots on purpose, and more...

Superpower see, superpower do. At the height of the Cold War, the CIA heard rumors that the Soviet Union was trying to use psychics as remote sensing spies, and made a decision to get in on the act. You know, just in case. Things got real weird, real fast as secret documents filled up with New Age woo… (Popular Mechanics)

Go home black hole, you’re drunk! No, really, the supermassive black hole at the heart of a galaxy called NGC 5084 seems to be sideways, its equator perpendicular to that of the galaxy, along with a large spiral of dust. Now astronomers are wondering if this is the result of an epic collision or gravitational carnage… (CBS)

Having sank many billions into trying, and failing, to make the dystopian world of the cyberpunk novel Snow Crash real as billions of users begged them not to, Meta had another stroke of decidedly not genius. Flooding your timeline with bots pretending to be real people. You know, the thing that’s usually against the terms of use. Surely, this will end well and be extremely popular… (Rolling Stone)

Knowing exactly how much time you have left to live is the stuff of science fiction and horror movies. But scientists studying life extension found a way to do just that with your cells by looking at how well your nucleoli, the assembly factories for ribosomes, is handling a certain type of genetic payload… (SciTech Daily)

Are you looking to get into backyard astronomy, or looking forward to what you could see in the skies this year? Well, start making your calendar because it’s going to be a busy 363 days… (Universe Today)