‘President Donald Trump alarmed onlookers on Sunday after he went on an hours-long AI picture posting spree on Truth Social.
In all, Trump posted more than 40 AI-generated photos over multiple hours on Truth Social. Some of the photos included Trump standing on top of an Iranian oil tanker declaring “It is our oil tanker now!” and three late-night comedians who recently drew the president’s ire panhandling on a sidewalk. There was also the all-too-expected jab at Rosie O’Donnell, who has been feuding with the president for nearly two decades.
The photos were posted on a day when reporters caught Trump out playing golf and inspecting the White House renovations….’
‘Science shows us that, even though plants don’t have brains, they seem to have a nervous system that responds to touch in remarkable ways. Robert Krulwich and puppeteer Barnaby Dixon explore the science of thigmomorphogenesis (the phenomenon of plants reacting to outside stimulae), a discussion that plants the seeds for a song….’
‘If President Trump has one true skill, it is conjuring up alternate realities and getting his supporters to accept them. The examples are everywhere: dismissing stories he doesn’t like as “fake news” from corrupt media, casting the January 6 rioters as victims, election denial. After he baselessly insisted that there had been rampant mail-in voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, 11 states made mail-voting access more restrictive. His repeated false claims in 2024 that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets led to real threats against the community. Trump builds a world, and by virtue of his power and influence, all of us end up living in it in some way or another.
That era may be coming to a close, in large part because of the way he and his administration have bungled the war in Iran. Trump seems unable to spin this conflict, divert sufficient attention away from it with a new controversy, or end it outright. His social-media posts, which once acted as a de facto assignment editor for the mainstream media, no longer command the same attention or respect. Now, interspersed with AI slop and inexplicable middle-of-the-night reposting binges, Trump’s Truth Social screeds sound more like the fevered ramblings of a radicalized Facebook uncle.
For the past five months, he’s been trying to convince the American public (or at least his Truth Social followers) that the war is over, or ending, or a rousing success. His administration is even retroactively changing on the Pentagon’s website the number of American service members who have died in the conflict. But no one seems to be falling for it. His posts don’t have the juice. His alternate universe is no match for the harsh reality of war.…’
‘Trump does not seem especially attached to the idea of Republicans remaining in control of Congress, especially since he believes (rightly or wrongly) that his best path to getting things done runs through the White House. Republicans are likely to lose the House in November no matter what, but their ability to stave off deep losses there (and to keep control of the Senate) could hinge on Trump keeping his two wars — trade and Iran — in a holding pattern. He seems to be leaning towards the exact opposite.…’
‘President Trump on Wednesday repeated his threat for Iran to stop attacking vessels in the strait or else face U.S. strikes against Iranian civilian infrastructure. “From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran,” he wrote online.…’
‘Echolocation is a fascinating way that animals like bats and whales find their way around the world. By emitting sounds and decoding the echoes that come back, these species are able to detect what’s around them in their local environment.
It’s something we know that humans can do too – and it takes less training than you might think. A study published in PLOS One in 2021 by researchers from Durham University in the UK showed that with 10 weeks of training, both blind and sighted people could learn to echolocate using verbal clicks.…’
