pyesetz | Random Links of the Day: Monday

(These are hot-links to images hosted by others and will likely rot eventually. Tap or click to visit related article; to embiggen a photo, either pinch-zoom or right-click to select “View Image”)

Top-heavy robot has difficulty with escalator.

In 2008, tusks from elephants killed almost 500 years ago were discovered in a shipwreck. They were well-preserved, so their mitochondrial DNA could be analysed to determine which matriarchy they came from. Results finally published this year indicate that the tusks came from 17 different female-led elephant groups, only 4 of which still exist today.

People tend to assume that current trends will continue indefinitely. There’s such a thing as reversion to the mean, you know. 2021 probably won’t be that bad, since bad years are often followed by average ones, because most years are followed by average ones and the year itself doesn’t know how the previous year went.

Sexism is rampant in America. How dare the Boy Scouts respond to their boy-rape problem by trying to recruit girls!

Americans love to imagine that their political issue-of-the-day is so important that it justifies killing people in their sleep on Christmas Day, but it usually doesn’t. Remember the Maine! (To this day, Cuba claims that the attack on the USS Maine was a false-flag operation by the USA, during which innocent American sailors were killed in their sleep by their own side.)

Ah yes, the murder hornets. Where did they come from? “The combination of half-listening and overdramatization of the facts by the media creates an anxiety-driven stew.”