The first commercially-available CD (Billy Joel's 52nd Street) was released forty years ago yesterday. Steve Knopper at Billboard relates "How the ¡®Shiny, Tiny¡¯ Discs Took Over" [archive.org link]. Daryl Worthington at The Quietus explores "the unique experimental potential of the format". At DW, Silke Wünsch ponders the medium's rise & fall. And Adam Aziz at grammy.com asks "Can CDs Make A Comeback?". [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 1:01 PM PST - 127 comments

[Original post removed at poster's request. Topic was: Fat Bear Week 2022!] [more inside]
posted by Anonymous at 10:07 AM PST - 17 comments

New research shows that many cancers play host to their own unique microbiomes of fungi, which may affect our chances of surviving them.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:56 AM PST - 44 comments

"It was Halloween night and Parliament Funkadelic was about to tear the roof off the Houston Summit, ready to bless the crowd with their cosmic brew of interplanetary funk." Enjoy the concert and spend 1h22m blowing the cobwebs out of your mind, this fine fall Sunday. [more inside]
posted by wellifyouinsist at 9:24 AM PST - 13 comments

The trip to Rose Cottage is Cal Flyn's account of a trip to Swona, a remote Scottish island that was abandoned in 1974. A herd of cattle has been running wild there for decades. [more inside]
posted by rory at 6:53 AM PST - 7 comments

Business booms for Melbourne's last typewriter repairman, Tom Koska [more inside]
posted by freethefeet at 4:08 AM PST - 2 comments

How to Hide a Plague: How Elite Capture and Individualism Made Covid Normal How large right wing business interests co-opted science to hamstring public health response and pull the classic capitalism move of individualizing risks, while convincing the public it was their idea. [more inside]
posted by Bottlecap at 1:13 AM PST - 41 comments