your science briefing for 04.30.2025

The mysterious but not really pyramid in Antarctica, how farmers could clean up and power America, the ignored religious crusade against progress, and more...

According to people who believe that humanity was created by aliens who needed a pliant, custom workforce, a telltale sign of alien presence and influence is pyramids. From the deserts of Egypt to the forests of Mexico, the idea is that there must have been a common thread between all the civilizations. You know, other than pyramids being one of the most stable shapes possible for a giant building made out of stone. Believe it or not, there’s even a massive pyramid in the middle of Antarctica. No, the aliens didn’t build it 34 million years ago, right before the continent froze over. It was created by wind and water freezing, thawing, and then refreezing in cracks between rocks over millions of years… (LiveScience)

I know I’ve said that plastic is killing you, how, and why, so it should come as pretty much no surprise that scientists found a brand new way that tiny particles of it have been quietly giving hundreds of thousands fatal heart disease. Going back to data from 2018, researchers were able to link exposure to di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate, the chemical used to make food containers, medical accessories, and plastic wrap, to a staggering 356,000 deaths worldwide. The greater the exposure, the more severe those cases of heart disease tended to be… (EurekAlert)

American farmers grow a lot of corn. It’s heavily subsidized, and only a rather small percentage of it is even edible by humans. The rest of used for animal feed, ethanol, and other bio-industrial processing. So, asked a team of researchers, what if instead of growing a biofuel that’s more of a political marketing gimmick than a viable green alternative to gasoline, farmers were paid to install solar panels in their fields? First of all, the farmers would make up to four times more selling the electricity. Secondly, it would generate enough power to fully decarbonize the U.S. by 2050. Although given our current administration, this idea is unlikely to get a hearing because a) it’s a good idea for farmers and the environment, b) makes sense, c) is not coal… (ZME)

Have you noticed how many members of the American right ever so casually refer to anyone who disagrees with them “Satanic libtards” or “Demon-crats” as if we’re still living in the Dark Ages, when demons were blamed for anything and everything? Well, thanks to America’s forgotten — but far from dead — culture of tent revivals and very noxiously mixing politics and messianic religion, the culture of demonology played an outsized role in the last election according to some scholars. In this worldview, there’s a battle between good and evil, and anyone not on the side of what your congregation says is good, is a conspiracy against you led by demon-infested mortals, and the only way to win that battle is to go after said group of people… (MIT Press)

As we’ve been taught by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Which is why experts in law are worried about the recently passed Take It Down Act, ostensibly meant to combat the epidemic of deepfake nudes and revenge porn by giving websites 48 hours to take down the offending content or face criminal charges. Yes, forcing swift takedowns of fake nudes and revenge porn is great. But it didn’t escape their attention that the act also leaves room to take down other content that’s deemed problematic for unspecified reasons, a provision Trump gleefully said he’ll be very happy to abuse to vex and silence his critics, or take down sites that are not in ideological compliance with the MAGA dogma… (The Verge)