Featured Links - April 22, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

I am surprised this shed lasted the winter. 

• Just one exo-Earth pixel can reveal continents, oceans, and more. "Even from a single pixel, multiwavelength data taken over time can reveal clouds, icecaps, oceans, continents, and even signs of life."
  
• Association of self-reported and accelerometer-based walking pace with incident cardiac arrhythmias: a prospective cohort study using UK Biobank. "Average and brisk self-reported walking pace and time spent walking at moderate and brisk pace were associated with a decreased risk of cardiac arrhythmias, in part mediated via metabolic and inflammatory pathways. Our findings suggest brisk walking may be a safe and effective exercise to reduce arrhythmias, especially for higher risk groups."
• The iPhone 16 Pro Max helped me see – with a little help from the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. "Specifically, the 5x telephoto cameras on both flagship phones came in very handy, letting me zoom in on details on the Reichstag or the myriad of street art sprayed onto the walls and buildings of the city. But both phones really helped me and my poor eyes when visiting the Berlin Zoo." 
• DOJ's menacing letter to med journals "a chill down the spine of scientists". It will take a generation to repair the damage that the Trump regime has already done to US science and medicine. 
• 5 services I disabled to improve Windows performance. There are certainly many more services that could be disabled but this is a good start. 
• 'Bad Omen': Ancient Pyramid in Mexico Collapsed Into A Pile of Rubble. Extreme weather events and rising seas are putting precious heritage sites around the world in harm's way. "A stunning example of this phenomenon in 2024 was a stone pyramid in Mexico succumbing to an increasingly chaotic global climate."
• A three-storey home built in just three days? Why this Toronto tear down may hold the key to Canada’s house building strategy (archive link). "Construction of a prefabricated home just off the Danforth shows how the building technique can combat climate change." It's about time and I hope we see more of this. 
• 5 takeaways about NPR's reporting on the whistleblower report about DOGE at the NLRB. The security nightmare continues. IT security people must be tearing their hair out.
• Breakthrough gravity discovery challenges the existence of dark matter. "Richard Lieu offers a theory that could challenge one of the biggest assumptions in astrophysics. His idea: gravity can exist without any mass at all." Yet another theory that aims to eliminate the need for dark matter. 
• No, astronomers almost certainly didn’t find biosignatures of life on another planet. "I’m not even convinced they found the molecules they claim to have found." Some skepticism on recent news from astronomer Phil Plait. 
• Aylmer - The Canadian Soup. A commercial that's now showing on Canadian TV. Take that, Trump!