Snakes are often seen as slithery, slimy and scary. But these intriguing non-legged creatures have made CrowdScience listener Okello from Uganda wonder how they move – more specifically, he wants to know how they climb trees so easily, and so fast.
Presenter Caroline Steel meets snake expert Mark O’Shea to investigate the ingenious methods different snakes use to scale a tree trunk, and gets a demonstration from a very agreeable corn snake at a zoo.
Snake movement isn’t just your typical S-shaped slithering: these reptiles move in a remarkably diverse range of ways. Melissa Miller from the University of Florida explains all the range of motion snakes can employ to effectively travel along the ground as well as at height.
Caroline witnesses this in action as we pay a steamy visit to the Everglades National Park in Florida, USA, tracking pythons across the vast swamps there. We find out why understanding these pythons’ movement is vitally important for conserving the local ecosystem.
Contributors:
Dr Melissa Miller, Research Assistant Scientist, University of Florida
Brandon Welty, Wildlife Biologist, University of Florida
Prof Mark O’Shea MBE, Professor of Herpetology, University of Wolverhampton
Presenter: Caroline Steel
Producer: Hannah Fisher
Editor: Cathy Edwards
Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano
Studio Manager: Neva Missirian
The Supreme Court's decision giving absolute immunity to the President of the United States from prosecution for certain actions raises as many questions as it answers. Cato’s Clark Neily offers some initial thoughts.
Prediction markets are gaining mainstream traction, particularly with the upcoming US elections. In this episode, Nick Tomaino, founder of 1confirmation, which is an investor in Polymarket, explores how platforms like Polymarket identified the possibility that President Biden might drop out of the campaign before the mainstream media did. He talks about the journey of Polymarket, the challenges it faced, and how it overcame them to provide a credible platform for betting on political outcomes.
Finally, Nick explains why prediction markets are currently illegal in the U.S., the implications of the Supreme Court striking down Chevron's deference, and what the future holds for prediction markets in the U.S.
Show highlights:
Why prediction markets like Polymarket finally gained mainstream traction, and how 1confirmation became an early investor
What challenges Polymarket faced in its journey to mainstream recognition, and how it managed to overcome them
How prediction markets contribute to bringing more truth to the world, particularly in the context of media narratives and social media algorithms
What challenges have arisen from conflicts in resolving prediction markets on Polymarket
How bets are created and how the wording and resolution of prediction markets is managed on Polymarket
How trading volumes affect the credibility of prediction markets on Polymarket
The regulatory environment of prediction markets in the US and whether the elimination of Chevron deference by the Supreme Court will have a positive impact on these markets
Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, pop op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com
Vitalik’s tweet: “Prediction markets and Community Notes are becoming the two flagship social epistemic technologies of the 2020s. Both truth-seeking and democratic, built around open public participation rather than pre-selected elites. I want to see many more things like this.”
Nick Tomaino’s tweet: “2024 will go down in history as the year prediction markets went mainstream.”
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Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.
Housing prices, the cost of insurance, and sticker shock at the supermarket are still stressing Americans out even while the economy is booming. Annie Lowrey joins Tim Miller to discuss the limited housing stock, the economic benefits of immigrant labor, and shrinking income inequality. Plus, the media does shape opinion, but Joe Biden's oldness is self-evident.
All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.
You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today!
Have you ever seen a weird pattern in a field? Grain, grass, swamp or wheat, all bent toward some sort of spiritual-mathematical attempt at communication? Since ancient human times, primates built all sorts of strange stories about how, where, and why unseen beings would create crop circles. In tonight's episode, Ben and Matt delve into this strange agricultural phenomena -- sifting the chaff of fiction from the wheat of fact.
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Why the Hawk Tuah Meme broke through 2) Evolution of the internet from the 'nerd internet' to the 'Zynternet' or 'bro internet' 3) The 'For You' recommendation system had turned the internet into a mass appeal machine vs. niche 4) Zuck's fourth of july water sports moment is indicative of the change 5) Raw dogging flights 6) OpenAI hacked 6) NYTimes rips off Dwarkesh Patel's Podcast 7) Figma's Apple Weather App design copy 8) AI startups raising a ton of cash 9) Will there be a reckoning for VCs investing in AI 10) Threads turns one — what is it?
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Burkina Faso's military is facing increased pressure after reports of a recent spate of the deadly attacks of soldiers by jihadist fighters. The Junta government lead by Ibrahim Traore ,has kept mum about this incidents.
Why are soldiers deserting the army in the Democratic Republic of Congo? 25 soldiers have been sentenced to death for running away from battle with the M23 militia group.
And members of Kenya’s LGBTQ community call for greater freedoms
Presenter:Audrey Brown
Producers: Bella Hassan, Nyasha Michelle, Claudia Efemini and Joseph Keen in London. Susan Gachuhi in Nairobi
Senior Producer: Karnie Sharp
Technical Producer: Craig Kingham
Editors:Alice Muthengi and Andre Lombard
Lots going on in public markets this week as Cleanspark announced the planned purchase of Bitcoin miner Griid, while a few private miners made public ambitions known.
Will, Charlie and Matt jump back behind the mic to chomp on this week’s Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining news–and what a week it was! We cover Cleanspark’s plans to purchase Bitcoin miner Griid, Northern Data and Genesis Digital Assets (GDA)eyeing public markets for the first time and we wrap up with a short local story on ASIC theft.
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
05:18 Cleanspark Acquisition
14:07 Northern Data IPO
20:05 GDA IPO
26:28 Bad Boys: ASIC thief
28:08 Ordinals number go down :(
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Published twice weekly, "The Mining Pod" interviews the best builders and operators in the Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining landscape. Subscribe to get notifications when we publish interviews on Tuesday and a news show on Friday!
Thank you to our sponsor, CleanSpark, America’s Bitcoin miner! And thank you to Foreman Mining, Master Your Mining!
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"The Mining Pod" is produced by Sunnyside Honey LLC with Senior Producer, Damien Somerset. Distributed by CoinDesk with Senior Producer Michele Musso and Executive Producer Jared Schwartz.
