October 17, 2026

MICROBIOME NEWS: Giant bacteria could be living in your gut. “Our gut microbiome is home to trillions of microbes, but they may not all be microscopic. Giant bacteria, which can reach a centimetre in length, are generally found in niche environments, such as mangroves and fish guts. But now, microbiologists have detected signs of DNA from Epulopiscium, one of the largest known types of bacteria, in human gut microbiomes from around the world. Bacteria are usually around 2 micrometres long, while giant ones are generally defined as being larger than 10 micrometres. But species belonging to the Epulopiscium genus can reach up to 600 micrometres – more than half a millimetre – in length.”

Posted at 6:35 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WELL, YES:

We’ve seen something similar play out in Europe, and we know what comes next:

It’s an invasion, Rod — those people were never French.

Posted at 5:52 pm by Stephen Green

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE:

Posted at 5:17 pm by Stephen Green

HONESTLY, IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME…:

…since this kind of thing from a Bush family member was unbelievable.

Posted at 4:16 pm by Stephen Green

THAT’S (D)IFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

Double standards are the best because you get twice as many.

Posted at 3:15 pm by Stephen Green

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Posted at 2:46 pm by Ed Driscoll

FREEDOM LESSONS IN THE TESLA ROCKET CAR: Yes, Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster Rocket (TRR) was only airborne in controlled flight a few seconds, but that’s just the barest of hints of what could be coming in the transportation field in the near future, thanks to the freedom that enables innovators to take risks, develop new ideas, test them, then be rewarded when market success arrives.

Check out my new Substack column today on Mark Tapscott’s Copy Desk concerning the long list of technological innovations encouraged and enabled through individual freedom and free enterprise.

Posted at 2:16 pm by Mark Tapscott

REAL-WORLD HERO:

More:

It happened in Michigan, where a stranger had forced the teenager into a van at gunpoint. When the man brought her into a Sunoco gas station and demanded that she buy him cigarettes, clerk Abdulrahman Abohatem immediately sensed something was wrong. The girl was visibly frightened, and her desperate attempt to signal him confirmed his worst fears.

Abdulrahman had no idea what the man might do next. But instead of staying safely behind the protective glass at his counter, he stepped out and confronted him. He physically placed himself between the stranger and the girl, told her to get behind him, and ordered the man out of the store.

It was an extraordinary act of courage. Abdulrahman was an ordinary gas station employee putting himself in harm’s way to protect a teenager he had never met.

More at the link.

Posted at 2:14 pm by Stephen Green

OH, THAT ECO- APOCALYPTICISM: They War-Gamed Dimming the Sun. It Went Even Worse Than You Think.

The simulation, titled Exploring Geopolitical Tipping Points and Climate Cooling Strategies, saw a couple dozen foreign-relations experts, scientists, military personnel, and former government officials from across the world convene in a meeting room at Queen Mary University of London. After making introductions over coffee and little yogurts, they sat at tables arranged in a square with the name of the country or organization each person was playing: national governments, climate NGOs and nonprofits, indigenous groups, and tech companies. Golja was assigned to provide technical advice to help participants make scientifically literate decisions.

The point of the game was to stress-test the world’s response to a group of prospective technologies known collectively as solar radiation modification. These technologies promise to reverse global warming by reflecting away a portion of the sunlight reaching Earth, for example by spraying particles of sulphur dioxide or some other manufactured substance into the atmosphere. The cooling effect of this kind of solar geoengineering is widely accepted. It would mimic the well-known impacts of large volcanic eruptions, which temporarily cool the planet by half a degree or more. But the fallout is less certain—and less equal. Some regions will suffer: Models predict drying in sub-Saharan Africa and more intense tropical storms in the Atlantic. The cooling effect would also last only as long as the geoengineering continued; after that the global temperature could shoot back up with wild and hard-to-predict effects.

Until recently*, the idea of solar radiation modification was a speculative niche of climate science. That has changed fast. Private firms are exploring solar geoengineering as a commercial opportunity: Last year, a US-Israeli startup called Stardust Solutions raised $60 million, and in May it released details of a suite of new inventions it claims would give humans the ability to dial down the global temperature as desired. In August, Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX might be a candidate for delivering geoengineering interventions, threw his voice behind solar geoengineering, writing on X: “Space satellites to control temperature and massive geo-engineering will be needed or it will be game over.”

* Define “recently,” please. Presumably Obama rejected such craziness when his “science” “czar” was discussing it in po-faced tones with AP in 2009, at the peak of Barry’s Hopenchange era:

But why futz around with half measures?

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

QUESTION ASKED: Why were Victorian elites so effective?

Books about successful people often make success sound rather unappealing. Education should be intense and rigorous, focused on driving up IQ and on the ‘STEM’ quaternity of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Once adulthood is reached, life follows an austere pattern, with a 5am start, cold baths, daily visits to the gym, little or no alcohol, a Huel-rich diet, and Stakhanovite working hours. This last point generates particular excitement, and descriptions of powerful people dwell with eager fascination on how many hours they devote to their labors.

The elites of Victorian Britain operated differently. Their schools and universities were not terribly academic and had very little STEM. As adults, they got up late, drank a lot, and spent a remarkable share of their waking hours partying. They loved feasting, sports, holidays, dancing, and dressing up. Contrary to their stodgy reputation, they were probably a lot of fun.

Despite this, the elites of nineteenth-century Britain were, by their own lights, extremely successful. For much of the century, Britain was the richest country on Earth. Its companies dominated global commerce, industry and finance. Its huge navy reigned over the world’s oceans, and its tiny army won a long sequence of wars while keeping watch over an enormous empire. Britain progressed gradually toward democracy with none of the revolutions and civil wars that wracked continental Europe. There is a longstanding view that the prosperity of Britain’s elites came at the cost of the hundreds of millions whom they subordinated and oppressed, and no doubt that is at least partly true. But on their own terms, the British ruling class enjoyed a victorious century.

Maybe the Victorian elite succeeded in spite of being feckless and incompetent: the Industrial Revolution created great wealth, which they enjoyed passively and parasitically. We cannot run controlled experiments on Victorian Britain, so this thesis is hard to test. But I want to explore the possibility that a relentless focus on soft skills, team building, and intra-elite networking actually worked rather well. Huel, STEM, and cold baths have their merits. But the example of the Victorians should make us hesitate before concluding that there is only one way to rule the world.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE FUTURE…:

…and its enemies:

How many years — decades? — closer has Musk brought the future?

So far.

Posted at 1:13 pm by Stephen Green