The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System "concentrated" solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert is by any measure an unmitigated disaster.

The party that is now claiming they are rescuing the Ivanpah they mandated to exist was scheduled to be closed this year - because its low costs were always a pipe dream and its maintenance estimates were the optimism no scientists believed.

But California ignores scientists. We ignore them about 80,000 Prop 65 cancer warning labels on harmless products, we ignore them on pesticides, and we ignore them on energy.

A new DNA analysis reveals that long before the Incan Empire took over Peru, animals were being transported across the Andes, a trek that also involved rainforests, highlands and deserts. 

The analysis was of parrot feathers discovered at Pachacamac, Peru, a religious hub that is far outside the birds’ native rainforest range. The burial feather assemblage included the Scarlet Macaw, Blue-and-yellow Macaw, Red-and-green Macaw and Mealy Amazon. DNA sequencing, isotope chemistry and computational landscape modeling says the western side of the Andes was just as inhospitable to these species one thousand years ago as it is today.

Personalized online ads must work for the same reason advertising must work; it wouldn't be a trillion-dollar industry if it didn't work. Even supplements and organic food are only $140 billion, and those are really popular things that don't work. Advertising is not popular at all but good luck succeeding without it.

Yet there are limits for what people accept without being uncomfortable. In robots and animation, that has long been termed the 'uncanny valley' - where something is not lifelike enough to look real but too lifelike to be acceptable. Some digital marketing has its own uncanny valley; where it becomes unsettling. Examples are people who say they mentioned something in the presence of their Amazon Echo and then ads on Facebook began to target them.

A new paper says teens are not getting enough sleep and a lot of parents with teenage children may disagree. Others reflexively blame phones and tablets.

It isn't a new concern, though. Nor is technology new in getting blame. In 1905, The Lancet published a study saying that kids in British boarding schools were getting less sleep than was healthy, and the reason was the new popularity of affordable lighting. “Late to bed and early to rise is neither physiological nor wise,” the authors wrote.

By the 1950s, the concern was in culture again, this time due to radio and television keeping children up. In all instances, overstimulation, mental health, and poor academic achievement is invoked.

Publicly doctors say all of the things you'd expect a group with heavy state and federal scrutiny to say about weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy but privately they say things like 'people will be on it for the rest of their lives.'

In 1918, with Gen Black Jack Pershing off to France to stop the Germans in World War I, the United States instituted Daylight Saving Time. The public were told it was to save energy sources that would be needed for the war but in June America stopped the Germans cold at the Marne, and then pushed them back toward Germany in July, and by November had ended that war.

Yet Daylight Saving Time remained. It still exists 100 years later despite energy savings claims long being debunked, and it being broadly unpopular. Government routinely says they might change it, but when they do they say they would switch permanently to the one everyone actually hates the most, which is the most government thing you will read today. 

Although I have long retired from serious chess tournaments (they take too much time, a luxury I do not have anymore - even more so now that I have two infants to help grow!), I insist playing online blitz on chess.com, with alternating fortunes. My elo rating hovers in the 2200-2300 range, signalling that I still have my wits around me (I figure it is a very good way to keep a watch on my mental capabilities: if Alzheimer lurks, I will spot it early). 

The common imagery of prehistoric people is either rooting through dirt for grubs and picking berries, or hunting mastodons with spears. Those are both true but some also had a good variety in meals. They were also fishers, not just hunter-gatherers.

Epidemiologists say that pollen can cause worse outcomes for students in math, chemistry and physics.

Allergic rhinitis, an allergic reaction to things such as dust, pet hair, and pollen, is common. Epidemiologists link that to cardiovascular health and even blanket terms like wellness. There is no question people with allergies suffer, especially during peak pollen production, but a new paper says allergy sufferers may be less likely to be good at math and science, and pollen could be why.

COVID-19 lockdowns were an important tool in mitigating risks of acquiring the disease and putting those with comorbidities at higher risk, but objective epidemiologists questioned the value of lockdowns beyond three weeks. Some areas exceeded SAR and R0 models by months or, in states like California, years.

The value of public education over home-schooling or private has been touted by proponents as social adjustment, so there was also concern about how children might be stunted by not having access to anything except close family and device screens.