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Welcome to Saturday, May 23, 2026.

Posting will probably be limited to this very short Hili today; I am dispirited because the brood of nine mallards (plus mom) that I rescued yesterday was driven out of the pond area by aggressive mallards.  I do not know if they will return. This is of course the second time this has happened, and it may well be a duckless summer. I will show pictures when I can bear to look at them.

The drakes are simply too aggressive and mean to permit new broods in the pond; there are too many of them and they attack the mother.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 23 Wikipedia page.

So that this won’t be a total loss, I invite readers to weigh in on any topic of their choice: ducks, the war, Trump, Nicholas Kristof’s (and his editor’s) response to his column on Israeli abuse of Palestinian prisoners, the new rules on getting a green card (the Administration has made them much harder to get; you have to apply from overseas), and so on. Anything goes, but be civil, please.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili notices a disparity between the cats’ breakfast and Andrzej’s.

Szaron: He’s eating breakfast.
Hili: And he thinks we’ve already eaten enough.

In Polish:

Szaron: On je śniadanie.
Hili: I sądzi, że myśmy się już najedli

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

A Dutch Jewish mother and her son were gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. He was five years old. https://t.co/6RKhE3rLgu

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) May 23, 2026

In preparation for our Skeptoid Adventure to New Orleans, we’re playing an encore edition of an episode that takes us to the heart of the Big Easy and dives into Louisiana Voodoo. We’ll see how Louisiana Voodoo stacks up against the Hollywood version as we explore the mysterious case of what came to be known as "The Voodoo Ax Murders."

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Scientists in Germany have demonstrated a startling new form of surveillance: identifying people using nothing more than ordinary WiFi signals. By analyzing how radio waves bounce around a room, researchers can effectively “see” and recognize individuals — even if they are not carrying a device and even if their phone is turned off.

Scientists in Germany have demonstrated a startling new form of surveillance: identifying people using nothing more than ordinary WiFi signals. By analyzing how radio waves bounce around a room, researchers can effectively “see” and recognize individuals — even if they are not carrying a device and even if their phone is turned off.

You’re on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you’ve been tasked with establishing the first self-sustaining food crop on a Martian settlement. You’re nervous because you’re using a new type of fungi called beneficial fungi, which you’re told will help enhance Martian regolith, enabling it to be used for growing crops. You were privately told that doing this will not only get a high school named after you, but you will successfully feed future settlers without the need to bring food from Earth. But you really only care about having your name on a high school.

SpaceX's next-generation Starship V3 rocket got off to a glorious start for its first test flight, and although not all of its engines fired fully according to plan, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the mission "scored a goal for humanity."

No dust, no way to cool a collapsing gas cloud. No way to cool it, no stars. No dust, no first rung on the ladder from grain to pebble to planet. The substance I spent two articles complaining about turns out to be the substance that makes me possible.

NASA’S Juno spacecraft images Jupiter’s tiny moon of Thebe in a recent close approach.

Planetary nebula are created when a dying star sheds it outer layers. The gas is lit up by the star and all the gorgeous, changing detail is exposed. NGC 1514, the Crystal Ball Nebula, is about 1500 light years away and contains a binary pair in its center. The orbits and winds from the stars create the Crystal Ball's beautiful form.

Despite being the closest planet to the sun, Mercury has thick deposits of ice at its poles, and now we may understand the events that formed them over just one Mercurian day

Tests with rodents suggest an mRNA vaccine in development offers protection against three strains of Ebola virus, including the one behind the current crisis

Life on Earth relies on energy from astrophysical sources. But what if the astrophysical source isn't a star, but a supermassive black hole and its active galactic nuclei? Life needs shelter from their powerful energy, and the only shelter is distance. New research shows that SMBH and their AGN could strip away exoplanet atmospheres and destroy their ozone at vast distances.

Two hydrogen atoms can't form an H2 molecule on their own in empty space. They need a surface. The universe has only one surface available, and it's something I have just spent two articles complaining about.

We all feel emotions like anger and disgust from time to time, but they seem to cause stronger bodily sensations when they're politically induced

Scientists have uncovered a strange hidden structure formed during the creation of metallocenes, a class of sandwich-like molecules used in everything from catalysis to medicine. The newly characterized intermediate features a rare “double ring-slip,” where both carbon rings partially detach from the metal atom. By finally observing this fleeting state, researchers gained fresh insight into how these molecules assemble and transform.

It’s a long story but I got all eight and rescued one yesterday that went to rehab.  Mom and eight are in the pond. I need a name for the hen.

They came out of nowhere. Vashti’s brood is still being incubated. I do not know this mother.

What if wormholes were never cosmic tunnels at all? New research suggests Einstein and Rosen’s famous “bridge” may actually reveal something even stranger: time itself could flow in two directions at once. Instead of connecting distant places in space, these bridges may connect mirror versions of time deep inside quantum physics, potentially solving the long-standing black hole information paradox and hinting that our universe existed before the Big Bang.

Vaccine misinformation, nurse and doctor shortages and crowded living arrangements may be behind soaring rates of diphtheria in remote Indigenous communities in Australia

Researchers have discovered how to fine-tune a futuristic type of porous glass that can trap gases like CO2 and hydrogen. Inspired by centuries-old glassmaking techniques, the team added sodium and lithium compounds to make the material easier to process and shape. The breakthrough could accelerate the development of high-performance materials for clean energy, gas storage, and advanced manufacturing.

Life on the International Space Station may feel distant, but columnist Graham Lawton finds that studying how astronauts experience accelerated ageing could help us fight similar effects on Earth related to sedentary lifestyles, disrupted circadian rhythms and social isolation