A headline reads: "Times Exclusive: The Inside Story of 5 Days That Remade the Supreme Court. Secret memos obtained by The New York Times illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine 'shadow docket' rulings on presidential power."

Confidential memos by Supreme Court justices, obtained by The New York Times, show how they decided to bypass time-tested procedures and create the modern “shadow docket,” a rushed and secretive new way of doing business. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

China's electrification bet is paying off. Electricity now accounts for 30% of its energy consumption - 50% higher than the US or Europe.

With 1/3 of global renewable energy capacity already installed, China is structurally more insulated from rising oil prices than most Western economies.

You think that was fun, wait till you try evolutionary algorithms. Keep the monkeys and keep mixing them, but also evaluate them every round in a big pool. I got my pools of monkeys to be able to re-create entire big sentences. Back in 2000. On an grey unibody iMac. Very satisfying.

France passed a law requiring solar panels on every parking lot with more than 80 spaces.

Equals 10 nuclear reactors
Reduces heat island, shades cars

The US -- 800 million parking spaces. Most of them are uncovered asphalt sitting in direct sunlight.

Why aren't we doing this?

There are four recognised swimming strokes and the most recent - butterfly - was developed in the 30s.

I feel like we haven't completely exhausted cultural morphospace and it's high time that we invented another.

Glad to see the Australian government on board. Massive milestone today with Bowen acknowledging EV growth is already offsetting the oil crisis. Increasing reserves while demand falls makes no sense.

Now for a solar carport mandate!

Charge baby charge. ☀️⚡ #Bettrification #EVs

We need to bring back the $7,500 EV instant rebate from the inflation reduction act.

Photo of a Eurostar train just arrived at Rotterdam Central station

Photo of a double-decker train to Amsterdam pulling into Rotterdam station

En route to #ehbea2026 and looking forward to a great programme 😊 @ehbea2026.bsky.social

Interest in EVs surges in Europe as fuel prices jump after Iran war Demand at online marketplaces could settle at a new, higher normal, with the crisis leaving consumers ‘scarred’

The Strait of Hormuz crisis is doing something a decade of subsidies and mandates struggled to achieve:

making millions of people want an EV who previously discounted them.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

and neither can the private sector & private foundations

For social science: *63 percent* of all social and behavioral science research in the United States is funded by the NSF through the social, behavioral, and economic sciences directorate.

✅

Join our KLI Colloquium:
"A Metaphysics for Dialectical Biology"
Speaker: Denis WALSH (University of Toronto)
🕒 16 April 2026, 3:00 PM CEST
🗺️ at KLI, join online via ZOOM (link & info: www.kli.ac.at/content/en/e...)

🚨 ACE Network Brown Bag 🚨

Dr. Jeremy Brooks, Ohio State U.

Studying Cultural Evolution Mechanisms in Urban Sustainability Diffusion
(project concept discussion)
osu.zoom.us/j/9537231531...
Tuesday, April 14, 12pm EST, 4pm GMT
talk: 30 min, discussion: 30 min

Please spread the word!

🤦‍♀️

Nations are now waking up to the fact that electrification = national security. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country.

Unprecedented corruption

🤣

Bingo

Oh no. NSF Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program shuttered.

This one leaves me winded. A good story from 2025 by @seattletimes-rss.bsky.social offers insight into what we are losing: www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.

The administration's budget request would cut research funding for the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency by more than 50%.

It's hard to imagine an external enemy causing more long-term damage to this country.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Chart showing cumulative number of awards from the NSF BIO directorate. Currently = 38 whereas in previous years it was 204-353 by this time of year.

The assault on science isn't limited to NSF SBE = agency wide. Even though the FY26 appropriation = $8.75 billion (slightly < FY25 levels), the $ going out to fund science is not just slow at SBE. At BIO only 38 awards have been made so far this year (~7x ⬇️ normal!)
grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

A TV Guide cover featuring Grover of the Muppets with his arms around a young, handsome Elliot Gould. The caption reads: Editor: You get those photos of Elliot Gould and Grover? Reporter: Sure did boss, real fuckin sexy just like you asked. Editor: what

Is there something I’m missing about this one? I just… not funny? I don’t get it.

The Science of an Evolutionary Transition in Humans

I was honored to give a colloquium talk at the KLI last week on the Science of an Evolutionary Transition in Humans. There's a lot to cover, so it's a dense talk.

The XKCD Dependency meme

Computationally formalising a verbal theory is an eye-opening experience because it forces you to openly state all the assumptions that the theory rest on

Cloth bag

How a win–lose mindset affects political and policy preferences The origins and consequences of zero-sum thinking in the United States.

How a win–lose mindset affects political and policy preferences www.aeaweb.org/research/zer... via @aeajournals.bsky.social

The deadline applications to the CES New Investigator Award has been extended until April 2 - don't miss out getting your application in!

True. And sad because flat taxes are dumb AF.

Ever wonder how some billionaires can get away with paying such low tax rates compared to working class Americans? Here’s their secret playbook — and what we can do about it.