Reading

Connell, Raewyn. 2026. Should we abolish universities? (2025 E. L. Wheelwright Lecture). Journal of Australian Political Economy, no. 96, 149-161. This is the annual Wheelwright Lecture at the University of Sydney, on the state and prospects of universities. 

Connell, Raewyn. 2026. Teachers' worth. Pp. 469-474 in Nina Bascia and Rhiannon M. Maton, ed., Handbook on Teachers' Work: International Perspectives on Research and Practice, New York and London, Routledge. A reflection on the research about teachers' work and its social significance, composed for an enquiry into teachers' wage rates and employment conditions.

The brains of macaques offer some clues

The post Why Finding Motivation Is Often Such a Struggle appeared first on Nautilus.

“The galaxy may be teeming with rogue planets”

The post Rogue Planet Weighed for the First Time appeared first on Nautilus.

Violent star blasts pointed to a huge cosmological surprise

The post When We Learned Our Universe Is Speeding Up appeared first on Nautilus.

1. The Silent Convulsion
The gold standard. A violent bodily shudder contained entirely within the torso. No noise or spray. Just a brief, grimace-induced aneurysm. You are a person of discipline. You would do well in a gulag.

2. The Double
One to loosen the debris, one to eject it. It follows a logical arc. You pay your taxes. You rotate your tires. You are boring, but you are necessary.

3. The Triple
You are now demanding attention. The first “bless you” was a reflex; the second was a courtesy; the third is wearing on our patience. You are the equivalent of an unskippable YouTube ad.

4. The Pixie Squeak
You suppress the vocalization until it sounds like a mouse being stepped on by a stiletto heel. You think this makes you dainty. It actually makes you sound like you are performing a mating call for a very specific, perverted demographic of anime fans. Stop infantilizing your mucus membranes.

Spent brewing yeast offers a meat-textured scaffold for your next burger

The post Beer Could Be the Next Frontier in Lab-Grown Meat appeared first on Nautilus.

It’s intentionally sending a signal that it’s pissed off, so beware

The post Why Is That Monkey Giving Me a Dirty Look? appeared first on Nautilus.

How do I live longer?
Stress is a leading cause of early death. Avoid stress by spending every single day thinking about what you need to do to not die. If that doesn’t work, try meditation. Close your eyes, take deep breaths, and remember that each second of meditation is a battle in the war on Father Time. Good luck, soldier.

How important is sleep?
Nothing is more important than a good night’s sleep. So-called “friends” will invite you out for long nights of drinks, dancing, and “companionship.” Recognize this danger and return to your cryochamber.

So what’s a good sleep schedule?
Wake up at 4:30 a.m., no exceptions. The smug satisfaction of telling everyone you wake up at 4:30 a.m. will power you for at least one hundred years.

What’s your best biohacking tip?
Research shows nasal breathing is healthier than mouth breathing. Duct tape your mouth shut and only breathe through your nose. When someone asks if you’re being held hostage, blink twice to let them know you heard about this on a podcast.

Early financial strain can have a measurable impact on how infant brains develop

The post How Financial Hardship Shows Up in Baby Brains  appeared first on Nautilus.

It’s tough to keep people on track with their medications, but a tiny radio antenna could help

The post These Pills Talk to Your Doctor appeared first on Nautilus.

But it might depend on social cues

The post Your Face May Decide What You Like Before You Do appeared first on Nautilus.

“Federal and local officials dispute the circumstances that led an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer to fatally shoot a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday” — NPR

You think you’re watching a woman being shot in the face by an ICE agent, but what you’re really watching is a woman trying to run an ICE agent over and the agent firing at her in self-defense.

You think you’re watching an ICE agent walk up to a woman’s car asking her to leave, which she does, but what you’re really watching is a woman turn her car around and try to run the agent over.

You think you’re watching a woman drive away with an ICE agent following, then shooting her four times in the face, but what you’re really watching is an ICE agent in fear of his life and acting in self-defense.

Auto-brewery syndrome is a devastating and poorly understood condition, but effective treatments could be on the way

The post How Some People Get Drunk Without Drinking appeared first on Nautilus.

New research shows “gifted word learning” pups have surprising verbal aptitude

The post Genius Dogs Can Learn Words Like Toddlers appeared first on Nautilus.

Power on your PCs, my gentle users, because I just found a fresh Excel file to overcomplicate. Hoo boy, I can’t wait to rework every cell of “Company Staffing.xlsx.”

Most peons at this company think a spreadsheet is just a tool to create a budget. Not me. Not us. You see, there’s one of us in every organization. Though it’s nowhere in our job descriptions, we spend hours crafting Gordian knots of obscure Excel features so that even the simplest files become unrecognizable monstrosities.

Before we do anything with these measly kilobytes, we need to duplicate this file. Several times. Then we add an underscore, “NEW,” and a different numbering convention. The filename should evoke the image of an overbaked Feast of Assumption turducken.

There. We’re ready to open “Company Staffing_NEW_FINAL_003.xlsx.”

“We need to prepare for the possibility that the U.S. uses military coercion against Canada.” — Headline from op-ed in The Globe and Mail.

Jamming vital infrastructure with Anne of Green Gables souvenirs

Giving birth to future resistance fighters without taking on crippling debt

Using that year-long parental leave to transform dried maple leaves into lethal throwing stars

Locating resistance headquarters in New Brunswick, where invading forces will never think to look

Casually walking past armored vehicles stuck in snowbanks without even offering to push

Conceding Alberta

Establishing an underground network consisting of retired men taking up tables all morning at Tim Hortons

Milk in plastic bags

Smiling politely at invaders but talking shit behind their back

Confounding invaders by using the metric system but also incorporating imperial measures in specific but not especially logical ways