Odd Lots
- Asteroid Apophis will come within 20,000 miles of Earth during its close approach in 2029. Scientists say there’s no chance of the big rock hitting us, which is a relief, given that it’s the size of the Eiffel Tower (if a lot fatter) and could level any city it struck.
- I didn’t know this: A small red dwarf star passed well within a light year of our solar system about 70,000 years ago. It was dim enough that even at its closest approach, it would not have been visible to our naked predecessors’ naked eyes.
- A group of Earth scientists have created a site that will display your current location (or at least where your IP address suggests you are) on a graph going back over 300 million years. About 320,000,000 years ago, Phoenix, Pangaea was on the equator! (Nuts. Missed it.) H/T to Old Guy for the link.
- Google is installing a completely local, 4 GB AI on machines that have Chrome installed, without asking permission nor notifying the user that it’s there. The linked CNet article explains how to find out if you have it, and if so, how to flip the flag that enables it. I found it on one of our machines, and flipped that flag. We’ll see what happens going forward.
- Law professor Glenn Reynolds’ upcoming book (available 5/12) explains that the real danger inherent in AIs is not destruction but…seduction. Seductive AI explains how lonely people have used AI chatbots as friends and in weird ways, lovers, with all kinds of downsides. A piece in the New York Post focusing on the book suggests that people have been driven to suicide by excessive interaction with AI. So maybe there’s some destruction going on after all. I’ll review the book here once I get it.
- I take five grams of creatine monohydrate every day (and 10 on Mondays when I do weight training at the gym) and here’s a solid short summary of what creatine does for us. It’s not all about muscle and energy, but also about the brain. I’m sold!
- People who eat five or more servings of eggs per week are found to have a 27% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s than those who eat eggs rarely or never. I eat them every morning for breakfast. My brain is my first favorite organ; sorry, Woody.
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: astronomy
Thanks for the notice on Chrome’s AI install. I disabled the feature. I’m experiencing AI overload and this helps minimize the discomfort.
Amazing amount of stuff in one posting!
I never ran across that Google AI before. Sure enough, it was on my machine, too.
The asteroid is Apophis (not Apothis–I misspelled it the same way!). This is where The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, renamed to be OSIRIS-APEX has been re-directed for a much extended mission after its encounter with asteroid Bennu.
A small red dwarf star passed well within a light year of our solar system about 70,000 years ago.
This reminds us is that on a geological time scale, Earth is subject to “galactic weather”: supernovae, passing stars.
One wonders: how often a star might pass near enough to disrupt Earth’s orbit?
Also: regarding a trend you flagged a while back, a posting at Strange Maps – Grayening: Why everything is gray. Includes photos of parking lots in 1980 and 2025.
Some of the usual suspects are fingered.