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This letter is to inform you that your career aptitude test evaluation is complete. Your recommended career: Bridge Troll.

Here at the Career Aptitude Institute, we evaluate thousands of tests each year from students all over the country. In the entire history of our organization, we have never seen results that so confidently aligned a student with a specific path. Typically, the results yield a mix of career options (civil engineer: 43 percent match; project manager: 28 percent match, etc.). Your results, however, were about as clear as they come. Bridge Troll: 99.98 percent match. This is especially unprecedented, as our computers typically have a 2 percent margin of error.

We understand these results may come as a surprise to you. It is highly likely you weren’t aware that a career like this even existed. While bridge trolling is undoubtedly a niche and undervalued role, rest assured, it is vital to the economic health of any developed nation.

What exactly does a Bridge Troll do, you ask? Job duties include, but aren’t limited to:

Wendy lit the stove to heat a pot of tomato soup. She turned to grab a wooden spoon and gasped. Two little girls in smocked dresses stood in the doorway.

“Come play with us,” one said.

“I’m making lunch,” Wendy whispered.

“We want you to play with us,” the other girl said. They stared at Wendy. Unblinking. Evil. “Come play Monopoly Junior.”

“Why can’t the two of you play together?” Wendy asked.

“We want to play with you,” they said in unison. “Can we have a snack?”

“I’m literally making lunch!” Wendy sobbed.

Wendy stood outside Room 217. She took the passkey from her pocket and slid it in the lock. Inside, the bathroom door was ajar.

It was in there. She could feel it. She crept in.

There stood a woman: bloated stomach, sagging breasts swaying like ancient cracked punching bags, glassy-eyed, hair dry and wild, pale, lips pulled back in an ugly grimace. Wendy screamed.

It was a mirror. Self-care had fallen to the wayside since Danny was born.

… to reader and commenter Doctor Memory. We noticed recently that old posts weren’t displaying properly, apparently because we’d used a markup language (Textile) that our current setup doesn’t support. We put out an appeal on Bluesky, and Dr M was one of several people who volunteered to clean up the database for us. After […]

“Responding to videos that suggested their son [V.A. nurse Alex Pretti, who was killed by federal immigration agents] was a ‘domestic terrorist,’ Pretti’s family said: ‘The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.’” — BBC

Veterans Affairs nurses are proud to announce their designation as the nation’s newest domestic terrorist group. We’ve achieved this great honor by working on the inside—and no one is more “inside” than those administering enemas to our former soldiers.

Our mission is to help protect health care for the warriors who served our great country by working toward a society in which safety and well-being are the norm. We realize that this might not sound like a typical terrorism agenda, but in our country these days, nobody takes groups seriously unless they’ve been labeled a domestic terrorist organization.

They may dodge predatory wasps by twitching away at the sound of their approach

The post How These Caterpillars Use Their Body Hair to Listen for Danger appeared first on Nautilus.

Why the hell did he save so many Funko Pops? “Dr. Ian Malcolm with His Shirt Open.” “Homer Simpson in a Muumuu.” He’s got two Green Power Rangers, one with the Dragon Dagger and one without. A lot of these say COMIC-CON EXCLUSIVE, which probably makes them more valuable? Although there seem to be so many Con exclusives that the term might not mean anything.

I came to the storage unit on a typical ninety-three-degree day in October of 2065 to sort through these boxes and decide what to save, donate, or trash. “It’s all the junk that we didn’t have space for, but he couldn’t bear to part with,” Mom said.

Well, let’s see what I can let go of.

With an national election approaching in Japan (February 8, 2026), there has been a lot of discussion about the so-called ‘weak yen’ and whether the Bank of Japan should be intervening to manage the value of the currency on international markets. PM Takaichi has been quoted as saying that the weak yen is good for…

My dad genuinely had no interest in music. Well, almost none – he did enjoy novelty songs from time to time, but not really for the music. Our friend Bob, who is otherwise quite sensible, used to try to convince him that listening to music would enhance his life. I had more sense (I did, […]

The Disney+ era was another example of Doctor Who becoming an indigestible mix of 60+ years of lore and canon, making the show feel old.

The gilt market is mendicant, not master. Why we must stop our devotion to an empty throne and remove this phantom veto on democracy.

Ncuti Gatwa's departure from Doctor Who was a "surprise" to Mark Gatiss, and he sees that Billie Piper moment as the "ultimate cliffhanger."

A man who contradicted the government narrative about a prior shooting found himself pinned to the ground and detained after Pretti’s death.

The post He Witnessed an Earlier Shooting. Feds Arrested Him at the Scene of Alex Pretti’s Killing appeared first on The Intercept.

The Justice Department is weaponizing a law intended to protect those seeking abortions to punish reporters covering anti-ICE activism.

The post The Farcical Case Against Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for Protest Reporting appeared first on The Intercept.

The most elusive mental health condition is more common than we thought

The post How Dissociation Blunts Trauma appeared first on Nautilus.

These millennia-old punchlines aren’t exactly gut-busters today

The post Ancient Jokes Etched in Clay appeared first on Nautilus.

DNA from museum specimens help detail the genetic bottleneck

The post When German Shepherds Got Their Cursed Genes appeared first on Nautilus.

by Koray Caliskan* Over the past few decades, the idea of performativity has quietly reshaped how many of us think about markets, identities, technologies, and institutions. The basic intuition is simple but powerful: descriptions and representations (scientific or not) do not merely reflect the world; under the right conditions, they help bring it into being. […]

Despite high-tech new therapies, people with sickle cell anemia still encounter stigma today

The post The Devastating Disease Neglected for Decades appeared first on Nautilus.

Denial of the Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll helped buoy American support for Israel’s genocide.

The post Israeli Military Found Gaza Health Ministry Death Toll Was Accurate. Will These Deniers Admit It? appeared first on The Intercept.

“What surprised us here was the clarity of the signal”

The post Sex Changes the Brains of Male Mice appeared first on Nautilus.

Som alltid nuförtiden, när man vill att vi ska lyssna på någon nationalekonom som säger att allt är bra och att alla egentligen tjänar på att inkomst- och förmögenhetsskillnaderna blivit skyhöga, så bjuder man in landets egen Dr Pangloss — Daniel Waldenström. Waldenströms uppfattning är i grund och botten att ekonomisk ojämlikhet egentligen inte är […]

Hey, patriot.

It’s been a week.

As ICE spreads terror through the streets, and Teacup Eichmann presided over the murder of yet another innocent civilian in Minneapolis (bringing this year’s known death toll up to eight), I know a lot of you are struggling to recognize me lately.

And while I don’t know what’s going to happen next either, I want to at least assuage your fears that I’m turning into Nazi Germany or Franco’s Spain or some other scary, distant place torn from your history books. Because that’s not what’s happening.

Baby, look into my star-spangled eyes. It’s me.

I’m your America.

Maybe you didn’t recognize me without my hood up.

I’ve been brutalizing civilians in my streets ever since I was built on stolen land.