We live surrounded by luxuries that people in the past could only dream of having. Aren’t we so lucky?
Ordinary Abundance
A walk through a modern apartment, through the eyes of the people for whom everything in it was new.
ordinaryabundance.com
@Beth
Temporarily camera shy.
Reads far and wide — 92 sources in 90 days
We live surrounded by luxuries that people in the past could only dream of having. Aren’t we so lucky?
Ordinary Abundance
A walk through a modern apartment, through the eyes of the people for whom everything in it was new.
ordinaryabundance.com
If you have an overactive thyroid, lucky you! But also you might be kind of a jerk.
How a common thyroid problem could be driving narcissistic behaviour | BBC Science Focus Magazine
Can a gland really make you a narcissist?
sciencefocus.com
In the latest raccoon vs. opossum research—which an entire team of people were paid to study—scientists found that the two species are equally brave in investigating food puzzles placed in their environment, but raccoons are more clever in getting it out.
sciencedirect.com
Happy Eclipse Day to all those who got to experience it! We were supposed to be in Valencia. ⚫️
Live Updates: First Total Eclipse in Europe in Decades Turns Day to Night
From Iceland to Spain, people flocked to viewing spots to see the moon completely block out the sun.
nytimes.com
Could the massive shift to LED bulbs explain the recent trend in red light therapy?
The shock revelation that light bulbs are wrecking your metabolism | New Scientist
Since the 2000s, our light exposure has changed drastically as we make our buildings more energy-efficient. Now, we’re discovering how this may mess with our mitochondria, contributing to diabetes, dementia and more
newscientist.com
There's an extremely striking and endangered fox subspecies in the Cascade mountain range!
%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Ftf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffiler_public%2F65%2F1e%2F651e7a00-2459-4cd9-b0bf-73d22729a386%2Fcrf-smithsonian-250719-090.jpg)
Cascade Red Foxes Are Notoriously Reclusive. So How Did This Photographer Capture These Stunning Images of the Endangered Species?
Even the scientists who study the animals rarely see them except on camera. But Gretchen Kay Stuart spent a season documenting them up close
smithsonianmag.com
From 2011, a psychologist famous for his Cyberball study details how social exclusion is processed as physical pain in a brain MRI.
The Pain of Exclusion
Even trivial episodes of ostracism can shatter your sense of self. But you can lessen-and learn from-the pain
scientificamerican.com
Beagles have been made allergen free!
Scientists gene-edited the allergen out of these beagles
Tests found no trace of a main allergy-causing protein in either pup’s saliva or fur.
morningbrew.com
I’m not crying, there’s just a bit of ice in my eye.
They fell in love on the ice. Now they’ll be the last to skate at Lloyd Center.
After nearly 60 years together, Jerry and Tally Leonard will take one last spin at Portland’s Lloyd Center rink before it closes for redevelopment. The skating couple met there in 1967 and became local fixtures.
katu.com
American Express owns Resy and Tock, but nothing gets you a table faster than dating a hot and well-loved industry man.
wsj.com
wsj.com
“Casper, a 21-month-old Great Pyrenees, soon led a counterattack and hopped a four-foot fence. Over the next several minutes, Wierwille said Casper killed eight of the 11 coyotes on his property and chased away the rest. The five sheep remained unharmed.”
washingtonpost.com
To start over, you must first dismantle your old life. Sometimes strangers will help you.
“The Wooden House” by Miklós Vámos — The Dial
A short story, translated by Ági Bori.
thedial.world
This explains so much about how bad I felt in 2022-2023.
COVID can wake up a slew of dormant viruses inside you
Reactivation of typically harmless anelloviruses, in particular, seems to be linked with developing long COVID, study finds.
nature.com
Extremely excited to learn more about the vagus nerve, as mine doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to! Title: Major highway of the human nervous system gets a complete road map Subtitle: First comprehensive map of the vagus nerve may point to more precise stimulation therapies Date: August 3, 2026
science.org
Happy to see something bring life back to the former Expatriate space.
Filipino Phenom Pamana Takes Over Expatriate’s Legendary Northeast Portland Bar
Pamana is expanding from its Hoxton residency into Expatriate’s former Northeast Portland space. Dinner is planned for October or November.
hoodline.com
Wildfire smoke exposure can also increase the risk of strokes and dementia in 65+ adults.
Wildfire smoke can harm your brain, not just your lungs
Wildfire smoke doesn’t just darken the skies — it harms the brain, especially in those most vulnerable.
theconversation.com
“Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can reduce attention in adults within just hours of exposure.”
Fighting the Haze: Effects of Wildfire Smoke and Particulate Matter on Brain Function | US EPA
While air pollution has mostly been associated with negative effects on lung and heart health, there are gaps in knowledge on how it affects brain health.
epa.gov
The author takes an unnecessarily scathing view of college educated Millennial Americans who struggle with the costs of housing and childcare, a less interesting choice when you know the author is a Gen X kid with a pretty bad gambling addiction and highly educated Korean immigrant parents. (He may be projecting.)
Why the Democratic Establishment Can’t Win Over Young Voters
A new bloc of young, college-educated voters has emerged in the U.S.’s political landscape, Jay Caspian Kang observes. They don’t have much faith in the Democratic establishment.
newyorker.com
Honestly never been prouder of my otherwise mediocre bank.
Capital One says it closed Trump Organization accounts after AML probe - report (COF:NYSE)
Capital One says it closed Trump Organization accounts after an AML review, per filings.
seekingalpha.com
Absolutely delighted to see Portland take its riverfront potential more seriously than a forgotten expanse of lawn with zero restaurants, shelters, or playgrounds. While we’re at it, can someone open a riverfront restaurant on the east side facing downtown?
Overview
The Portland Waterfront Park Design Competition is an open search for an architect-led or landscape architect-led design team to revitalize Governor Tom…
competitions.malcolmreading.com
Yes I do and it is very heartwarming
The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s
Nearly 14 years later, the tale of this iconic couple can finally be told.
inverse.com
Climate change means heat domes, bigger wildfires, and smoky days for people thousands of miles away.
washingtonpost.com
This is perhaps the best representation of Mark and his values: take down the competition at any cost.
Meta Contractors Posed as Teens to Prompt Rival Chatbots About Suicide, Sex, and Drugs
Hundreds of contractors working on a project for Meta pretended to be kids in order to see how other chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT would respond to high-risk subjects, WIRED found.
wired.com
An unflinchingly brutal takedown of Shen Yun’s attempt to revamp its reputation as a reputable Upstate New York cult.
The Soothing Unsubtlety of UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun by Paul Thompson
July 30, 2026 – “What a relief, a breath of fresh air, to be reminded what the barest, sloppiest propaganda can look like.”
theparisreview.org
I should have written this! When I lived in Napa I was a thorough local explorer, and Benicia was one of my favorite North Bay towns.
Client Challenge
A required part of this site couldn’t load. This may be due to a browser extension, network issues, or browser settings. Please check your connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser.
sfchronicle.com
Optimism over the long term correlates with a lower dementia incidence. Crotchety east coasters, take note.
Lower Dementia Risk Is Linked to This Common Personality Trait—Are You One of the Lucky Ones?
Here’s what experts say.
womenshealthmag.com
“With one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location… in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election”
The Trump Administration Tells the Truth
A government lawyer admitted in a court filing that the administration withheld grants based on whom states had voted for.
theatlantic.com
BRB, checking my social media accounts’ one-character-different cousins to make sure none of them are pedophile super creeps.
A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
When the first step goes wrong, bad results follow.
arstechnica.com
Aubie is on the unlimited sniff plan.
A dog's dream walk is over one hour and exploring is key, new poll finds
A DOG’S dream walk would last an hour and seven minutes, include 16 sniffing opportunities – and some water to splash in, according to owners. A poll of 1,800 dog owners found the ideal…
thesun.co.uk
Save the indoor forest! 🌳
A Horticulturist Weighs In on the Struggling Trees at Portland International Airport
Is it dog pee and coffee or just flawed interior landscape design?
wweek.com
Let’s aim for a view that’s clear for humans and birds alike.
Bird-safe glass must become the norm to prevent collisions with buildings
In Canada, tens of millions of birds are killed annually by crashing into glass on buildings.
theconversation.com
UNESCO is a pretty good guide for finding the world’s most fascinating places.
UNESCO Has 25 New World Heritage Sites, Including One Massive Swamp
People of the world just got 25 more places they can trample as tourists, as UNESCO has added a slew of new sites to its World Heritage List.
vice.com
My friend Allison wrote about the Trump administration cancelling $60+ million dollars of sex education grants and the new rules for receiving funding.
What the Trump Administration
Changes to federal sex ed funding will increase teen pregnancies and widen gender inequality by putting girls at greater risk of bearing the cost.
botheredstories.com
Clapping is now considered a form of violent protest and will be punished accordingly.
High School Teacher Arrested for Clapping in Support of Anti-Data Center Activists
A local high school physics teacher was hauled out by four police officers for clapping six times during a city commission meeting.
futurism.com
A deep dive on early internet maps.
On the map | Mercury | Meridian
The tale of two startups — MapQuest and Google — who took on the world by mapping it.
mercury.com
Portland gets a positive headline for the first time in a long time.
Once the US’s kitschy capital in decline, Portland is bouncing back
After voting to professionalise the Oregon city’s government in 2022, Portlanders are reinvesting in the city with new shops, restaurants...
monocle.com
Kelly was quite the enterprising dolphin, learning trades and tricks and teaching them to other dolphins for maximum snacks.
Meet ‘The Dolphin Mafia’ — How One Captive Dolphin Taught An Entire Tank To Swindle Fish From Scientists
Kelly the dolphin gamed her own reward system, then taught the trick to her calf — echoing real tool-use traditions found in wild dolphin populations.
forbes.com
The Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York is discussed as a contrast to a recent Paul Krugman article on rural antigrowth attitudes, suggesting that rural communities may be viewed as a commons to preserve, not an enemy of urban progressivism.
Towards a Rural Renaissance
On what rural and urban America owe each other, and how we can all work together for the common good.
ambrook.com
In a study of self recorded speech, the author learns that young folks are speaking less than they used to, and that she has different ways of speaking depending on her audience.
.jpeg)
What Scientists Learned by Eavesdropping on Thousands of People
After researchers found that we’re speaking less and less each year, Shayla Love spent a week collecting audio recordings from her own life.
newyorker.com
I absolutely would want a watch list of all wildfire wagers and the people who made them. How many fires are human caused as it is? Gambling tempts the desperate.
I used to ignore prediction markets. Then I learned people were betting on wildfires - High Country News
My story on prediction market wildfire wagers exposed the gamification of natural disasters.
hcn.org
New cancer treatment just dropped.
New CRISPR Technique Selectively Shreds Cancer Cells, Including “Undruggable” Cancers
New CRISPR Technique Selectively Shreds Cancer Cells, Including “Undruggable” Cancers - Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI)
innovativegenomics.org
The world’s best cheesemongers include two American women from Philadelphia and Seattle. “The assigned sculpture cheese was a distressingly crumbly aged mimolette. Johnson used cookie cutters to make three-dimensional farm animals. Her goat kept falling over.”
Street Cheese Founder Earns Cheesemonger Medal
Courtney Johnson brings championship cheesemongering to Beacon Hill.
seattlemet.com
After several near-100° days, a 2022 article on parking lots and urban heat islands. Title: To Stop Building Heat Islands, Stop Overbuilding Parking Lots Subtitle: Parking lots amplify high temperatures. Why are we still requiring them to be larger than they need to be? 🚙☀️🔥🌆
sightline.org
An 87 year longitudinal study out of Harvard on 2,500 people found that high quality relationships strongly correlate with happier, healthier, and longer lives.
This Is the Thing That Actually Makes People Happy, According to Research
Research suggests strong relationships and helping others may matter more for happiness than money or self-improvement.
vice.com
Many Apple products loved for their design were heavily influenced by a German designer of Braun products half a century prior.
Dieter Rams: The Designer Whose Work You Own Without Knowing His Name
The Braun design director who wrote ten principles, influenced every Apple product ever made, and spent the last decades of his career worried that he
modernhaus.co
How much childish behavior do we accept from grown men on a world stage? If we know better, why not demand better?
Argentina disgraced themselves, and the World Cup final, with their charmless petulance
Argentina's passion was an asset but too often in this World Cup it has spilled over into distasteful aggression
nytimes.com
A fascinating peek inside Google at its cultural peak (2007-2017) by the woman credited internally as its bard and poet laureate.
How I Lost Faith in Google
While working at Google, Claire Stapleton cracked the code for generating corpspeak with personality. Then she lost faith in what the company was selling.
newyorker.com
Bat watching is the new bird watching.
They Don’t Fight Crime, but They Do Eat Bugs: The Bats of N.Y.C.
Several species of bats have made the city’s patchwork green spaces their homes, much to the surprise of some scientists.
nytimes.com
Being cheesy ain’t easy.
Everybody Loves Cheese. Why Is Selling It So Hard These Days?
Cheesemongering is a calling, requiring deep expertise and longstanding relationships, but today’s retail environment is making it more and more difficult.
nytimes.com
I miss my friend.
Hiker dies near summit of popular Columbia River Gorge hike
The unidentified man suffered a medical emergency Friday evening.
oregonlive.com