iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Glendon Mellow @flyingtrilobite.com · 12h

The deep past is so fascinating as an artistic subject, bridging between reality and fantasy. Image is a "Screengrab from BBC Earth Science on Youtube" according to the source. #SciArt

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Brandon Bishop @brandontbishop.bsky.social · 13h

Things in Deep Time you can't even imagine....

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Spooky season seidrmann @transmascdruid.bsky.social · 22h

These things could be properly considered as primordial beings on the same level as the jötnar who died when Múspellheim collided with Niflheim

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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 30/09/2026

This is a photograph of the edge of one of Saturn's rings, looking down from above. Those spiky dark shapes are shadows. Shadows of giant towers of ice and dust grains clumped together that rise up to three *kilometres* above the 10-m thick rings.

A series of bands cross the image from left to right, brighter at the bottom and darkening towards the top. A band of empty space is at the top of the image. About a quarter down from the top is a complex pattern of jagged, spiky shadows cast onto the rings. The icy towers casting the shadows are seen here at a highly oblique angle.

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Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Magical creatures don’t exist, eh? Roughly 400 million years ago, before the birth of trees, there were giant mystery cones called “Prototaxites,” which grew nearly 30 feet tall. We literally have no idea what they were. Plant: no Mushroom: no Animal: no Tell me this isn’t a little bit magic

Sunset with giant mystery cones Prototaxites https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/prototaxites-fossil-explained-why-this-prehistoric-colossus-still-baffles-scientists-1773173

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Qingshan Lake Water Forest in Lin'an District, Hangzhou is a viral attraction sometimes called "Matcha Lake" for the emerald green duckweed (subfamily Lemnoideae). These black swans (Cygnus atratus) & their cygnets are enjoying a nutritious buffet of aquatic plants. Let's learn about duckweed.

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#MinCup26 Semifinal 2 It’s a match sure to break hearts between industrial powerhouses piezoelectric #quartz and lubricating #graphite! (With the correct links this time!) VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

Split photo between a pair of glassy-clear terminated quartz crystals and flaky blades of dark grey graphite at odd angles to each other, with green crystals around them.

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Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I’ve seen sentiments among the Sloppers that “A.i.” is shunned in art as a matter of taste. In the same way people once eschewed photography or digital art. No. Photographs have copyright. Digital arts have copyright. “A.i.” products have ZERO copyright. They are literally worthless.

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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I know there is a hell of a lot going on right now. But not all of it is bad. Some is astonishingly good - like the results of this study from June. Cervical cancer is a terribly cruel thing. This might, at long last, be the beginning of the end of it. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

BBC News headline "Young women now have 'close to zero' risk of cervical cancer death after HPV jab"

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026

Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc

nyti.ms

Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)

An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 26/09/2026

“Everyone hates cameras in smart glasses. But if the camera is contained in a charm you wear around your neck, it shifts the agency. Suddenly, you’re not recording people. It’s just a cute little animated avatar looking out on the world.”

theguardian.com

‘Charming and disarming’ … how Meta’s technology-packed Muse harnesses the power of cuteness

The tech giant has launched a cute ‘little guy’ that can answer emails, book travel or do your weekly food shop

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Liz Butler @lizlagomorph.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A quillback rockfish. Not quite a drawing with a quill but with a dip pen, which feels of-a-sort. - #SundayFishSketch + #SciArtSeptember Day 27: Quill

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Jack Maynard(he/him) @jhmsparky.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

We had reports from better #birders that there were Sabine's Gulls at Hagg Lake in Washington County. Always fun to see the X-wing fighters diving. I only got pics of this juvenile, but there was also a very striking dark-headed adult.

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Stephen Heard @stephenbheard.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I was at the La Brea Tar Pits about 30 years ago, and the wall of dire-wolf skulls absolutely blew my mind. The notion that we could have not one specimen of a fossil mammal, or 10, but thousands from a single site...

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

#MinCup26 Quarterfinal 2 Both of today's minerals can be found in hydrothermal vein deposits as cobalt arsenide #Skutterudite is against classic silicate #Quartz for a spot in the semi-finals. Vote: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... Results: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

mineralcup.org

Vote in Quarterfinal 2 — Mineral Cup & Ore Cup

Vote in Skutterudite vs Quartz Credit: Joel Williams

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Cephalopods Daily @cephalopodsdaily.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Joubin's squid (Joubiniteuthis portieri) is a funky, little squid that looks like one of those head massagers. It has a max mantle length of 9 cm and a long tail which is thought to mimic sinophores. They are also the closest relatives to the even more lanky bigfin squids (Magnapinna) #SQUIDtember

Joubin's Squid (Joubiniteuthis portieri) floating in the ocean. The squid is very thin and has a orange colour. It has a long tail extending from its mantle and is waving in the water. Its arms are long and thin, and are extending out and curling back in. The arms are a slightly orange off white.

Joubin's Squid (Joubiniteuthis portieri) floating in the ocean, with the camera centred on its head. It has black beady eyes. Its arms are long and thin, and are extending out and curling back in. The arms are a slightly orange off white. Its body is thin and is orange. Its tail is outside of the frame.

Joubin's Squid (Joubiniteuthis portieri) floating in the ocean. The squid is very thin. Its mantle is off white and the rest of it is reddish orange. It has a long tail extending from its mantle and is waving in the water. Its arms are long and thin, and are loosely spread out.

A close up of a Joubin's Squid (Joubiniteuthis portieri) floating in the ocean and reacting to the ROV. It has black beady eyes. It has long, thin arms that are mostly white but they have orange chromatophores on them. The chromatophores are more visible near its head. Its orange body is quite thin. Its head is in the ROV's shadow.

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Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Trump proposed an AI Force modeled off the Space Force and I'm amazed how little coverage it's gotten. Meanwhile, industry is racing to influence its creation: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trump-anno...

kenklippenstein.com

Trump Announces New “AI Force”

Proposed AI military branch is most overlooked story this week

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Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The Yeti crab is really a squat lobster so I’m sharing it this National Lobster Day! This is a handprinted lino block print of the Yeti crab (Kiwa hirsuta), a crustacean with silky blond setae (resembling fur, which reminded scientists of the Abomnible Snowman) found on the Pacific-Antarctic 🧪🐡🦞

A linocut print on a black vertical rectangle of kozo paper of a yeti crab from above with its two elongated and fury arms reaching upwards.

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Nambroth @nambroth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"Ruby-Crowned Kinglet Diamond" 4"x4" oil painting on panel A tiny bird seemed appropriate for the tiny painting size. I love kinglets and have had some really cool experiences with them. Their curiosity and tendency to mingle with groups of chickadees has led to some close encounters.

An oil painting of a Ruby-crowned kinglet in autumn. This little guy is so tiny and lightweight that it can easily stand on a stiff leaf, as this one is doing. They never stop moving for more than a brief moment. The artist watermark reads: Copyright 2026 Jennifer Miller "Nambroth", featherdust dot com

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Wendy Miller @burrowingowl.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Usually, kestrels won't let me take their photo, but this little lady wanted to make sure I got her good side. 🪶

Skeptical female American kestrel perched on an orange post, cocking her head to the side.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

To celebrate Spooky Season, let's learn why this vampire bat is running on a treadmill. The three species of vampire bats are the only known mammals to be obligate hemophages: 100% of their calories come from blood. The Common Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus) prefers mammals... (📷: Giulia Rossi)

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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Scoop: Meta's Muse AI can make phone calls. Internally, Meta has told employees that many of these calls will be made by human beings in a call center: www.404media.co/meta-tests-m...

404media.co

Meta Tests Muse AI Agent Calls That Are Actually Made By Humans in a Call Center

"This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch."

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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 22/09/2026

IMPORTANT: You can use the word 'autumnal' today.

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Puget Sound Whale Sightings @pugetsoundwhales.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

🩶🤍🖤 Tue, Sep 22 Morning reports tell us at least some of yesterday's orcas stayed overnight. Based on locations likely Bigg's, but J pod was off San Juan Isl. last night, if Js didn't head west maybe they'll show up too 🧚. 📷 T036B1 Bhotia from Harstine Isl. bridge. By Becky Adams 09/21. #psws

close up of a female orca, top of body, dorsal fin and eye patch visible in silvery gray sunlit water.

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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

He is not wrong. "There are reasonable grounds to believe that the reported 68 attacks that killed 223 people constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law" - United Nations Special Rapporteur on U.S. Killing “Narco-Terrorists” at Sea www.ohchr.org/sites/defaul...

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Puget Sound Whale Sightings @pugetsoundwhales.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

🩶💚🖤 Sun, Sep 20 Yesterday began w/Jack, who of late has dispersed from his family. This solo traveling for this long is new for Jack & possibly life from here on out for him. This morning he & others reported off Tacoma. 📷 T137A Jack traveling solo in Port Susan. By Michael Brazeal 9/19. #psws

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Wendy Miller @burrowingowl.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Good morning! 🪶

Burrowing owlet standing at the burrow entrance while his sibling peeks out from behind.

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#MinCup26 Round 2 Match 3: It's a shiny showdown as soft copper-rich #Cuprite is up against the multicoloured index mineral #Andalusite. VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

Split image of a pair of candy-looking translucent minerals. On one side is the geometric pointed tip of cherry-red cuprite, on the other is a rough bar of peachy andalusite embedded in a white grainy matrix.

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Hildur Knútsdóttir @hildur.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This post is making the rounds again for some reason and therefore I feel I must inform you that they’ve hired another one so there are now TWO forensic pathologists working in Iceland.

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Denver Museum of Nature & Science @denvermuseumns.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

🚨 Discovery alert! 🚨 Museum scientists have discovered the first-ever trackway made by an adult T. rex. dmns.mobi/3SSJoPk

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HolBat(Commission open on November) @kholbatar.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Artist! Quote with your art that took WAY too long!

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alber @captainacabairbud.myatproto.social · 05/05/2025

people will make fun of ancient civilization for consulting oracles and cutting up livers to tell the future and then type “what is the meaning of life?” into ChatGPT

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WIRED @wired.com · 17/09/2026

Amazon Web Services didn’t design its data centers to withstand war, and now the company admits it can’t recover what’s been lost. www.wired.com/story/custom...

wired.com

Customer Data Permanently Lost in Iran Strikes on Amazon Data Centers

Amazon Web Services didn’t design its data centers to withstand war, and now the company admits it can’t recover what’s been lost.

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Elise Cutts @elisecutts.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

It's always a great sign when an interview with a scientist starts like this: Me: Hi there, thanks for talking to me. I'd like to ask you some questions about [thing]. Scientist: OH MY GOODNESS I LOVE [thing]!!! I could talk about [thing] for hours!!!!!

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Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Time right now feels like an inflection point, like we’re about to tip into a very different timeline. And I can’t tell if I should buy movie popcorn to enjoy the show, or a years supply of rations and a bunker in the forest…

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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The Venus of Willendorf: A 29,500‑year‑old masterpiece and one of the most iconic works of Paleolithic art. Standing just 11.1 cm tall, the figurine was carved from oolitic limestone and originally coated with red ochre, a pigment that still leaves faint traces today. 🧵1/2 📷 me #archaeology

A front-facing photograph of a small, pale limestone female figurine, centered against a deep black museum-display background. The figure has a rounded body with prominent breasts, a full abdomen, broad hips, and short legs, the feet are broken off; her thin arms rest on her breasts. Her head is covered with closely carved horizontal bands or braided-looking grooves, no visible facial features.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

AI advocates say we have no right to stop innovation in the free market. Hogwash. We don’t allow corporations to come up with new nuclear weapons or varieties of cocaine or biological pathogens. We protect the public from certain kinds of innovation. We need guardrails on AI before it’s too late.

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Sam Cole @samleecole.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

this is so fucking crazy. huge huge huge scoop www.404media.co/inside-proje...

In a dashboard available to the workers, human reviewers are able to select which “task” they want to take on. Once they click that, they are presented with the real ChatGPT user’s prompt. 404 Media has seen multiple real prompts but is not quoting any of them for source protection reasons. Some of the prompts indicate the ChatGPT user does not expect that a human may end up reading their conversation, because they ask ChatGPT to keep the content to themselves.

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

New from 404 Media: humans are reading ChatGPT conversations. OpenAI has hired an army of contractors who read real ChatGPT users' chats. I've seen internal docs, the review system, and real user prompts. Sometimes they contain very personal and sensitive information www.404media.co/inside-proje...

404media.co

Inside ‘Project Lily’: The Humans Reading Your ChatGPT Chats

Humans are reading ChatGPT users’ prompts to improve OpenAI’s models, and those chats can include sensitive, personal information, according to leaked internal documents and real prompts seen by 404 M...

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I wrote this quickly at a bus stop and didn't realize it would go viral, or else I would have worded it better. But the point is that the media is too credulous about AI killing everyone in 10 years (how?) when climate change is killing people now and will only get worse (we know exactly how).

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Andrew D Thaler @drandrewthaler.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Remember earlier this year when I did write a literal "I worked with a company, decided the harms were too great, and then left and spent the next decade and a half campaigning against its unregulated growth" piece? Those AI confessions sound like BS to me. news.mongabay.com/2026/04/deep...

news.mongabay.com

Deep-sea wildernesses are more important than the promise of seafloor mining (analysis)

When I set sail on the MV NorSky in the summer of 2008 to probe the depths of Manus Basin off the coast of Papua New Guinea, I believed in the promise of deep-sea mining. As an early-career deep-sea e...

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Doctora Malka Older @older.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

just finished rereads of the Clocktaur War & Swordheart as preliminary to reading Daggerbound (DO NOT! SAY A WORD TO ME ABOUT THAT BOOK YET) & I'm reading Inventing the Renaissance which is AMAZING, so good, also did not keep me from having to spell out renn- renaissance 2x, WHAT ARE YOU READING???

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Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

A bit tree fell in my neighborhood, and the community has been leaving love notes to it all week 💚

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

#MinCup26 Round 1 Match 11 It's a pair of minerals that pull off near-magical tricks with their properties as ubiquitous #Calcite is up against rarity #Julienite. VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

mineralcup.org

Vote in Round 1 Match 11 — Mineral Cup & Ore Cup

Vote in Calcite vs Julienite Credit: Harold Moritz and David Hospital

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Mark Carney @mark-carney.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

On 9/11, the people of Gander stepped up. They showed the very best of Canada.

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