One of my strongest takeaways from the Bee this week is that it was a showcase for why critical thinking matters more than ever. So much of what the kids do up there isn’t rote memorization—it’s using their insane prep to solve words like puzzles (using etymology, patterns) in real time.

80% of Wisconsinites polled by Marquette Law said the Legislature should have passed the budget deal. But a Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis found it would have stuck the state with a nearly $3 billion deficit. @bspears.bsky.social reports on why math is hard. buff.ly/EqNSeZ2

"As soon as you arrive, could you immediately take his leash off and then, after the fact, ask us if we’re cool with it?"

Kevin Hart is the first guy to get addicted to being in commercials for gambling.

Vote for your life! It makes sense though, doesn’t it, that people emotionally invested in an outcome might reap benefits of said outcome? 🧪

7-year-old neighbor who’s learning face painting was excited to have such a vast canvas to work on.

Wisconsinites are 80% in favor of a bill to fund schools & tax rebates that failed to pass the WI Senate a few weeks ago. A remarkable number given unanimous opposition of elected officials on one side of the aisle, including 2 gubernatorial candidates #WIpolitics today.marquette.edu/2026/05/marq...

New report by @evergreenaction.bsky.social and 5 Lakes Energy shows that repealing #Michigan's clean energy policies would raise prices by >$1,300 per household in the next 15 years. Clean energy is just cheaper: www.evergreenaction.com/policy-hub/r... 🧪 #climate #CleanEnergy #RenewableEnergy

This is truly captivating.

has there ever been a league-wide crashout after one playoff game that compares to what's rippling through the nba right now?

A study establishes that "social ties" — a fancy way of saying being nice to other, even those you don't know — has benefits. A teacher asked her students to test the thesis in real life.

"I have made you a book with a bunch of tidbits on the oddities of the universe," @chanda.blacksky.app said. "The universe is stranger and more queer and more wonderful and more full of possibility than whatever limitations you might be experiencing." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/s...

The land between stuff in our bodies might connect all of our pieces together, showing how treatments like acupuncture might work. www.nytimes.com/interactive/... 🧪 #scicomm #sciart

“Rodighiero & her team already have their suspicions about how the red & blue monsters can coexist in the early universe….‘We think that they are connected by the same evolutionary story,’ she says.’It’s just that we catch galaxies in different periods, & it’s much easier to detect a blue monster.”🧪

Killer analogy from @jennaahart.bsky.social in this story: “seeing such a big, dusty galaxy less than a half-billion years into the universe’s 13.8-billion-year history is a bit like finding a redwood tree towering over saplings in a recently plowed field” 🧪

There are red monsters where there should not be red monsters! 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/jwst... @jennaahart.bsky.social

Everything about our current political climate can be traced to Buckley v. Valeo, the landmark 1976 campaign finance case that allowed for dark money. Everything. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/u...

There are only two pieces of questionable provenance here

Whoopsie 🧪

Solo is the best star wars movie.

DESERV-ED www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Nice reporting by Erik on some consternation for D's in a district with about +9 or 10 point baked in advantage for R's due to district lines.

This piece does a really good job of weaving in the issue of renewable energy with data centers since 1) power is an issue here anyway; and 2) Americans are really attached to their landscapes.

I feel like I can relatively easily recognize LLM-generated writing, but it may also be a toupee fallacy... en.wiktionary.org/wiki/toupee_...

“Freedom peptide makers”

Poll: If we rebrand "mRNA vaccines" as "DIY peptide makers", will more people accept them?

Wellbeing quiz: guess what things help you stay well? I think it's easy to wishcast a little bit here with the answers but it's a fun exercise (no pun!) and honestly my answers were more optimistic than I thought they'd be (where are all my GAD-7 heads at?!!) 🧪 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Rachel Carson mention autoreskeet:

"We are ready to set an environmental goal for ourselves that both defers responsibility to some cyber-schmuck in the distant future and also might look impressive if you scroll quickly past a sponsored headline in your Facebook feed. We love trees."

Whoever came up with the Devil Wears Prada 2 branded Diet Coke cans shattered the backboard on that slam dunk.

If Wile E Coyote was a super genius he'd just go vegan

Liza Weil is a GOAT. Pete and Pete antagonist, goes on to almost end Leo McGarry's career, then gleefully torments Rory for years.

"Thanks to the support of visionary venture capitalists working tirelessly to usher in an age of equality and prosperity, Cyberdyne is building Skynet, a neural network on the brink of achieving something tech billionaires could hitherto only dream of: self-awareness."

Just wait until the NFL renegotiates its deal.

When I bought my EV, which is 5 years old, its ability to charge 10-80% in 18 minutes as a big selling feature, China was already faster than that. For the past ten years, better batteries have been here, U.S. automakers just suck at globally competitive EVs.

It seems like for the past 20 years, better batteries have been 10 years away, but news about China's EV and battery technology is filled with what-ifs from the U.S. auto and power sectors. 🧪 arstechnica.com/cars/2026/04...

Looks like I've got myself a new project tomorrow!

With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars. We've enlisted the help of @timheidecker.bsky.social, who will be InfoWars' Creative Director. Please stand by for more.

We've known that the proteins in the epigenome control DNA expression, but we thought they were just on-off switches. They're not. They're more. This is pretty remarkable. 🧪🔬🧬 news.ncsu.edu/2026/04/each...

Played Ada’s Dream this weekend. It’s a heavy board game that inhabits the world of Ada Lovelace. You can give lectures at the Royal Astronomical Society and the door even looks familiar. Such a love letter to the history of science. 🔭🧪⚛️ Image: Meeple Mountain

This is a really lovely story of #archivism in #music - i.e. what we know about really only scratches the surface of what was there. It's like digging up the ruins of Pompeii except it's 30 years ago instead of 2,000. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/a...

Writing a YouTube script and thankful for everyone fighting for open access to be affordable for scientists 🧪 I have no official institutional affiliation and being able to read these papers fully (not just abstracts) is tangibly enhancing my understanding and, thus, the quality of my pitch/product

This feels like it could be a pretty big thing. Ticket prices have been astronomical since COVID. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/a...

uh-oh! a psyop!

Of course Ted Leo has a great perspective on this, and his point is well taken. The "marketing" worked insomuch as I Iistened to one of their songs twice, which is a lot for something I didn't like the first time.

You Will Never Regret Asking Other People Who Are Alive And Actually Exist For Their Music Recommendations www.ienjoymusic.net/your-favorit...

Why Your Brain Already Understands Complex Music Theory Without Ever Taking a Single Piano Lesson Our brains master complex musical rules just through listening. Listeners Systematically Integrate Hierarchical Tonal Context, Regardless of Musical Training🏺🧪 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sensational headline aside, an interesting dive on what it takes to go viral, and how it’s not that hard if you have the labor power to do it. (I never liked them anyway)

It doesn’t affect how I regard the band (which I like!) but does make it clear how hard it is for unfunded acts to break into the mainstream, and how folks with money to spend can manipulate the digital cesspool Many such cases ofc