feed-lab 2026-09-23control

Fire Amoeba, College Rankings, and the Best 1990s Songs

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Easter Bombing Verdict
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Meet the Fire Amoeba
  1. 0.52 · curiosity · keep 0.37 · A look at hydrothermal vents, where barophiles and hyperthermophiles survive boiling water
  2. 0.49 · curiosity · keep 0.40 · The discovery of the first extremophile and how it revolutionized DNA analysis
  3. 0.48 · curiosity · keep 0.41 · Extremophiles were likely to have been Earth's first, and are expected to be its last, organisms
  4. 0.47 · curiosity · keep 0.16 · Read a technical review of extremophile categories, including the habitats of each
  5. 0.46 · curiosity · keep 0.72 · Learn about endoliths, the polyextremophiles that thrive inside rocks
  6. 0.46 · curiosity · keep 0.19 · View thermophiles found in Hot Springs National Park, including nanobacteria and ostracods
  7. 0.46 · curiosity · keep 0.81 · Why the existence of extremophiles greatly improves the odds of life beyond Earth
  8. 0.45 · curiosity · keep 0.45 · Extreme temperature resilience appears to be temporary for tardigrades
  9. 0.45 · curiosity · keep 0.59 · Extremophiles are organisms that thrive in environments that would normally be inhospitable to most living things because they possess specialized biomolecules called extremozymes.
  10. 0.44 · curiosity · keep 0.70 · The warmest waters in the ocean are found at hydrothermal vents—hot springs on the seafloor that discharge plumes of mineral-rich water.
  11. 0.44 · curiosity · keep 0.76 · Lining up every microbe on Earth would stretch to about 105,000 light-years—roughly the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy.
  12. 0.43 · curiosity · keep 0.56 · How scientists are using molecules found in acidophiles to develop new medical treatments
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MIT Dethrones Princeton
  1. 0.48 · news-in-context · keep 0.27 · The largest university endowments in the US
  2. 0.43 · news-in-context · keep 0.48 · Hear why one author thinks college rankings may be irrelevant
  3. 0.43 · news-in-context · keep 0.66 · See where your state ranked in an analysis of the best public school systems in the US.
  4. 0.40 · news-in-context · keep 0.09 · Evaluating college endowment returns
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Rescue team 3D-prints a harness to keep an injured juvenile sea turtle afloat during physical therapy.
  1. 0.54 · curiosity · keep 0.63 · Prosthetics and orthotics have been 3D printed to improve the lives of animals
  2. 0.42 · curiosity · keep 0.82 · Watch the engineering challenges overcome in turning a 3D printer into a tattoo machine
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Actress Hayden Panettiere's death ruled an accidental overdose caused by a mixture of drugs, including fentany
  1. 0.42 · curiosity · keep 0.07 · Prince died in 2016 from an accidental fentanyl overdose
  2. 0.41 · explainers · keep 0.66 · Fentanyl can be up to 100 times more potent than morphine
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Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" breaks record for longest reign atop the Billboard Hot 100 after 23 weeks at N
  1. 0.45 · explainers · keep 0.33 · Taylor Swift was the first artist to occupy every one of the top 10 slots on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.
  2. 0.40 · curiosity · keep 0.24 · Dolly Parton's 'I Will Always Love You' is a widely covered standard that's been a No. 1 hit multiple times.
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"Looksmaxxing" influencer Clavicular facing rape and drugging charges related to alleged offenses that occurre
  1. 0.42 · longform · keep 0.44 · Inside the Sarah Lawrence College sex cult scandal
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Anthropic and OpenAI release new, cheaper AI models weeks after tech leaders call for industry-wide slowdown
  1. 0.57 · news-in-context · keep 0.10 · DeepSeek is a Chinese AI startup that rattled US competitors when it made an AI model much faster and cheaper than they did
  2. 0.55 · news-in-context · keep 0.11 · OpenAI helped kick-start an AI arms race in Silicon Valley
  3. 0.55 · explainers · keep 0.07 · A merger between OpenAI and Anthropic was reportedly proposed after Sam Altman's firing to keep OpenAI safety-oriented amid the internal turmoil.
  4. 0.54 · curiosity · keep 0.49 · The history of Anthropic began with a break from OpenAI over safety concerns.
  5. 0.53 · explainers · keep 0.11 · Sam Altman has said that OpenAI released version 3.5 of ChatGPT early as a public service to allow the public to adjust to the new tool before rolling out ChatGPT-4.
  6. 0.52 · news-in-context · keep 0.23 · In 2023, OpenAI spent $520 million on ChatGPT
  7. 0.52 · news-in-context · keep 0.59 · View a timeline of AI deployments from 2017 to 2025
  8. 0.51 · experiences · keep 0.17 · Anthropic's Frontier Red Team assesses the dangers of its AI tools through 'evals'—safety tests that probe models to disclose sensitive information.
  9. 0.50 · explainers · keep 0.29 · Artificial intelligence might make companies too efficient—which could trigger deflation
  10. 0.50 · news-in-context · keep 0.43 · See a web of circular investments among major AI industry players like Nvidia and OpenAI, as many top AI companies provide significant investments to one another.
  11. 0.49 · explainers · keep 0.26 · Scientists increasingly can't predict what AI will do
  12. 0.48 · explainers · keep 0.62 · OpenAI initially focused on novelty projects, like training AI bots to win video games, before becoming known for its AI chatbot ChatGPT.
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Scientists suggest Earth became cool enough for RNA-based life about 4.3 billion years ago
  1. 0.53 · explainers · keep 0.71 · RNA may have allowed life to exist before DNA
  2. 0.53 · explainers · keep 0.50 · DNA stores genetic information, and proteins serve as the molecular machines powering cellular functions, but because RNA does both, scientists think it predates them both.
  3. 0.52 · explainers · keep 0.70 · Abiogenesis explains how Earth's natural processes could have formed organic matter
  4. 0.48 · curiosity · keep 0.81 · Humans have existed for just 0.004% of Earth’s history
  5. 0.47 · curiosity · keep 0.38 · Evidence suggests the first cells on Earth were bacteria
  6. 0.47 · curiosity · keep 0.39 · Every organism on Earth evolved from a single cell—the last universal common ancestor—which lived about 4.2 billion years ago, research suggests.
  7. 0.47 · curiosity · keep 0.68 · The 300-million-year period where Earth looked like a snowball
  8. 0.47 · curiosity · keep 0.65 · The key ingredients to life on Earth—and elsewhere
  9. 0.45 · curiosity · keep 0.44 · The history of Earth's breathable atmosphere, made possible by photosynthetic bacteria
  10. 0.45 · curiosity · keep 0.08 · A four-billion-year-old meteorite reignited the debate about life on Mars
  11. 0.45 · curiosity · keep 0.52 · Early Earth lifeforms likely made energy via mineral reactions, not sunlight
  12. 0.44 · curiosity · keep 0.76 · Lining up every microbe on Earth would stretch to about 105,000 light-years—roughly the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy.
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Poor sleep in late pregnancy is linked to increased obesity risk in children; the link was strongest in male i
  1. 0.45 · explainers · keep 0.79 · Poor sleep increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's, and a main reason appears to be that the brain disposes of toxic protein buildup during high-quality sleep.
  2. 0.44 · explainers · keep 0.24 · Sleep training: risks and benefits
  3. 0.44 · explainers · keep 0.40 · Genetics play a role in the reliability of the body's biological clocks
  4. 0.43 · explainers · keep 0.33 · How meal timing factors into health outcomes
  5. 0.42 · explainers · keep 0.64 · Obsessing over sleep metrics leads to worse sleep quality
  6. 0.41 · curiosity · keep 0.62 · Exposing fetuses to certain flavors in the womb could lead to children being less picky eaters
  7. 0.41 · explainers · keep 0.50 · Touch helps newborns regulate stress, gain weight, and feel less pain
  8. 0.40 · explainers · keep 0.19 · Gestational diabetes occurs when the body can't produce insulin during pregnancy
  9. 0.40 · explainers · keep 0.50 · Artificial lighting and modern practices like working late are linked with sleep shifts
  10. 0.40 · explainers · keep 0.42 · Sleep deprivation may slow metabolism
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US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 -0.0%, Dow -0.4%, Nasdaq +0.5%), and oil prices fall after Trump adminis
  1. 0.48 · explainers · keep 0.65 · See how the S&P 500 performed throughout the first 100 days of each modern presidency.
  2. 0.44 · news-in-context · keep 0.14 · Beyond oil, the Iran war has pushed up costs on fertilizer, prescriptions, and mortgages.
  3. 0.44 · news-in-context · keep 0.17 · Track how American tariffs have impacted different countries and industries.
  4. 0.44 · explainers · keep 0.40 · A stock index is a group of companies clustered together, often providing a condensed snapshot of a market segment.
  5. 0.42 · explainers · keep 0.20 · Investors rely on the S&P 500 as a benchmark for the state of the economy
  6. 0.41 · explainers · keep 0.45 · How the stock market performed under every US president
  7. 0.40 · news-in-context · keep 0.10 · The overall economic effect of President Trump's 2025 tariffs remains unclear
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DoorDash to pay $131.5M to resolve New York City probe into compliance with pay laws; settlement includes $12.
  1. 0.45 · news-in-context · keep 0.07 · In 2025, American Express paid $230M to settle fraud and deceptive marketing charges
  2. 0.43 · curiosity · keep 0.55 · Watch the DoorDash team's YC application video
  3. 0.42 · explainers · keep 0.33 · Delivery apps have realigned the restaurant industry
  4. 0.41 · news-in-context · keep 0.12 · The number of people collecting money from gig work tripled between 2017 and 2021
  5. 0.40 · explainers · keep 0.08 · Inside a recent Lyft lawsuit
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McDonald's to host first investor day in nearly three years today after unveiling its new global growth plan t
  1. 0.46 · curiosity · keep 0.78 · Unlike other franchises, the McDonald's Corporation owns the land and the buildings of individual stores, and franchise owners lease those assets—resulting in McDonald's often being called a real-estate company.
  2. 0.44 · curiosity · keep 0.54 · McDonald's 1990 opening in Moscow symbolized the USSR's fading isolation
  3. 0.44 · explainers · keep 0.43 · Fast-food prices have increased more over the past 10 years than both full-service restaurants and inflation.
  4. 0.44 · experiences · keep 0.78 · See photos of McDonald's locations all across the world from the 'McAtlas.'
  5. 0.44 · curiosity · keep 0.67 · McDonald's became the first American fast food restaurant to open in the Soviet Union in 1990.
  6. 0.43 · curiosity · keep 0.75 · Until late 2024, the company that makes McDonald's ice cream machines held an elusive repair monopoly on them, the culprit behind the frequent outages that fueled widespread social media discourse.
  7. 0.43 · explainers · keep 0.29 · Just because a big name company is going public doesn’t guarantee a successful stock
  8. 0.43 · curiosity · keep 0.29 · Nike went public in 1980, and the first share sold at $22
  9. 0.43 · curiosity · keep 0.63 · Ray Kroc proposed the idea of franchising McDonald's as a way to sell more of his Multimixers 7 years before buying the McDonald's brothers out of the company for $2.7M.
  10. 0.42 · curiosity · keep 0.68 · Watch a recreation of the 'Speedee Service System,' the assembly line production method pioneered by the McDonald brothers that revolutionized fast food in the US.
  11. 0.42 · curiosity · keep 0.17 · McDonald's releases a new adult Happy Meal
  12. 0.42 · curiosity · keep 0.73 · Despite meeting as ambulance drivers in WWI, Ray Kroc and Walt Disney weren't the driving forces behind McDonald's and Disney's numerous business partnerships.
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Trump administration to remove more than 750,000 enrollees from the Affordable Care Act insurance markets, cla
  1. 0.53 · news-in-context · keep 0.12 · Congress didn't renew temporary enhanced Affordable Care Act federal subsidies that expired at the end of 2025, a move that substantially raised ACA health insurance premiums.
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President Donald Trump signs new security agreement with Denmark and Greenland, expanding US military presence
  1. 0.69 · news-in-context · keep 0.15 · The US and Denmark signed a military agreement over Greenland in 1951.
  2. 0.56 · curiosity · keep 0.78 · The US tried to buy Greenland in 1867 and again after World War II.
  3. 0.48 · news-in-context · keep 0.06 · President Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine in 2025, announcing a new 'Trump Corollary'
  4. 0.44 · news-in-context · keep 0.14 · Explore over a century of US-Canadian relations.
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Hurricane Polo grows into a Category 5 storm off Mexico's southwestern coast; it is not expected to make landf
  1. 0.44 · curiosity · keep 0.70 · As of 2026, the world's largest tropical cyclone was Typhoon Tip, whose size spanned the equivalent of half the continental US.
  2. 0.41 · curiosity · keep 0.83 · The 'dirty side' of a hurricane is where tornadoes, storm surges, and flooding risks are greatest.
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The top song from every year in the 1990s.
  1. 0.48 · explainers · keep 0.60 · The best grunge albums of the 1990s
  2. 0.46 · explainers · keep 0.73 · The '90s saw a resurgence of the girl group
  3. 0.45 · explainers · keep 0.67 · Hip-hop gained significant popularity in the 21st century, dominating Billboard's pop chart.
  4. 0.45 · curiosity · keep 0.60 · The most popular American baby names by decade
  5. 0.43 · explainers · keep 0.34 · In the '90s, country aimed for stadiums
  6. 0.43 · explainers · keep 0.30 · Country music's popularity skyrocketed in the 21st century, establishing itself as a dominant force on the Billboard charts in the 2010s.
  7. 0.43 · curiosity · keep 0.27 · Blur, Oasis, Pulp, and Suede are widely considered the four defining bands of the 1990s Britpop genre.
  8. 0.43 · explainers · keep 0.31 · One writer traces the evolution of a Billboard chart over 25 years
  9. 0.42 · curiosity · keep 0.72 · Explore a critics' list of the 100 best songs of the 1960s, featuring records by the Beach Boys, the Ronettes, Miles Davis, and more.
  10. 0.42 · news-in-context · keep 0.72 · See a ranking of every Super Bowl halftime show since 1993
  11. 0.42 · explainers · keep 0.33 · Taylor Swift was the first artist to occupy every one of the top 10 slots on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.
  12. 0.41 · experiences · keep 0.30 · A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.
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See the Bird Photographer of the Year winner.
  1. 0.59 · curiosity · keep 0.40 · National Geographic's 2022 Photo of the Year
  2. 0.58 · experiences · keep 0.27 · A resting rhino tops the best travel photos of the year
  3. 0.58 · curiosity · keep 0.54 · Photobombing bird nabs best wedding photo of the year
  4. 0.57 · experiences · keep 0.51 · See a gallery of winning photos from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards for 2025
  5. 0.53 · curiosity · keep 0.61 · Stunning shots of a singing red-winged blackbird
  6. 0.52 · experiences · keep 0.29 · See 2026's Ocean Photographer of the Year winners.
  7. 0.52 · news-in-context · keep 0.39 · The best drone photos of 2022
  8. 0.50 · curiosity · keep 0.53 · See the winners of the 2023 dog photography awards
  9. 0.49 · curiosity · keep 0.58 · See the winning photos from a major European nature photography contest
  10. 0.47 · curiosity · keep 0.69 · See hilarious photos from the Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025
  11. 0.47 · news-in-context · keep 0.35 · The best drone photos of 2023
  12. 0.46 · experiences · keep 0.70 · Forty-nine top-notch photos of springtime around the world
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First birthday parties are becoming big-budget affairs.
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Six-year-old sets a speedy Rubik's Cube world record.
  1. 0.60 · curiosity · keep 0.53 · Watch a YouTuber solve a Rubik's Cube while in free fall
  2. 0.54 · curiosity · keep 0.53 · It took a month for the Rubik's Cube inventor to solve the cube
  3. 0.52 · curiosity · keep 0.29 · A 14-year-old "human calculator" shatters six mathematical world records in one day
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Why K-pop took off when C-pop didn't.
  1. 0.58 · explainers · keep 0.30 · K-pop is defined by catchy music, synchronized dances, and devoted fans
  2. 0.56 · explainers · keep 0.37 · The South Korean government invests in K-pop, a strategy intended to expand the country's soft power around the world.
  3. 0.53 · explainers · keep 0.29 · K-pop increased the visibility of Asians in American media
  4. 0.51 · news-in-context · keep 0.13 · South Koreans appear to be losing interest in K-pop
  5. 0.51 · explainers · keep 0.40 · An introduction to becoming a K-pop superfan
  6. 0.49 · explainers · keep 0.49 · Seo Taiji and the Boys are considered the first 'true' K-pop idols
  7. 0.45 · explainers · keep 0.57 · Trot: Korea's melancholic pop that came before K-pop
  8. 0.44 · curiosity · keep 0.58 · Listening to K-pop in North Korea is punishable by execution
  9. 0.44 · explainers · keep 0.08 · The K-pop industry's Big Four are facing declining stock prices
  10. 0.41 · explainers · keep 0.09 · K-pop idols have reduced rights due to their contracts
  11. 0.41 · curiosity · keep 0.64 · PSY—GANGNAM STYLE
  12. 0.41 · curiosity · keep 0.29 · Superfans of K-pop group BTS gamed the Billboard chart
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Nearly 1 million bees are missing after a string of heists in northern Australia.
  1. 0.49 · curiosity · keep 0.33 · Some police departments in California have officers specialized in hive crime
  2. 0.49 · news-in-context · keep 0.17 · US honeybee colony loss remains a concern, despite rebounding from the mid-2000s CCD
  3. 0.47 · curiosity · keep 0.11 · An invasive, tree-killing beetle may threaten large swaths of Australia
  4. 0.42 · curiosity · keep 0.73 · Human beekeeping has been traced back to 7000 BCE
  5. 0.41 · longform · keep 0.14 · The largest jewelry heist in US history resulted in $100M of jewelry stolen
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The Eiffel Tower is turning into a movie theater.
  1. 0.47 · curiosity · keep 0.79 · In the summer months, the Eiffel Tower grows a few millimeters and leans slightly to one side because sunlight warms the metal, causing it to expand.
  2. 0.44 · experiences · keep 0.68 · The 100 greatest cinemas in the world
  3. 0.41 · experiences · keep 0.74 · The world’s most beautiful cinemas
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How Twinkies became a $5B mistake. (w/video)
  1. 0.41 · news-in-context · keep 0.77 · Making sense of the complex logistics of product returns
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Is your coffee cold? Get it a tiny sweater.
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American suffragist and civil rights activist Victoria Woodhull born (1838); Astronomers discover Neptune (184
  1. 0.42 · curiosity · keep 0.79 · The story of America's first woman presidential candidate
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