MIT engineers have developed a test to detect disease-related compounds in a patient’s breath.
The new test could provide a faster way to diagnose pneumonia and other lung conditions.
Rather than sit for a chest X-ray or wait hours for a lab result,
a patient may one day take a breath test and get a diagnosis within minutes.
The new breath test is a portable, chip-scale sensor
that traps and detects synthetic compounds, or “biomarkers,” of disease, which are in…
Had an #acting #coaching client do a take focusing on one aim, then do a take focusing on a different aim, then, for a third take, had them split the difference and it was beautiful to see them do the scene with that greater breath to it. Sometimes finding the pieces builds the whole well.
Theory: the rise of YouTube gamers has kind of ruined new games, especially sequels.
Nintendo saw countless hours of YouTubers horsing around in Breath of the Wild, so they made a sequel built entirely about horsing around in the same world with a bunch of goofy sandbox toys, rather than giving us a proper adventure/exploration/puzzle game.
Team Cherry saw YouTubers get incredibly skilled at precision combat in Hollow Knight, so they made Silksong all about precision…
Post-Perseids Sunrise At Raisting Earth Station (2026)
(Pictures from between 5-6AM this morning... I still need to process the meteor shower images from the hour before, but not holding my breath...)
#LandscapePhotography #RadioTelescope
Hope Has No Shovel: Why We Fling Our Wishes at the Sky
Watch what the body does with a wish. The child inhales before the candles, holds the secret behind her teeth, then gives it to the room with one hard breath....
https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/08/hope
Based on daily values, the July average of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa was ~429.1 ppm. That's "only" 1.2 ppm higher than last year. But don't hold your breath: the upcoming El Niño will probably speed up the increase again.
Thoughtseeds as Latent Causes: A Dual-Process Computational Phenomenology of Focused-Attention Meditation
Prakash Chandra Kavi, Daniel Ari Friedman, Gustavo Patow
https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.14833 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.14833 https://arxiv.org/html/2607.14833
arXiv:2607.14833v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Meditative expertise involves sustained attention, rapid recovery from distraction, and coordinated dynamics of large-scale brain networks. We present a computational phenomenology of focused-attention meditation traversing four attractor states: breath focus, mind-wandering, meta-awareness, and redirect attention. Within a dual-process active inference formulation, the model implements a three-layer nested Markov-blanket architecture: (L1) a high-dimensional physiological neuronal substrate modeled as a stochastic multivariate Ornstein--Uhlenbeck process over attentional Yeo networks; (L2) a low-dimensional generative model (System 1) that encodes latent mental content as thoughtseeds and evaluates autonomic action tendencies; and (L3) an agentic metacognitive monitor (System 2) that implements a Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) capacity bottleneck to selectively gate these tendencies. In L3, meta-awareness functions as the GNW ignition signal, derived from policy-prior divergence and dynamically gated by direct competition between orchestrator and distractor thoughtseeds. Policy selection actively minimizes expected free energy, and L2 actions furnish descending predictions over network activity to close the enactive perception--action cycle. Training uses variational Expectation-Maximization (EM) across expert and novice phenotypes. Simulations reproduce behavior consistent with empirical observations and findings in contemplative neuroscience, providing a tractable link between first-person phenomenology and objective neurophysiological measures.
toXiv_bot_toot
Sonnet 130 - CXXX
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath …
Back in the country for less than 24 hours and we've already voted. Now if only we could imagine a world in which a non-Liberal could one day win our riding in a regular election. This time, of course, it's a by-election on the last day in August, so I'm not holding my breath.
#cdnpoli
You have to rest. There are industrial buildings on the opposite bank---abandoned granaries and silos---but they're so rain-rusted and sun-bleached, they have their own charm, like public sculptures. When you've recovered your breath, we continue.
Not that I share all of @… 's rosy post bubble projections, but his #AI book sure is a breath of fresh sense, and a good antidote to the LLM mania echo chamber.
"“There is that sense of theatre with fire and flames,” says Jeremy Pang, a third-generation Chinese chef in London and founder of the School of Wok. “It feels quite traditional and exciting. But we have found that we can get just as high temperatures, and just as good cooking, with electric.”
The secret to traditional Chinese cookery lies in the “wok hei” – literally, the breath of the wok, meaning the smoke and heat that the chef must master, to give all ingredients the right de…
"“There is that sense of theatre with fire and flames,” says Jeremy Pang, a third-generation Chinese chef in London and founder of the School of Wok. “It feels quite traditional and exciting. But we have found that we can get just as high temperatures, and just as good cooking, with electric.”
The secret to traditional Chinese cookery lies in the “wok hei” – literally, the breath of the wok, meaning the smoke and heat that the chef must master, to give all ingredients the right de…
I just hope the cool people won't just be offline, when Bluesky draws it's last breath.
I hope they'll realize, that community funded alternatives, that are built for people and not corporations, are the way to go.
Social media isn't dead.
Big tech "solutions" are.
Nuclear scientists and the University of Michigan want to build a massive data center in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan.
If built, the data center will, among other things, run simulations to help America build nuclear weapons.
The residents of Ypsilanti Township overwhelmingly oppose the construction of the data center
and voiced their opposition to the computer warehouse during a public board meeting on June 16.
In a show of support that’s often rare from local lead…
By the middle of this week, insurgent progressive Democrats may have defeated establishment candidates in two vital primaries,
for a Senate seat in Michigan and the governorship of Wisconsin.
If and when that happens, the elite news media will overflow with
“Dems in Disarray!” stories,
and the the centrist Democrats who have been issuing dark warnings about their party’s left turn will be in a full-blown panic.
Those centrists need to take a deep breath, settle…
🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBCRadio3:
#20thCenturyRadicals
- Betsy Jolas: language, breath, and living sound
Gillian Moore explores the organic aliveness of the music of Betsy Jolas, with a focus on her 1977 trumpet concerto Onze Lieder.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002p7cp
As someone who reveres Programming Pearls, to even be mentioned in a related breath by one of our greatest programmers is…more of an honor than anything on a CV. Going to call it a day and go out for a ride. (-:
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #EssentialClassics
Matthew Coleridge, Lionel Handy, Choir of Royal Holloway, Southern Sinfonia & Rupert Gough:
🎵 The Breath of Life (7. These Great Trees are Prayers)
#MatthewColeridge #LionelHandy #ChoirofRoyalHolloway #SouthernSinfonia
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #BBCProms
Joseph Parry & David Roche:
🎵 Divine Breath (Awen)
#JosephParry #DavidRoche
@cdarwin@c.im
