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Low-cost ketamine could help people with severe, hard-to-treat depression, study finds. A cheap version of ketamine commonly used as a sedative might help some people with hard-to-treat depression, research finds, raising hopes that the off-label treatment could become less expensive.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:57 PM PST - 54 comments

Jonathan Frakes Looks Back at His ‘Star Trek’ TV Directing Career, From ‘Next Generation’ to the ‘Strange New Worlds’-‘Lower Decks’ Crossover
posted by Artw at 6:39 PM PST - 34 comments

A South Korean team has published pre-print results on Arxiv. If true, this could be world-changing. Or is it just the next "cold fusion" scam?
Quantum Insider
IFL Science [more inside]
posted by ZakDaddy at 11:48 AM PST - 137 comments

Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor has died at the age of 56. The acclaimed Dublin performer released 10 studio albums, while her song Nothing Compares 2 U was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards. Ms O’Connor was presented with the inaugural award for Classic Irish Album at the RTÉ Choice Music Awards earlier this year. The singer received a standing ovation as she dedicated the award, for I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, to “each and every member of Ireland’s refugee community”. [more inside]
posted by roolya_boolya at 11:08 AM PST - 353 comments

Ardra Shephard is a Canadian writer, consultant, and speaker. Her award-winning blog Tripping On Air is about fashion, relationships, and living with disability and multiple sclerosis (MS). [more inside]
posted by narcissus_and_ambrosia at 11:00 AM PST - 2 comments

South Pole Signage Signs that make you scratch your head. Signs that could exist in a suburban office park anywhere on earth. Signs that can only exist at the South Pole.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 10:33 AM PST - 65 comments

Earl Scruggs [Wikipedia], the renowned banjo player and bluegrass pioneer, began exploring collaborations with musicians from other genres, ... artists like The Byrds, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. This was a bold move for Scruggs, who was known for his traditional bluegrass roots. ... The result of Scruggs' quest to collaborate with these artists was [David Hoffman's] 90 minute primetime television documentary "Earl Scruggs: His Family and Friends," which aired in 1972. It showcased Earl Scruggs playing banjo with well-known musicians such as The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Doc Watson and many others.
posted by hippybear at 10:20 AM PST - 12 comments

An obsessive gamer’s guide to chronic pain peripherals [Polygon] “I now live by a common chronic pain axiom called “spoon theory.” Every day, I have a number of “spoons” at my disposal — a measurement of my energy, where each spoon signifies the ability to do one task. Sometimes I wake up with few spoons to spare. Sometimes I overspend my spoons and must live for weeks in recovery, with no spoons at all.” Playing video games used to replenish every spoon in my drawer — it was a restorative, passive hobby like reading or doing a puzzle. But all of these activities have something in common: They involve sitting, crouching, and craning my body for hours at a time. After my back injury, I realized I had to rebuild my idea of rest, and that I needed to factor ergonomics into nearly every aspect of playing games, especially because I have a tendency to get sucked in. [...] Nowadays, I think seriously about the tools I use, and the positions I sit in (or pretzel my body into) when I become obsessed with a game. I’ve assembled some of my favorite “hacks” for gaming with chronic pain. Because chronic pain is an individual experience, your mileage may vary. But these tools and tricks have helped me enjoy playing games in the most pain-free way possible since my injuries.”
posted by Fizz at 8:31 AM PST - 17 comments

Imara Jones and the Translash Podcast capture the story of a trans former NYT staffer. "Hunter" joined the New York Times and thought they found their journalistic home. This podcast, part of a series on the Anti-Trans Hate Machine series, captures how the paper of record seems to have made a deliberate choice to actively court right-wing voices, especially those who peddle disinformation about trans people, which came to a head in April.
posted by foxywombat at 8:30 AM PST - 57 comments

Jezebel magazine explores the history and meaning behind the girliest color ever and declares that The Barbie Pink Rebellion Is Underway. [more inside]
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 7:51 AM PST - 20 comments

The 1990s were a sugary blur of pink and pale green iced tea labels. Here’s the story behind the great effort to normalize (and commercialize) kiwis for an American audience.
posted by Etrigan at 7:49 AM PST - 26 comments

There is so much in Weizenbaum’s thinking that is urgently relevant now. Perhaps his most fundamental heresy was the belief that the computer revolution, which Weizenbaum not only lived through but centrally participated in, was actually a counter-revolution. It strengthened repressive power structures instead of upending them. It constricted rather than enlarged our humanity, prompting people to think of themselves as little more than machines. By ceding so many decisions to computers, he thought, we had created a world that was more unequal and less rational, in which the richness of human reason had been flattened into the senseless routines of code. from ‘A certain danger lurks there’: how the inventor of the first chatbot turned against AI [Grauniad; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 3:41 AM PST - 28 comments