Welcome back. This week I have seven STEM links that are fun, odd, or interesting. Or some mix in between. There’s a brief article about how microbes in the US prairie travel from the air, to bison noses, to their guts, and then out their back door to be picked up by insects and predators who eat insects. And an article about what AIs do when they’re bored, as well as how AIs are not ready to help manage medical emergency rooms. If you wonder whether to starve a cold or feed a fever, there’s a link for that too. Plus the history of chocolate and the worlds oldest cheese.
Bison snot holds the American prairie together. Here’s how, according to an ecosystem expert
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/bison-snot
Claude AI Gets Bored During Coding Demonstration, Starts Perusing Photos of National Parks Instead
https://futurism.com/the-byte/claude-ai-bored-demonstration
Study finds AI is not ready to run emergency rooms
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2024/10/08/study-AI-not-ready-run-emergency-rooms/7261728392084/
A Brief History of Chocolate
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-brief-history-of-chocolate-21860917/
Fact or Fiction? Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-feed-a-cold/
Need a good night’s sleep? Try changing how you think about it
The World’s Oldest Cheese Was Buried in a Chinese Tomb 3,600 Years Ago. Now, Scientists Have Sequenced Its DNA
Next Week
The next Wednesday email has fun STEM stories about the Uncensored Library in Minecraft, the practical math used to measure gauge in knitting, a list of inventors killed by their inventions, a great video explainer about Large Language Models (LLMs), an AI tool that teaches sign language, and what humans will look like in the year 3000. The Wednesday emails also now have a new STEM Bits & Bytes section that makes for a faster read that’s also got the usual detailed links I’ve researched.