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The top 15 stories curated by editors and fellow readers!

Editor's Pick

The Pervasive Illusion of Seeing the Complete World LessWrong
Sree VijaykumarSpeculation: These meta-blind spots tend to develop around actual blind spots naturally, because of the way the brain works. We notice stuff that changes, because the brain is akin to a multi-level prediction error minimization machine. If you wear cracked or dirty glasses, you stop noticing them after a short time, unless the cracks or dirt actively interfere with something you have to see, reminding you of the cracks. Worse than that, you forget that the cracks exist, unless reminded. This meta-blind spot, or a tower of blind spots can probably go several levels up, if there is no prediction error detected at that level.

Another speculation: the tower of blind spots creates an illusion of seeing the complete world, with nothing else existing. After all, to notice the existence of something the brain needs to be able to compare predictions with inputs, and if there are no inputs at any level, there is nothing to activate the prediction error minimization machine.

Continued here


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COVID Vaccines Coming Soon as Summer Surge Continues - Scientific American (No paywall)
COVID has been haunting humans for four and a half years, and experts agree there are no signs that it will disappear. So even though we would all like to forget about it, we should remain vigilant to protect our health. Here’s a quick guide to the latest information about COVID rates, treatments and upcoming vaccines.


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Mormons could help Kamala Harris win Arizona
Mormons had been among the most loyal Republican voting blocs until Donald Trump took over the GOP. Trump's campaign struggled to win over LDS voters in both 2016 and 2020, and polling shows more than half have negative views of Trump.






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The staggering death toll of scientific lies
Poldermans was a prolific medical researcher at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, where he analyzed the standards of care for cardiac surgery, publishing a series of definitive studies from 1999 until the early 2010s.


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Inside the Last Weeks of RFK Jr.'s Campaign
Speaking in Phoenix on Friday, Kennedy said he was suspending his independent bid for the White House and endorsed former President Donald Trump, citing their shared concerns about "the war on our children," the war in Ukraine, and free speech. "I have the certainty that this is what I'm meant to do," he said, calling the decision a "spiritual journey" to embrace a candidate who, until a few weeks ago, he derided as a "sociopath" and a "terrible human being."




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Former Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to shut down engines in-flight shares his story
Emerson was inside an Alaska Airlines cockpit last October when he raised his arms and pulled two large red levers that could have shut down both engines, at 30,000 feet. He calls the incident the worst 30 seconds of his life.


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No plans to close schools in the event of mpox outbreak, CDC says
Since the World Health Organization declared mpox a global health emergency last week, familiar fears of school shutdowns have ricocheted across social media, striking a nerve with many U.S. students who remember all too well the 2020 Covid lockdowns.




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4 Tips for Winning a Pitch Competition - Inc.com (No paywall)
Once you've identified your judges, read their LinkedIn profiles carefully. Take a closer look at their past job experiences. What roles have they held? What were their responsibilities? Understanding their professional journey can provide key insights into their preferences and interests. It'll give you some sense of the types of questions they'll ask. For instance, if their roles were mainly in research and development, they're more likely to ask technical questions than business-related questions.


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How hidden WW2 bombs across the Pacific are found and destroyed, 80 years after war
The Marshall Islands is a nation of atolls – hundreds of small islands carpeted in coconut palms and pandanus trees. While these atolls in the Pacific Ocean are a picture of tropical beauty, they are also home to explosive remnants of war.




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Sometimes You Just Have to Ignore the Economists
Last week, the economics commentariat and much of the mainstream media erupted with contempt toward Kamala Harris’s proposed federal price-gouging law. Op-eds, social-media posts, and straight news reports mocked Harris for economically illiterate pandering and warned of Soviet-style “price controls” that would lead to shortages and runaway inflation.


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Even placebos can help reduce stress, anxiety: Study
Remotely administered non-deceptive placebos have the potential to help individuals struggling with mental health concerns who otherwise would not have access to traditional mental health services, the researchers noted




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Walmart recalls apple juice sold in 25 states due to elevated arsenic levels
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the recall a more urgent classification Friday after making its original announcement Aug. 15. The new classification said the affected product may temporarily cause adverse health consequences but is unlikely to cause serious or irreversible medical issues.


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One Dead And Three Injured In Landslide In Alaska's Ketchikan?Mandatory Evacuation Ordered In Affected Area - Forbes (No paywall)
At least one person was killed and three were injured in a landslide in the city of Ketchikan, Alaska on Sunday, as authorities conducted mandatory evacuations across several neighborhoods amid concerns of a potential "secondary landslide" in the area.




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Infectious Diseases Spike When Kids Return To School - Here's What to Do - Discover Magazine (No paywall)
These viruses and bacteria will be agents that cause the common cold, influenza, norovirus, COVID-19, strep throat, and more. There’s a reason why boxes of tissues and sanitizing wipes show up on most school supply lists.


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Grocery Chains Step Up Political Donations as High Prices Draw Criticism - Inc.com (No paywall)
The level of political donations from major food companies accepted by Democratic lawmakers has ticked higher this congressional election cycle, even as many Democrats have accused the top U.S. grocery chains and their suppliers of pushing prices higher at consumers' expense, a Reuters analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows.




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Neolithic engineers used scientific knowledge to build huge megalith - New Scientist (No paywall)
Called the Menga dolmen, it is among the earliest European megaliths, dating to between 3600 and 3800 BC. Its roofed enclosure was constructed from 32 large stones, some of which are the biggest used in such structures. The heaviest one weighs in excess of 130 tonnes, more than three times as much as the heaviest stone at Stonehenge in the UK, which was erected more than 1000 years later.


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Why Harvard, Penn, and Columbia have turned to M.D.s for leadership in troubled times - STAT (No paywall)
Besides struggling with encampments, building takeovers, and commencement challenges, the three universities have something else in common: They have all chosen M.D.s as president or interim president.




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iPhone 16 release date revealed? Here's when Apple's next-gen device will drop, according to new report
The iPhone 16 is so close, you can almost taste it. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple insiders have revealed the iPhone 16 release date which, by extension, also gives us insight into when the next-gen Apple Watch models will drop, too.


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Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?
This blog is reserved for more serious things, and ordinarily I wouldn’t spend time on questions like the above. But much as I’d like to spend my time writing about exciting topics, sometimes the world requires a bit of what Brad Delong calls “Intellectual Garbage Pickup,” namely: correcting wrong, or mostly-wrong ideas that spread unchecked across the Internet.


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Albuquerque's police chief thinks cops have a 5th Amendment right to leave their body cameras off
Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Chief Harold Medina operated his department-issued pickup truck "in an unsafe manner" on February 17, when he ran a red light and broadsided a car, severely injuring the driver. So concludes a recent report from internal investigators who looked into that shocking incident.


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A stark social divide: Adults without college degrees more likely to have no close friends, survey finds
But a recent survey suggests that share has risen overall, particularly among those who did not graduate from college — creating a kind of class divide in people’s level of social engagement and connection. Nearly a quarter of U.S. adults with a high school diploma or lower education level said they had no close friends. The number was even higher for Black adults in that group: 35%.


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'The Bentley Of Trucks': Nikola's Hydrogen Semi Revives Its Fortunes - Forbes (No paywall)
Nikola has had a rocky few years. It's worked to survive the reputational harm and share price crash that resulted from the lies of its founder (that earned him a four-year prison sentence). It was forced to recall hundreds of its first electric semis to fix batteries at risk of catching fire. But since it began shipping hydrogen-powered big rigs late last year, things are turning around.


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A shift towards green investment is under way in Africa - The Economist (No paywall)
Over the past few years there has been a sharp slowdown in venture-capital funding worldwide. Africa is less than 5% of the global market by deal value but has proved to be relatively insulated; total deal value peaked later, at $6.5bn in 2022, and fell less sharply, to reach $4.5bn in 2023. Make no mistake, the environment is challenging: steep currency devaluations and high inflation in some countries have dissuaded skittish investors from writing cheques and led some to leave the continent altogether. Yet there is good news, too. The industry is adapting. A financial squeeze is forcing startup founders to make tough choices in the name of efficiency: consolidating with rivals and cutting costs to hit profitability targets faster. Agility is the name of the game. Perhaps reflecting this, recent figures for funds raised by startups have improved: July was the best month in over a year.


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Old US Bradleys becoming 'legend' in Ukraine shows what the country can do when it gets enough of the weapons it needs - Business Insider (No paywall)
The success Ukraine has seen using old American Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles against Russia shows what Ukraine can do when it is given enough of the weapons it needs, a warfare expert told Business Insider.


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America's most boring job is on the brink of extinction - Business Insider (No paywall)
He was obsessed with the Hubble telescope, and his bedroom ceiling was dotted with plastic glow-in-the-dark stars. When the Scholastic Book Fair came to his library, he'd beg his parents for cash to buy NASA photo books. To him, space science seemed the pinnacle of innovation, excitement, and existentialism.


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Almost half of workers want to find a new job in the next year
“If there’s a sign of potential for the US economy, it’s about enterprise births,” Hamrick said. “It’s promising and I love that younger cohorts — and even 12% of Boomers — are thinking of that.”


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Defence firms 'need reassuring' that big orders will be long-term
That in turns means there will be more spending on anti-drone capability. No country can afford to shoot down £500 drones with missiles that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and take months to replace for very long.


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No Evidence That Maduro Won, a Top Venezuelan Election Official Says
Mr. Delpino, a lawyer and one of two opposition-aligned members of Venezuela’s electoral council, spoke from hiding, afraid of government backlash. In recent weeks Mr. Maduro’s security forces have rounded up anyone who appears to doubt his claim to another six years in power, and many Venezuelans are fearful that his forces are crossing borders to go after enemies.


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Museum to Part With Cranach Portrait That Was Sold to Flee the Nazis
Mr. Bromberg, a judge in a magistrate’s court in Hamburg, had inherited the portrait and other works from his father’s collection. But he and his wife sold off artworks as they left Europe, first traveling to Switzerland, then France before sailing to the United States in 1939. They eventually settled in Pennsylvania, not far from Allentown.


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Opinion | Trump's Best Strategy to Beat Harris Is Actually Pretty Simple
Presidential races are won and lost on character as much as the issues, and often the issues are proxies for character. Not character in the sense of a candidate’s personal life, but the attributes that play into the question of whether someone is suited to the presidency — is he or she qualified, trustworthy and strong, and does he or she care about average Americans?


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Love Them or Hate Them, This Couple Reign in Russian Literature
Their latest project is a translation of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “Foolsburg: The History of a Town,” published earlier this month by Vintage. To Anglophone readers, to whom the book is largely unknown, it will be a corrective to the only previous translation available, from 1980, as well as an argument for the book’s Swiftian wit and its relevance to Russia and the United States today. There is even a character in it named Trump.


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What is mpox and why has the WHO declared it a public health emergency?
Bavarian Nordic said it is also supplying vaccines to countries outside of Africa, and that it is seeking approval from the European Union\'s drug regulator to extend the use of its mpox vaccine for teenagers.


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Macklemore cancels Dubai show to protest UAE role in Sudan civil war
That includes the US comedian Dave Chappelle, who drew attention in May in Abu Dhabi when he referred to the Israel-Hamas war as a “genocide” and joked about the UAE’s vast surveillance apparatus.


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Before You Buy the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, Here Are 3 ETFs I'd Buy First
Adam Levy has positions in American Century ETF Trust-Avantis U.s. Small Cap Value ETF. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


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Kamala Harris and the New Democratic Economic Paradigm - The New Yorker (No paywall)
These days, Presidential Conventions are so scripted that they rarely produce any real surprises, but they still provide an opportunity to take stock of where the two major parties stand relative to each other and to the past. At the Democratic National Convention, in Chicago, last week, three Presidents—Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton—spoke on successive nights, and, on the fourth night, Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, spoke about her background and her vision of America’s future.


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Removing stuff is never obvious yet often better
You know the nagging feeling that your product, project, or company has become more complicated than it needs to be? You can solve many problems and get better results by doing something unthinkable to many: removing parts that once seemed essential. My crusade against complexity continues with this short story from Pinecone.


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The lightbulb of the 21st century: The battery revolution illuminates a new era
Thomas Alva Edison took all the credit in 1879, but the invention originated a long time before that. Seventy years earlier, Humphry Davy, originally from Cornwall in the United Kingdom, had managed to fix a thin strip of carbon between the two poles of a battery. Thus was born the first lightbulb: an invention that would allow humans to live at night, while exponentially multiplying the uses of electricity.


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In 2024, it really is better to run a startup in San Francisco, according to data and founders who've relocated | TechCrunch
San Francisco’s AI startup boom is so big, even international founders who don’t run AI startups are relocating there to help their companies grow, according to several founders who recently moved. 


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Latino Civil Rights Group Demands Inquiry Into Texas Voter Fraud Raids
That investigation is part of a unit, the election integrity unit, which was created as Republican-led states sought to crack down on supposed voter crime after former President Donald J. Trump began making false claims of fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. Experts have found that voter fraud remains rare.


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Colorado Republicans Vote Out Party Chair Following Anti-Gay Posts
In an email Sunday night, Mr. Williams denounced the meeting, which was held at a church in the municipality of Brighton, near Denver, as a “sham,” noting that it was “illegitimate” based on procedural grounds.


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Disabled Troops Used to Have to Leave the Military. Now Some Compete for Gold.
Since the annual competition was created in 2010, the Games have given the Defense Department a new way to support and rehabilitate a select group of wounded troops, helping them remain in the service and on duty. The event has also become an important symbol of the changing perceptions about who is fit to serve.


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'There is an awful lot of teasing in the family about my image': Julie Andrews on the mixed legacy of being Mary Poppins
For more stories and never-before-published radio scripts to your inbox, sign up to the In History newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week.


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Telegram says arrested CEO Pavel Durov has 'nothing to hide'
Telegram did remove some groups, but overall its system of moderating extremist and illegal content is significantly weaker than that of other social media companies and messenger apps, say cybersecurity experts.


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Australians get 'right to disconnect' after working hours
\"I think it\'s an excellent idea. I hope it catches on. I doubt it\'ll catch on in our industry, to tell the truth though,\" David Brennan, a worker in the financial industry, told the news agency.


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Fish and chips UK takeaway with biggest price rise
They added: \"We know high energy bills continue to be a challenge for many businesses. We are working closely with government and industry to understand the range of issues non-domestic customers face, and where the powers we have to tackle them could be stronger.\"


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Qantas accidentally offers cheap first-class fares
However, the airline\'s terms and conditions state when customers book that if there is an error or mistake that is reasonably obvious in the fare price, the airline is entitled to cancel the booking and offer a full refund.


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Fox Hunters in the U.K. Want Protected Status Under Discrimination Law
Ed Swales, the activist, founded Hunting Kind, a lobby group that aims to protect hunting with dogs and other forms of hunting, in early 2022. He wants to use Britain’s Equality Act — which protects people from discrimination because of their age, race, sexuality or religion, among other things — to classify a pro-hunting stance as a protected belief.


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A Trial Asks: If Grocery Rivals Merge, Do Workers Suffer?
But the union does have a powerful ally: the Federal Trade Commission. The agency sued to block the combination, and a trial that will decide whether the two chains can join forces is scheduled to start in federal court in Oregon on Monday.


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For His Second Trip to Space, Billionaire Has Grander, Riskier Aspirations
“There’s always a risk calculus to it,” Mr. Isaacman said in an interview a week and a half ago, before he and his three crewmates headed to Florida for the launch. “But the real focus is on what we stand to gain and learn from it. And in this case, we’ve got some pretty cool things.”


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Dismantling the Ship That Drilled for the Ocean's Deepest Secrets
There’s no concrete plans for its replacement. The ship’s fate was announced last year by the federally funded National Science Foundation, which financed most of the J.R.’s operations. The foundation cited rising costs and a lack of international support to meet the funding gap.


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Israel and Hezbollah Trade Airstrikes, and U.S. Border Crossings Drop
Mark Mazzetti is an investigative reporter based in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security, intelligence, and foreign affairs. He has written a book about the C.I.A. More about Mark Mazzetti




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