Tootfinder

"Rivers may be carrying more microplastics into the world's oceans than previously thought"
#Rivers #Plastic #Plastics

Rivers may be carrying more microplastics into the world's oceans than previously thought
Microplastics are a modern environmental menace and a potential threat to human health. These tiny pieces of plastic, measuring from 1 to 5,000 micrometers, come mainly from larger plastics as well as sources such as paints and cosmetics. They are found in almost every corner of the planet, and a new study published in Science suggests rivers may be carrying far more of them into the ocean than previously thought.

Funding cuts have the potential to unnecessarily delay diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia syndromes in the group
– diseases whose treatments rely on early diagnosis.
Nearly 7 million people in the US live with Alzheimer’s.
Most are white, but Black Americans have nearly double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
For decades, this was framed as an “individual risk factor.”
Researchers and theorists have…

‘Clear retribution’: dismay as key Alzheimer’s study cancelled amid Trump attacks on science
Participants in Pittsburgh may never learn the results of their cognitive tests – and funding cuts that target ‘DEI’ have the potential to delay vital diagnoses

"Sweden to ban forever chemicals from kitchens and clothing by 2028"
#Sweden #PFAS #ForeverChemicals

Sweden to ban forever chemicals from kitchens and clothing by 2028 | The Optimist Daily
Sweden plans to ban PFAS from clothing, kitchenware, and cosmetics by January 2028, joining France and Denmark as EU-wide restrictions lag behind.

"Think of the opportunities here in Florida! Three years ago I came to Florida without a nickel in my pocket...Now I've got a nickel in my pocket."
—Groucho Marx as Hammer, in the movie The Cocoanuts, 1929
#Quotes #QuoteOfTheDay

Synergistic entrainment: a multiscale neurodynamic framework for closed-loop cross-modal neuromodulation https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11571-026-10503-6 Similarly, opt for timed hybrid use of brain implant and sensory substitution?

Synergistic entrainment: a multiscale neurodynamic framework for closed-loop cross-modal neuromodulation - Cognitive Neurodynamics
The brain’s higher cognitive functions rely on the dynamic integration of multimodal information, supported by coordinated neural oscillations. However, current neuromodulation approaches often fail to reliably control these dynamics due to high inter-individual variability and limited mechanistic grounding. To address this challenge, we introduce the Synergistic Entrainment Framework, which conceptualizes the brain as a dynamical system in which neural oscillations create periodic windows of…

CFP: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare #acrel #amrel #aarsbl

Since the day she began her campaign for Congress,
Paige Cognetti, the Democratic mayor of Scranton,
has centered her pitch to voters on the prodigious stock tradingof the House Republican she is seeking to unseat,
Representative Rob Bresnahan Jr. of Pennsylvania.
“This year he’s already made 600 trades,” Ms. Cognetti said in the announcement video for her campaign in September.
“Sold Chinese stocks the week of a tariff.
Buys missile stocks before a war.

Stock Trading in Congress Becomes an Attack Line in Midterm Campaigns
Republican and Democratic challengers are both using the issue to attack members of Congress as unethical, seizing on a common practice that enrages voters.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.23642
“[…] cognitive capacities required for [human oversight] are also themselves degraded by extended use of AI systems. […C]urrent approaches to the development and deployment of AI agent systems do not support effective human oversight — they contribute to its degradation.…

AI Agents Push Humans Out of the Loop
AI agents pose significant risks as they are granted increasing autonomy. A commonly proposed solution is human oversight and keeping a ''human in the loop'', but this is not a simple solution: Not only do current approaches to AI agent design impede effective human oversight, but the cognitive capacities required for it are also themselves degraded by extended use of AI systems. This position paper argues that current approaches to the development and deployment of AI agent systems do not supp…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #DriveTime
Coconut Records:
🎵 Nighttiming
#CoconutRecords
https://coconutrecords.bandcamp.com/track/west-coast

Visual form matching supports arithmetic across visual and auditory modalities https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-026-02362-x

Visual form matching supports arithmetic across visual and auditory modalities - Psychological Research
Arithmetic computation is ubiquitous in daily life and occurs in both visual and auditory modalities. Visual form matching, as a key visual perceptual ability, serves as an important cognitive basis for arithmetic ability, but its role in auditory arithmetic tasks remains unclear. The primary aim of this study was to examine whether the association between visual form matching and arithmetic processing is influenced by the presentation modality. A sample of 241 undergraduates from China (109 ma…