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Nvidia GTC Highlights – Nvidia Goal to Make All Data Ground Truth for AI

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/17/2026 - 14:04
Jensen Huang GTC 2026 Keynote Highlights (March 16, 2026) NemoClaw Launch NVIDIA unveiled NemoClaw, an enterprise-ready, secure version of OpenClaw (open-source AI agents platform). This is the enterprise ready OpenSource form of Openclaw. Openclaw is by some measures the most successful open source project ever. Surpassing Linux in some ways. Nemoclaw adds privacy guardrails, sandboxing ...

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Orchid Security Recognized by Gartner® as a Representative Vendor of Guardian Agents

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/17/2026 - 09:00
New York, United States, 17th March 2026, CyberNewswire
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Whose Mistake US Slavery?

Overcoming Bias - Sat, 03/14/2026 - 10:51

Most people today are confident that the US in 1860 having ~4M slaves (out of its 31M population) was a big moral mistake. But who exactly is to blame for this mistake? I broke the causal path into these 8 steps:

  1. Africa Wars - African nations/tribes go to war against each other. Sometimes in part to grab slaves.

  2. Enslave Losers - African war winners enslave losers instead of killing them. Other options more risked revenge.

  3. Sell to Traders - African war winners sell slaves to African slave traders

  4. Sell to Non-Africans - African slave traders move slaves to coast (~10-20% die on way), sell to Non-Africans

  5. Move to US - European slave traders move ~4% of African slaves to US (~10-15% die on way), sell them there

  6. US farmers buy - US farmers buy slaves, work them

  7. Let slaves have kids - US farmers let slaves live long, and have kids. This was unusual in history of slavery.

  8. Treat kids as slaves - US farmers treat kids of slaves as also slaves. If this were not allowed, they’d not have allowed step 7.

Polls with 4009 responses rated which of these were the worse moral mistakes, relative to a max of 100:

It seems that respondents put most blame here on people who choose to enslave over to kill or stop from existing. Even though when directly asked they say that slavery is not as bad an outcome as death or non-existence.

Categories: Outside feeds

We Submit By Banning Blackmail

Overcoming Bias - Mon, 03/09/2026 - 09:02

An ancient forager norm tells us to resist domination. And with mere words and other cheap public actions, we do. But when actions are more private, deniable, or expensive, we don’t.

For example, around powerful people we typically more laugh and agree, interrupt less, and are more deferential, polite and flattering. We are ingratiating and conformist to bosses, and less likely to criticize them to other people. And famously:

Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. (More)

I’ve written many times before on the subject of blackmail. As the main effect of anti-blackmail laws is to allow rich celebrities to more easily evade norms and laws, my best explanation for such laws is a widespread desire to give them what they want. The most telling evidence is that we allow exactly the same transaction, as an NDA, if initiated by the rich celebrity, but criminalize it if initiated by a poor observer of their transgressions. Which seems to me pretty clear evidence of who the policy is intended to benefit.

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Insider Journalism

Overcoming Bias - Sun, 03/08/2026 - 09:01

While elite people and institutions typically practice strong internal meritocracy, they often push less prestigious rivals toward more egalitarian inclusion. For example, elite universities push for inclusive community colleges, elite policy think tanks push for easy-access elections and participatory civic processes, and cultural elites push more participatory arts and culture. Pushing rivals toward egalitarianism undermines them, to the advantage of their elite competitors.

Elite journalists have long pushed their lesser competitors to have more “citizen journalism”. And recently journalists have complained loudly about their newly risen competitor of prediction markets. They complain that such markets are in poor taste, sensational, unethical, induce manipulation and sabotage efforts, undermine respect for proper authorities, and tempt people to waste their time and energy. All of which are of course also issues with journalism.

But their loudest complaints, at least lately, have been about inequality. “Insider trading”, by people who know more than others, is said to be blatantly unfair, discourages participation by know-nothings, and tempts people to reveal secrets they have promised to keep. All of which are of course also problems with journalism. But with the usual hypocrisy, they propose forbidding government officials from trading in markets, but not from talking to journalists. And banning markets, but not journalist reports, on important world events.

Elites usually admire and celebrate elite journalists, who have elite insight, connections, and go to elite events. As they can get the story first, and understand it better. But elite traders who know more than others, that’s shameful!

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Are Humans Egalitarian?

Overcoming Bias - Sat, 03/07/2026 - 13:29

A common motive for studying “egalitarian” primitive social practices is a hope of supporting something like the following narrative:

We humans evolved to see ourselves as naturally egalitarian. This is shown by the highly egalitarian practices of modern foragers, who represent our best guess of typical ancestral practices until roughly 10,000 years ago. Modern non-egalitarian social practices are thus likely an affront to natural human morality and add to our modern alienation, stress, conflict, and unhappiness. We should thus move government policy toward more financial redistribution, to make more equality.

We have good reasons to doubt this narrative. Yes, there are many social processes common in human societies that often substantially cut particular kinds of inequality. Such as sharing, risk-pooling, reputation-building, status-leveling, consensus collective decisions, and mobility. However,

  1. the main motives for participating in such processes was not to reduce inequality,

  2. each such process only cuts a few types of inequality, not inequality in general, &

  3. societies have varied greatly in which processes they supported, and in their details.

This suggests that humans do not in fact have a general moral norm of egalitarianism.

Yes, cultural evolution, our best theoretical account of the origin and shaping of such processes, does suggest that such processes were once often adaptive, and that part of their adaptive benefit was often to cut inequality. However, the fact that our more recent ancestors have tended to drop such processes suggests they are no longer as adaptive.

We thus have at best only rather weak reasons to expect modern alienation, stress, conflict, or unhappiness today to result from our using such processes less. And no concrete reason to expect that reviving such practices would be adaptive on net. Given our weak data on cross-cultural happiness or meaning, we also have little evidence to suggest that such policies would help much today with such outcomes.

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Bizarro salamander ancestor was an evolutionary oddball

Popular Science - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 19:05

There are quite a few animals considered “living fossils” in today’s world. Once thought extinct, the prehistoric coelacanth has continuously swam through Earth’s oceans since the time of the dinosaurs. Horseshoe crabs exist in fossil records dating back hundreds of millions of years. Even many sharks look virtually unchanged from their Cretaceous Era ancestors. But although Tanyka amnicola was last seen about 275 million years ago, it was already a living fossil in its own time.

It was also an extremely strange creature. So strange, in fact, that paleontologists initially thought they were looking at an ancient aberration when they discovered the first jawbone of this salamander-esque creature in a dry riverbed near the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.

A Tanyka jawbone, with rock hammer for scale, found in the Brazil. Credit: Ken Angielczyk / Field Museum

“The jaw has this weird twist that drove us crazy trying to figure it out. We were scratching our heads over this for years, wondering if it was some kind of deformation,” recalled Jason Pardo, a paleontologist at Chicago’s Field Museum.

As Pardo and his colleagues detail in a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Tanyka’s odd jaw was simply part of its evolutionary package. And they have eight other similar fossil specimens to prove it.

Tankya (“jaw” in the local Indigenous Guaraní language) was an incredibly early four-legged vertebrate, or tetrapod. Present-day examples of four-legged animals are found across birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, but they all trace back to a single lineage called stem tetrapods. Eventually, stem tetrapods separated into two groups—one that laid eggs on land, and another that laid them in water. Tankya, however, firmly remained in the “stem tetrapod” camp.

Tanyka is from an ancient lineage that we didn’t know survived to this time,” said Pardo.

He likens it to the present-day platypus. Almost every living mammal reproduces through live births, but the first examples laid eggs. The platypus retained its egg-laying abilities over millions of years, making a bit of a mammalian oddity.

And then there is Tanyka’s mouth. The bottom teeth didn’t face upward—they pointed to either side instead. Meanwhile, the section of jaw that faces the tongue in humans was oriented toward the roof of the mouth. These surfaces were also covered in tiny teeth known as denticles that turned the angled jaw into a grinding surface.

Fossil showing the denticles on the jaw, forming a cheese-grater-like surface that may have been used for grinding plant matter. Credit: Ken Angielczyk / Field Museum

“Based on its teeth, we think that Tanyka was a herbivore, and that it ate plants at least some of the time,” said Juan Carlos Cisneros, a study co-author and paleontologist at Brazil’s Federal University of Piauí.

This only adds to the animal’s uniqueness, since the vast majority of stem tetrapods were strictly carnivorous.

“We expect the denticles on the lower jaw were rubbing up against similar teeth on the upper side of the mouth. The teeth would have been rasping against each other, in a way that’s going to create a relatively unique way of feeding,” added Pardo.

Based on these details, its closest evolutionary relatives, and its river habitat, the study’s authors believe Tanyka likely resembled a three-foot-long salamander sporting a lengthier snout. But at least for now, determining what it looked like is mostly guesswork.

“We found these jaws in isolation, and they’re really weird, and they’re very distinctive,” said Field Museum paleomammalogy curator and study co-author Ken Angielczyk. “But until we find one of those jaws attached to a skull or other bones that are definitively associated with the jaw, we can’t say for sure that the other bones we find near it belong to Tanyka.”

Until then, Tanyka’s jawbone alone is still more than enough to raise eyebrows.

The post Bizarro salamander ancestor was an evolutionary oddball appeared first on Popular Science.

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US Navy is Opening the Strait of Hormuz

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 15:40
President Trump announced today (March 3) that the Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait if needed, and the U.S. government will provide political-risk insurance so commercial ships can operate. This is modeled directly on the 1987–88 Operation Earnest Will tanker convoy system during the Iran-Iraq Tanker War. Oil tankers are waiting by Oman ...

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2,500-year-old settlement found during fire station construction

Popular Science - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 12:46

While a recent Iron Age discovery in northern Germany is proving itself an archaeological goldmine, local firefighters might be a bit annoyed by the find. According to the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe (LWL), construction on a new fire station in the town of Hüllhorst roughly 45 miles west of Hanover was delayed after the surveyors identified evidence of a settlement dating back over 2,500 years. As only the third such find in the region, the site offers an exceptional opportunity to learn more about ancient life in Germany prior to the Roman Empire’s arrival in 1st century BCE.

Although a welcome excavation project, the Iron Age community’s existence in the area isn’t a huge surprise. Archaeological surveys in the region are often scheduled prior to new building projects, largely due to its proximity to Wöhrsiek, an active freshwater spring that has been used by nearby inhabitants for thousands of years. In the summer of 2025, researchers began removing narrow strips of topsoil, and soon noticed evidence of past settlement. Most of the residual finds came in the form of soil discolorations that point to former refuse pits and storage areas, but certain stains also indicated the presence of postholes. Using these as references, archaeologists were able to recreate entire layouts of various buildings.

Typical vessel shards of the early Iron Age: a rim decorated with finger dots and a fragment with a wide rimmed handle. Credit: LWL-AfW / S. Düvel

“In addition to two smaller buildings, we also discovered the remains of a large residential building,” excavation director Hisham Nabo said in a LWL statement translated from German.

The house was positioned carefully and intentionally. By facing northeast-to-southwest, its narrow sides faced towards the prevailing winds, thereby reducing exposure to the elements. Nabo’s team explained that this shows just how environmentally and architecturally aware this Iron Age community was at the time.

Excavation manager Hisham Nabo (left) and excavation worker Ristam Abdo (right) stand in an excavated settlement pit and examine some of the shards found there. The discolorations are cut to capture their structure and recover the finds within. Credit: LWL-AfW / S. Düvel

Beyond the buildings, archaeologists also recovered fragments from handled cups called terrines and other pottery with recognizable rim decorations. Combined with additional radiocarbon dating, experts believe that the settlement dates to somewhere between 800 and 600 BCE.

“For us, this is a real stroke of luck, because until now we in East Westphalia only knew house plans from this period from Werther and Minden, which were only discovered in recent years,” added scientific adviser Sebastian Düvel. “Together with the new discoveries in Hüllhorst, we hope to gain exciting insights into everyday life during this time.”

The post 2,500-year-old settlement found during fire station construction appeared first on Popular Science.

Categories: Outside feeds

How US Navy Jams and Spoofs Iran’s Hypersonic Missiles

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 12:44
Navy Decoded, youtube channel, explains how the US Navy prevents Iran’s Hypersonic missiles from hitting US ships or the aircraft carrier. The US mainly relies on electronic countermeasures. The iranian missile has to be able overcome jamming to try to maintain a lock on a moving target. The US creates spoofing for false targets. The ...

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What Kiloton Range Would Crude Nuclear Gun Bombs Have?

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 12:32
Iran cannot use 60% enriched uranium directly in its current form (UF₆, which is stored as a solid in cylinders but handled as a gas or liquid during processing) to build a gun-type nuclear bomb. It must first be converted to metallic uranium, which is required for any fission weapon core. However, once converted they ...

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Florida finally makes the flamingo its state bird

Popular Science - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 11:30

As if flamingos weren’t showy enough, the American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) has officially been elevated to a new celebrity status. The Florida House of Representatives and Senate have designated the species as Florida’s official state bird

The long-legged American flamingo is one of the largest flamingo species in the world, and gets its iconic cotton-candy pink hue from a pigment in its food. The birds live on South America’s northern coast and in the Caribbean. In the United States, they only exist naturally in Florida

The move replaces the mockingbird, or northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) as the official state bird, but we don’t think they will mind. The grayish species still holds the title in Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

The bill also designates the Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) as Florida’s official state songbird. Clearly, those involved in the two decisions were going for color. This songbird endemic to Florida is starkly blue.

If you’re surprised by the fact that Florida has both a state bird and a state songbird, you’re in for a ride. Florida has official symbols for a shocking amount of things—from both a state saltwater (sailfish, Istiophorus platypterus) and freshwater fish (Florida bass, Micropterus salmoides) to beverage (orange juice) and shell (horse conch) all the way to official state soil (Myakka fine sand). 

“I filed the bill designating the American flamingo as Florida’s official state bird and the Florida scrub-jay as the official state songbird. This legislation not only highlights the unique avian diversity of our state but also emphasizes the importance of conservation efforts for these iconic species,” Florida Rep. Jim Mooney explained. While American flamingos are doing well, Florida scrub-jays are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 

“This bill encourages public engagement in conservation initiatives and fosters a sense of pride in our state heritage,” Mooney continued. “With this bill, we take a significant step toward promoting awareness and action for the conservation of these remarkable birds, ensuring that future generations can appreciate and enjoy Florida’s rich wildlife and natural beauty.”

The post Florida finally makes the flamingo its state bird appeared first on Popular Science.

Categories: Outside feeds

Kurdish Boots on the Ground with US/Israeli Air and Drones

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 11:01
Iranian Kurdish groups (PDKI, Komala, PAK, PJAK, etc.) formed a formal anti-regime coalition in late February 2026. They are preparing for potential self-rule in Kurdish-majority areas (northwest Iran). Some small-scale successes like Kurds freed Kurdish prisoner in Mariwan by Killing prison Guards. US officials are coordinating armed groups as proxies. Netanyahu pushing for Kurdish involvement. ...

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World’s largest acidic geyser erupts for first time since 2020

Popular Science - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 10:55

The world’s largest acidic geyser is erupting for the first time in six years. Yellowstone National Park’s Echinus Geyser is part of the very active Norris Geyser Basin in Wyoming. In early February, the geyser began spewing out acid and water up to 30 feet into the air. The new eruptions highlight the power of the hottest and most dynamic region of Yellowstone National Park.

Acid geysers like Echinus are considered rare since acidic water is usually powerful enough to break down the rock that makes up a geyser’s plumbing system. However, Echinus’ acidic water composition comes from the mixing between acidic gases and neutral waters. This means that there is not enough acid in the water to eat away at the rock.  

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), this unusual water chemistry creates some interesting formations, compositions, and color. The red color that surrounds the geyser pool and the silica-covered spiny rocks come from iron, aluminum, and arsenic.

The Echinus Geyser pool itself is about 66 feet across. Since the acid itself is not concentrated, it is not particularly dangerous and the USGS says it has a similar acidity to orange juice or vinegar. However, the water temperatures can reach upwards of 200 degrees Fahrenheit, so visitors should be cautious. The Norris Geyser Basin is also home to the tallest active geyser on Earth—Steamboat Geyser.

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Geologists believe that the Echinus Geyser was mostly dormant except for occasional eruptions until 1948. During the 1970s, it erupted in regular 40 to 80 minute intervals, before becoming more extreme in the 1980s and 1990s. These more intense eruptions could sometimes last over 90 minutes. By the early 2000s, the eruptions started to wind down and the activity became much less common as temperatures cooled. 

The geyser really came alive in fall 2017. From October 18 to November 10, 2017, Echinus consistently erupted roughly about every two to three hours. The activity then stopped with only one eruption in January 2018 and 2019 and then two in December 2020. 

This year marks Echinus’ first eruption since 2020. In early February, the geyser’s surface became agitated and started releasing more water down the runoff channel. Beginning on February 16, the eruptions began repeating every two to five hours, lasting about two to three minutes, and water levels reached 20-to 30-feet high. The USGS says that this pattern resembles what happened in 2017.

To follow the Echinus Geyser’s activity from anywhere, users can monitor the temperature graphs on the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory’s website. Spies that reach about 158 degrees Fahrenheit are eruptions, while those at 104 °F are the surges. The eruptions are not expected to last into the busy summer tourist season at Yellowstone, so watch while you can. 

The post World’s largest acidic geyser erupts for first time since 2020 appeared first on Popular Science.

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BYD Sales Continue to Crater as Geely Sells Most EVs Inside China

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 10:13
BYD is experiencing a 36% decline in February 2026 sales compared to February 2025. This is six months in a row of sharp drop in sales in China, its core market, with global volumes down significantly year-over-year for six straight months through February 2026. March, 2026, is a hugely important month. There will be no ...

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Ancient Greece’s most famous oracle was just high on gas fumes

Popular Science - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 09:01

For centuries, people traveled to Delphi in southern Greece hoping for a glimpse of their future. There, at the temple of the god Apollo, a priestess was said to enter a trance and issue prophecies in the voice of Apollo himself. Everyday people, kings, even Alexander the Great traveled for miles to hear the priestess’s input on important decisions, from personal finance to matters of state.

Known as the Pythia or the Oracle of Delphi, the priestess wasn’t believed to be a psychic. Ancient writers like Plutarch, who served as a priest at Delphi in the first and second centuries, described her as a vessel for a power that came from the Earth

According to Plutarch’s account, the temple of Delphi was constructed around a natural spring, where the water and fissures in the rock produced a sweet-smelling gas called pneuma. On designated days a few times per year, the chosen priestess sat amidst the pneuma on a tripod stool and inhaled enough to enter her trance. This was an exhausting ordeal for the woman. She might cry out, become hysterical, or collapse.

Plutarch claimed that there was less pneuma in his time than there had once been, leading to a decline in the temple’s popularity. After the temple closed down in 393 AD, the pneuma remained an enduring scientific puzzle. Was the trance-inducing vapor real? And if so, what exactly was it, and where had it come from?

Decoding ancient sources for clues

The first modern excavations at Delphi, conducted between 1892 and 1950, failed to find a large fissure in the rock, which they had pictured as the source of the gas. At the time, experts believed that gases could only rise from the Earth in connection with volcanoes, which Delphi doesn’t have. This led scholars to dismiss the ancient accounts as hearsay. However, subsequent investigations came to a very different conclusion, spurred on by the words of the ancient authors. 

“When I’ve got written sources from the ancient world, my first effort is, ‘What can I learn from them?’” archaeologist John Hale tells Popular Science. In the 1990s, Hale and a multidisciplinary team of researchers finally uncovered scientific evidence that corroborated the ancient descriptions of Delphi. 

Shifting tectonic plates can cause gases to rise from the Earth

Hale explains that his colleague, Dutch-American geologist Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, had noticed a fault line passing under the temple of Delphi during a 1980s surveying project. Fault lines are places where two of the Earth’s tectonic plates bump against one another. The plates’ movement can cause earthquakes and other forms of geological activity, including the emission of gases. 

De Boer wondered if the ancient pneuma at Delphi was “a light hydrocarbon gas” that rose from the permeable limestone under the temple, says Hale. 

Hydrocarbons are compounds made entirely of carbon and hydrogen. A fundamental component of living things, they also occur in fossil fuels like petroleum. Such chemicals “are found in a lot of geological formations all over the planet,” says Hale. “They’re part of the mix of the Earth’s crust.” 

When two tectonic plates rub against each other along a fault line, they produce friction, which can generate enough heat to convert those solid hydrocarbons in the Earth’s crust into gas. And if there’s enough holes or channels in the Earth, that gas can rise to the surface, similar to what ancient authors described at Delphi. 

When tectonic plates shift, hydrocarbons, such as methane and ethane, can rise to the Earth’s surface. Video: Insane Natural Gas Discovery in the Wild! / @CrafterDUCK Testing Delphi’s bedrock for prophetic fumes

Early excavations at Delphi discovered a porous limestone bedrock far below the temple. That stone could provide the necessary, near-invisible channels for the flow of gases to reach ground level and, in turn, a waiting priestess’s lungs. 

But there was no evidence of a hydrocarbon deposit at the site. Together, Hale and De Boer decided to see if Delphi’s limestone really did contain these compounds. If found, they might represent the final piece of the puzzle.

In 1996, after gaining permission from the Greek government, Hale and De Boer made their first expedition to Delphi. They took samples of the bedrock and sent them to a lab for analysis. As they suspected, the porous limestone was rich in hydrocarbons, such as ethane, methane, and ethylene.

What exactly was the Oracle of Delphi inhaling?

Ethylene is a hydrocarbon and one of the world’s most widely-produced organic compounds. In industry, it’s a building block for plastics. In agriculture, it’s used to induce ripening in fruit. (Have you ever put a green banana in a paper bag to make it ripen faster? Fruit releases ethylene to encourage its own ripening, which builds up inside the bag). In the past, ethylene gas was even used as a surgical anesthetic, because inhaling it at a concentration of 20 percent causes unconsciousness. 

But what happens if someone inhales a lower, though still highly-concentrated, dose? To find out, Hale and De Boer turned to toxicologist Henry Spiller, due to his research on “huffing,” the inhalation of hydrocarbons and other toxic gases for recreation. 

What does inhaling ethylene do to a person?

Spiller found many parallels between the altered state of mind produced by ethylene inhalation and ancient accounts of the Pythia’s trance. People under the influence of ethylene remain lucid and responsive, but may speak or behave strangely. They may become agitated, scream, or convulse, and may be unable to remember what happened after the gas wears off. Hale calls ethylene “a perfect match” for the ancient pneuma. Ethylene even smells sweet, just as Plutarch described. 

Repeated inhalation of gases like ethylene carries serious health risks. Plutarch noted that inhaling the gas shortened the priestess’s lives and could even kill them on rare occasions. At the temple’s height, multiple women shared the office of oracle because of how physically demanding it was to enter the trance state. Being Pythia was considered a great honor, but it was also a burden. 

The Oracle of Delphi would utter her prophecies from inside the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece (shown here). Image: Federica Grassi / Getty Images Federica Grassi Why ethylene comes to the surface

Today, we know that shifting tectonic plates can produce gases even when a volcano is not present. And, if there are channels up to ground level, those gases only have one direction to go: up.

“Ethylene is one of those lighter-than-air gases that comes straight to the surface if it’s being emitted,” Hale explains, rising through openings like those in the porous limestone at Delphi. And after that, Hale adds, the gas “can be huffed by anybody who’s on top and put them in an altered state.” 

Early excavations at Delphi were looking for one big chasm in the rocks. The most recent evidence suggests that gas actually seeped through many small openings, following the paths made by spring water. Hydrocarbons have also been found in the water at Delphi itself, and some still rises from groundwater as gas today; enough to occasionally kill birds that come too close

Archaeologists now know that the Oracle of Delphi didn’t inhale fumes from a single fissure, but instead inhaled fumes from invisible channels within the porous limestone beneath the Temple of Apollo. Image: Public Domain What makes Delphi unique

Hale notes that the physical site of Delphi was recognized as unique in the ancient world. It was not the only temple where an oracle claimed to foretell the future, but “it’s the only one that ever mentioned a sweet-smelling gas as part of the sacred experience,” he says. 

When compared with other Greek temples, Delphi was likely designed to enclose the spring, allowing gas to accumulate in the inner chamber where the Pythia sat. Other Greek temples may not have had vapor-inhaling oracles, but many were also positioned over sites of high geological activity, such as the temple at the ancient city of Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale, Turkey). There, carbon dioxide rather than ethylene rises from the Earth, which was also used in ancient religious rites to kill sacrificial animals.

We know from Hierapolis and similar sites that the water which carries gases to the surface also deposits minerals. This may gradually clog the channels in the stone, so that less gas reaches the surface over time. Earthquakes, which occurred at Delphi even in ancient times, might also lead to changes in the pathways for the gas. An earthquake might close previously open channels for ethylene or release a large buildup of it at once. So while we can’t know for certain, there may be a geological explanation for Plutarch’s assertion that the pneuma declined over time.

Today, Delphi’s unique geology is far from inactive. Gases can still rise from the porous limestone beneath the temple ruins, serving as a very real connection between us and our ancient ancestors. 

In That Time When, Popular Science tells the weirdest, surprising, and little-known stories that shaped science, engineering, and innovation. 

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In medieval France, murderous pigs faced trial and execution

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Shifting tectonic plates can cause gases to rise from the Earth

The post Ancient Greece’s most famous oracle was just high on gas fumes appeared first on Popular Science.

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Archipelo and Checkmarx Announce Partnership Connecting AppSec Detection with DevSPM

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 09:00
San Francisco, CA, United States, 3rd March 2026, CyberNewswire
Categories: Outside feeds

Iran Cannot Build a Nuclear Bomb Under These Conditions

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 01:19
Iran is extremely unlikely to produce functional nuclear bombs in the current environment—and certainly not quickly. The disruptions from Israeli and U.S. operations (including the ongoing strikes), combined with long-standing Mossad targeting of personnel. Advanced Israeli intelligence capabilities like hacked surveillance, have degraded or eliminated the secure, large-scale infrastructure and expertise required. Building even crude ...

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Tesla Making Lower Cost Batteries and Cars Late in 2026 and in 2027

Next Big Future - Tue, 03/03/2026 - 01:03
The current analysis is that Tesla is still making a much cheaper model Y and model 3. Projected pricing for E41 (cheaper Model Y) and D50 (cheaper Model 3) assumes the reported 20% production-cost reduction vs. current refreshed/base models, with Tesla maintaining the same gross-margin percentage. Is dry-electrode 4680 (higher density) achieve these costs, or ...

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Categories: Outside feeds

We can’t launch our trash into the sun. But why?

Popular Science - Mon, 03/02/2026 - 20:00

If you’ve spent any time on the Earth in the last 50 years or so, you might have noticed a lot of trash laying around…with less and less space to, you know, put it. Meanwhile, we’re sending all sorts of satellites and rockets beyond our atmosphere every day.

That’s why you asked us: Why can’t we launch our junk into space, too? Or better yet: STRAIGHT INTO THE SUN!

For the moment, let’s set aside the big problems with creating too much trash in the first place, and focus on the blocker: We simply can’t afford to shoot our junk into that flamin’ hot Cheeto in the sky.

Plus, shouldn’t we worry about finding a solution down here on our planet? Yes.

On our latest video episode of Ask Us Anything, we explain why we can’t launch our garbage into the sun or onto the moon.

If you’d like to see more Popular Science videos, subscribe on YouTube. We’ll be bringing you explainers and explorations of our weird world.

The post We can’t launch our trash into the sun. But why? appeared first on Popular Science.

Categories: Outside feeds

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