Tootfinder

Does spatialized audio enhance the creation of mental representations? Spoiler: No (for their SnapStick-based setup) https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2025.1660373/full "seven blind individuals and se…

Frontiers | Does spatialized audio enhance the creation of mental representations?
Navigating unfamiliar environments without vision is a considerable challenge for blind individuals, as it requires constructing accurate cognitive maps. Bin...

KRED: Korea Research Economic Database for Macroeconomic Research
Changryong Baek, Seunghyun Moon, Seunghyeon Lee
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16115 https://…

KRED: Korea Research Economic Database for Macroeconomic Research
We introduce KRED (Korea Research Economic Database), a new FRED MD style macroeconomic dataset for South Korea. KRED is constructed by aggregating 88 key monthly time series from multiple official sources (e.g., Bank of Korea ECOS, Statistics Korea KOSIS) into a unified, publicly available database. The dataset is aligned with the FRED MD format, enabling standardized transformations and direct comparability; an Appendix maps each Korean series to its FRED MD counterpart. Using a balanced pane…

Marie made cheddar garlic muffins, egg and bacon, tea and coffee. Weekend was soccer watch (we lost), hike, drag show with friends. Tonight will be Arkham Horror game! #TogetherBreakfast
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RaE7gz5LCVzMKSw19

For decades, scientists have been intrigued by a strange twist in the Moon’s history.
Toward its last stages of formation, the lunar mantle likely flipped:
Minerals that had formed at the top sank to its bottom, in a process called lunar mantle overturn.
The idea emerged from simulations based on the analysis of lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo missions,
but a new study published in Nature Geoscience offers the first evidence supporting this theory.
Fou…

The Moon’s Mantle Did a Flip—and Scientists May Now Have Evidence
For decades, a lunar whodunit has puzzled scientists: Did the Moon’s internal layers flip during its formation? Old data might hold the evidence to solve this cold case.

Good Morning #Canada
Are you still looking for that perfect Christmas gift? Years ago I found myself shopping for my wife's Christmas present on December 23rd. Never again. For those of you still shopping it's inevitable that you're going to be standing in front of the Gift Card rack and mentally convincing yourself that the recipient will love a full gas tank or a Timmies coffee and donut. Canadians will buy close to $12 billion in Gift Cards in 2025, with a lot of that in the next 5 days. Recent changes to legislation have made it illegal to charge processing or activation fees on cards purchased with cash and there is no expiry date. That last point is important because companies are betting that a certain percentage of cards are never redeemed and it's estimated that approximately 40% of all cards are never used. I personally like getting a gift card as it allows me to choose something I want, and I always thank the gifter once I've used it.
#CanadaIsAwesome #GiftCards
YES, I love giving and receiving Gift Cards
NO, I'm not happy when I have to buy or get a Gift Card

Trying out a new way of sharing links to YouTube videos, linking to a more privacy-friendly embed. This is a good one to start with, Karen Hao’s reporting on chatbots and mental health.

https://xbm.se/yt/?id=zkGk_A4noxI

Young people in China are turning to AI chatbots like DeepSeek and Doubao for therapy to save time and money, while avoiding stigma around mental health (Yi-Ling Liu/Rest of World)
https://restofworld.org/2025/young-people-in-china-are-embracing-ai-therapy/

Young people in China are embracing AI therapy
Cheap, accessible, and friendly AI tools can augment scarce professional help, but there are risks to overreliance on the technology.

Semi-Global Existence and Trapped Surface Formation for the Einstein-Vlasov System
Nikolaos Athanasiou, Puskar Mondal, Shing-Tung Yau
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.12429 https://…

Semi-Global Existence and Trapped Surface Formation for the Einstein-Vlasov System
We prove a large-data semi-global existence theorem and the dynamical formation of trapped surfaces for the Einstein-massless Vlasov system in 3+1 dimensions, without any symmetry assumptions. The analysis critically hinges on a finely calibrated hierarchy of estimates for the Weyl curvature, Ricci coefficients, and velocity moments of the distribution function, designed to capture the delicate interaction between the geometric and kinetic structures of the coupled system. The presence of the V…

Pumpkin pancakes (there’s batter left for Thursday) with egg and bacon, tea and coffee. Meeting our mahjongg friend tonight. #TogetherBreakfast https://photos.app.goo.gl/apMkrQJwiHE3Zzf5A

Trump is very, very angry about a New York Times piece
that carefully documents his obvious physical decline.
Trump raged over the piece,
letting out a stream of lies about his performance in office
and even attacking the reporter who wrote the piece as ugly.
This may seem typical of Trump,
but we think it gets at something deeper.
Trump’s entire political mystique is premised on the fiction that he’s a strong, virile, formidable figure
who …

Transcript: Trump Fury Erupts at NYT as Mental Decline Visibly Worsens
As Trump’s rage at the paper of record reveals too much, the author of piece on Trump as “lame duck dictator” explains how devastating it is for him that his carefully-cultivated illusion of strength is collapsing.