We start with Matthew Gault’s dive into a battle between a small town and the construction of a massive datacenter for America’s nuclear weapon scientists. After the break, Joseph explains why people are 3D-printing whistles in Chicago. In the subscribers-only section, Jason zooms out and tells us what librarians are seeing with AI and tech,…
🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. Tiny remnants of long-lost continents that vanished many millions of years ago are sprinkled around the world, including on remote island chains and seamounts, a mystery that has puzzled scientists for…
Fifty years ago—almost two decades before WIRED, seven years ahead of PCMag, just a few years after the first email ever passed through the internet and with the World Wide Web still 14 years away—there was BYTE. Now, you can see the tech magazine’s entire run at once. Software engineer Hector Dearman recently released a…
A version of this article was previously published on FOIAball, a newsletter reporting on college football and public records. You can learn more about FOIAball and subscribe here. Last weekend, Charleston’s tiny private military academy, the Citadel, traveled to Ole Miss. This game didn’t have quite the same cachet as the Rebels’ Week 11 opponent…
Chicagoans have turned to a novel piece of tech that marries the old-school with the new to warn their communities about the presence of ICE officials: 3D-printed whistles. The goal is to “prevent as many people from being kidnapped as possible,” Aaron Tsui, an activist with Chicago-based organization Cycling Solidarity, and who has been printing…
In a landmark case for Danish courts and internationally, a man was sentenced to seven months’ suspended imprisonment and 120 hours of community service for posting nude scenes from copyrighted films. He’s convicted of “gross violations of copyright, including violating the right of publicity of more than 100 aggrieved female actors relating to their artistic…
It’s that time again! We’re planning our latest FOIA Forum, a live, hour-long or more interactive session where Joseph and Jason will teach you how to pry records from government agencies through public records requests. We’re planning this for Wednesday, November 19th at 1 PM Eastern. That’s in just over a week away! Add it…
If you’ve been to a national park in the U.S. recently, you might have noticed some odd new signs about “beauty” and “grandeur.” Or, some signs you were used to seeing might now be missing completely. An executive order issued earlier this year put the history and educational aspects of the parks system under threat–but…
Ypsilanti, Michigan resident KJ Pedri doesn’t want her town to be the site of a new $1.2 billion data center, a massive collaborative project between the University of Michigan and America’s nuclear weapons scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) in New Mexico. “My grandfather was a rocket scientist who worked on Trinity,” Pedri said…
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that took a bite out of life, appealed to the death drive, gave a yellow light to the universe, and produced hitherto unknown levels of cute. First, it’s the most epic ocean battle: orcas versus sharks (pro tip: you don’t want to be sharks)….
