Dog sleeping on the couch

Daily Vanilla watching the Oscars

Historic achievement Measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000. This meant the absence of the continuous spread of disease was greater than 12 months. This was thanks to a highly effective vaccination program in the United States, as well as better measles control in the Americas region.

A Texas child who was not vaccinated has died of measles, a first for the US in a decade

Started/going

funniest thing about that was that if he even partially complied with the subpoenas like Mark Meadows (just gave some of his texts) he never would have gone to jail.

Three pictures of a dog and a cat looking out a window at the snowy woods. First pic they are looking separate ways. Second the cat is sniffing the dog’s ear. The third the dog tilts her ear back

Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return at a time when federal employees are being laid off

Want to go visit the national parks this year?
Sorry.
The reservation system is shut down, EMT personnel are gone, so don't get hurt or lost. No one can clean the bathrooms or cabins, so they'll be closed. Rangers are fired.

www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

Considering how awful this flu season is…well the first Trump administration didn’t want to test for COVID because the numbers would go up if we did.

:(

yeah if you didn’t get the second booster you probably should. However this is mostly in an under vaccinated Mennonite community.

If there’s a Disease X outbreak in the next four (or more?) years we literally will be flying blind, we just fired the people who would have tracked it

Wow, we’re having a great night of aurora so far here in Fairbanks! Awesome formations in the sky… these photos were captured just a few minutes ago!

Katie Britt vows to work with RFK Jr. after NIH funding cuts cause concern in Alabama UAB and UAH are among Alabama institutions that could be affected by cuts.

Impact of NIH cut starting to sink in

Here's Sen. Katie Britt urging "a smart, targeted approach" in order to protect important research at UA-Birmingham, a top NIH recipient

Also, as article notes, the state's largest employer

www.al.com/news/2025/02...

A white dog running through the snowy woods

Quintessential Vanilla morning

free course on navigating the power and shortcomings of LLMs

Texas confirms measles outbreak as Georgia reports more cases

Also, the CDC today said it has received reports of 14 cases so far this year from 5 jurisdictions.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/m...

Timeline cleanse/your moment of Zen: This is from a few years ago when we had more snow than we do right now. It was the first time Lucy had ever seen more than a dusting, and she was *overjoyed*. (Video features a large fluffy black/tan husky mix rolling around happily in about 4in. of snow.)

Landmark studies track source of Indo-European languages— Harvard Gazette Researchers place Caucasus Lower Volga people, speakers of ancestor tongue, in today’s Russia about 6,500 years ago

Landmark studies track source of Indo-European languages spoken by 40% of world 🧬 news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

Cat in the window

He’s mad that the dog is allowed to go out all the time but not him

gray squirrel in tree, reaching for tree bud, gazing in awe

An enchanting Squirrel of the Day for February 5, 2025 #sqrlpix

Universe could undergo a 'catastrophic change' that could alter absolutely everything The universe could undergo a catastrophe that would change absolutely everything, scientists have shown using a quantum machine.

BREAKING | The universe could undergo a 'catastrophic change' that could alter absolutely everything, quantum machine shows

Interested in how ants navigate? Have a look at our new review in Current Biology! This piece has resulted from a collaboration with Tom Collett, Paul Graham. Open access:
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...

@ercresearch.bsky.social @lundvision.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social

Good morning Albuquerque, New Mexico!

Are the next 4 years really going to be logging on everyday to sentences like "a 19 year old doge intern called Big Balls has your social security number" because I'm already at capacity for this sort of thing

art of war?

Curly kale displaying negative curvature

Lacinato (aka dinosaur or Tuscan) kale displaying positive curvature.

Russian kale is flat

It's kind of fun that the three main varieties of kale represent the three types of surface geometry (negatively curved, positively curved, and flat).

Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Full Access to Treasury’s Payments System

This amounts to the most significant data leak in cyber history. Private individuals in the data business now have access to your Social Security information.

This violates privacy laws in every state. Hopefully, state AGs will file suit & pursue criminal charges.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/u...

Red state alcohol is currently being removed at B.C. Liquor store in Victoria. #bcpoli

Black and white photo of a white dog in the snowy woods

Waiting for my computer to update before doing some work so I posted a “Find Vanilla” picture from earlier today.

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...