- the incredible discovery that the massive slabs of Stonehenge were transported from Scotland, 800km North. Reuniting with the Round Table legend that Merlin brought them from Ireland. (Through a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (!) not rejecting the null that the age distributions of the altar stones and those of the Orcadian Bassin are identical. And kernel density estimates.) With their transportation 4,500 years ago remaining a mystery but like carried out by sea from Northern Scotland or even the Orkney Islands.
- a debate on whether or not to cap US postdoctoral positions to five years, as considered by the NIH. The intention is to prevent lengthy short-term positions in academia and to force institutions to hire into more permanent jobs. However, if the only proactive step from the NIH is this cap, institutions can proceed by rotating within the perpetually renewed pool of fresh PhD laureates. Leaving the older postdocs no other choice than switching to non-academic jobs when they cannot secure a tenure-track position. (In France, after 6 years on short-term contracts, a scientist’s most recent employer is legally obligated to offer stable employment, which leads to the preventive decision by labs of not hiring postdocs beyond 5 years.)
- a more precise history of plate tectonics, which our own Jeffreys opposed all his life.
- the several attempts at overcoming the antibiotic diminishing return in fighting microbial infections. That include generative AI.
- a shocking call to close the International Whaling Convention (formerly chaired by one of the authors) and let countries run their whaling, at a time when Japan launched a massive commercial whaling ship and when Peter Watson has been jailed in Greenland! With terrible three point graph “demonstrating” a comeback for most whale species.
- a novel theory behind the construction of Saqqara pyramids, involving hydraulics as put forward by a Paris institute called Paleotechnic (!)
- and a scathing book review of Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Nearer (when we merge with AI) [!], which concludes with ” Kurzweil’s understanding of humanity and nature is so bizarrely deficient that his augury is more of a curse than a blessing. His spiritual quest is devoid of spirit. The singularity betrays what is singularly human.” With the reviewer hoping “that we would have reached bullshit escape velocity by” the 2030 horizon predicted by Kurzwel for transhumanist heaven.
Xi'an's Og 
