Light Posting Notice

Admin note: Posting will be light or non-existent this week due to external obligations.

Huntington Disease Treatment

BBC: "Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time".

The goal of the treatment is to reduce levels of this toxic protein permanently, in a single dose.

The therapy uses cutting edge genetic medicine combining gene therapy and gene silencing technologies.

Slang Tells

"Your Slang Reveals Where You're From"

AI Psychosis

"The Emerging Problem of 'AI Psychosis'". 

Counterpoint: "AI Psychosis Is Rarely Psychosis at All"

2025 Ig Nobels

"Meet the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners". (Via H.R.) 

Also, TIL that physicist Sir Andre Geim is "the first and only individual, as of 2025, to have received both Nobel and Ig Nobel prizes".

Waymo Safety Breakdown

"Very few of Waymo's most serious crashes were Waymo's fault".

I will be very interested to see how these Waymos perform in Colorado, especially in the wintertime.

iOS 26 Overview

"The Top New Features in Apple's iOS 26 and iPadOS 26"

Transplant Surgery Near-Mishap

"A Surgical Team Was About To Harvest This Man's Organs -- Until His Doctor Intervened"

This is very rare in the world of transplant surgery. But it should be "never", rather than "rare".

Big Numbers And Busy Beavers

"Busy Beaver Hunters Reach Numbers That Overwhelm Ordinary Math"

The total number of steps that mxdys’ new champion took before halting was greater than 2↑↑↑5, or 2↑↑(2↑↑(2↑↑(2↑↑2))). To unpack this expression, you work outward from the innermost parentheses: 2↑↑2 is 4, and 2↑↑4 is a bit over 65,000. That leaves you with 2↑↑(2↑↑65,000), making the height of the final stack of 2s an incomprehensibly large number. Forget about writing a tower of powers that stretches out for miles or megaparsecs. Even this more compact notation no longer fits in the universe.