DL Open Thread Sunday Magazine: August 3, 2025

Radioactive Wasps!  Wonder if Marvel is suing for copyright infringement:

A radioactive wasp nest with radiation levels ten times of what is allowed under regulations was found at a facility that once produced parts for US nuclear weapons, federal officials said.

Investigators say the contamination is not related to a nuclear waste leak, and that there was no impact to “the environment, or the public” (I believe them).

The nest was discovered by workers who routinely inspect for nuclear radiation at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, on 3 July.

It was found on a post nearby to where millions of gallons of liquid nuclear waste are stored, but there was no leak from the waste tanks, the report said.

Investigators attribute the dangerously-high levels found on the nest to what is called “onsite legacy radioactive contamination” – the residual radioactivity that remains from the time when the site was actively producing parts for nuclear bombs during the Cold War.

Savannah River Site Watch, a watchdog group that monitors the site, said that many questions remain unanswered.

“I’m as mad as a hornet that SRS didn’t explain where the radioactive waste came from or if there is some kind of leak from the waste tanks that the public should be aware of,” spokesman Tom Clements told the Associated Press.

The Silence Of The Blue Whales:

Beneath the ocean’s surface, a symphony ripples and rolls, ricochets and hums—and whales pour their songs into the deep soundscape like streams of molten silver.

Deep within the noise, a 32-mile-long cable stretches out from the California coastline along the seafloor, tethered to the ground 3,000 feet below the surface. At its end is a two-inch-wide metal cylinder standing on three legs. This hydrophone, an underwater microphone, can record and trace the ocean’s shifting harmonies for years on end.

“Once you truly start listening to how many things make sounds in the ocean, it’s really amazing what you hear,” says Jarrod Santora, an ecosystem oceanographer and research biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

By tuning in to these underwater songs, scientists can decode the rhythms of ocean life, listening for signs of imbalance and resilience, and tracking how marine species respond to human impact. As whales navigate seas transformed by climate change, noise, and industrial activity, their voices offer a vital record of a world in flux.

In a study published earlier this year, which traced more than six years of acoustic monitoring in the central California Current Ecosystem, Ryan and a team of researchers found clear patterns in whale song across seasons and years. By chance, the recordings began during a massive marine heatwave unlike anything seen before in the region.

The study documented whale songs beginning in July 2015, and revealed that different species responded differently. Humpbacks have a more diverse diet and were able to adapt to harsh conditions; their songs didn’t change. But blue and fin whales feed almost exclusively on krill, and their songs were detected less often than years prior.

The heatwave reduced the food whales rely on and triggered harmful changes in ocean chemistry, allowing toxic algae to bloom. “It caused the most widespread poisoning of marine mammals ever documented. These were hard times for whales,” says Ryan.

As prey became scarce, blue whale vocalizations dropped by nearly 40 percent alongside a collapse in krill and anchovy populations, the recent study showed.

“When you really break it down, it’s like trying to sing while you’re starving,” Ryan adds. “They were spending all their time just trying to find food.”

‘The Timeless Torches’–The totally-cool alternative to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders:

A performance by the Timeless Torches, the dance team of the New York Liberty, is a shot of adrenaline, a burst of vitality. Some numbers lean funny; others are more fierce. All insist on the power of movement as the foundation for a full life. In a way, what these dancers offer is bigger than dancing. But dance is their expression, and dance they do.

On a recent night at Barclays Center, the dancers — men and women, ages 40 and up — met center court. They stood still, their gazes down and hands held low in front of their bodies. The opening notes to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” began to play.

Separated into four groups, each responded to Lamar’s lyrics — an aggressive leg spiral, a runway walk with rippling arms, a blast of fast footwork — before arriving, via a triplet march, into a wedge formation. Here they exploded as one, crossing their feet and hopping in place in crystalline unison.

It was tremendous.

Aside from the rule that the dancers can’t be younger than 40 — they wear their ages proudly on the backs of their standard costumes — individuality is a must. Timeless is a team, but it is one made up of distinct people. Sometimes it feels like a performance art experiment about the aging body. Or a contemporary extension of Judson Dance Theater, the daring dance collective of the 1960s that made space for professionals and amateurs to perform side by side.

The History And Future Of Societal Collapse–‘Self-termination’ is most likely:

We can’t put a date on Doomsday, but by looking at the 5,000 years of [civilisation], we can understand the trajectories we face today – and self-termination is most likely,” says Dr Luke Kemp at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge.

“I’m pessimistic about the future,” he says. “But I’m optimistic about people.” Kemp’s new book covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years and took seven years to write. The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.

Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots.

Who better to segue us out today than this musical treasure who we lost this week?: