PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT: Life in Europe gets even worse after Iran conflict

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NEWS HEADLINE: Druzhba pipeline shutdown plunges Hungary and Slovakia into oil dispute with Ukraine

SURVIVAL LILLY
https://youtu.be/rjMgYiKBW9Q

VIDEO INTRO: So, when you think it cannot get worse, well, it just got worse. Unfortunately, a very important pipeline got damaged by an air strike inside Ukraine. There was a hub and this hub was apparently destroyed. Now this pipeline is damaged, and it cannot deliver oil anymore to Hungary and Slovakia. That's bad because these two countries were receiving most of their oil from Russia. Now of course, because of this incident Slovakia and Hungary are really furious. Ukraine is claiming that this was done by Russia, but Hungary and Slovakia do not believe it. They are saying that this incident was the result of political purposes, and they want an investigation. They want Brussels to send inspectors to test claims by Ukraine that it was Russia blowing up this pipeline...

Situation in Europe March 2026 (Part 1) ... https://youtu.be/rjMgYiKBW9Q
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/rjMgYiKBW9Q

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03...their-jobs

PRESS RELEASE: Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like “synergistic leadership,” or “growth-hacking paradigms” may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell University study reveals.

Published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, research by cognitive psychologist Shane Littrell introduces the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR), a tool designed to measure susceptibility to impressive-but-empty organizational rhetoric.

“Corporate bullshit is a specific style of communication that uses confusing, abstract buzzwords in a functionally misleading way,” said Littrell, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Unlike technical jargon, which can sometimes make office communication a little easier, corporate bullshit confuses rather than clarifies. It may sound impressive, but it is semantically empty.”

Although people anywhere can BS each other – that is, share dubious information that’s misleadingly impressive or engaging – the workplace not only rewards but structurally protects it, Littrell said. In a work setting where corporate jargon is already the norm, it’s easy for ambitious employees to use corporate BS to appear more competent or accomplished, accelerating their climb up the corporate ladder of workplace influence.

Corporate BS seems to be ubiquitous – but Littrell wondered if it is actually harmful. To test this, he created a “corporate bullshit generator” that churns out meaningless but impressive-sounding sentences like, “We will actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing” and “By getting our friends in the tent with our best practices, we will pressure-test a renewed level of adaptive coherence.”

He then asked more than 1,000 office workers to rate the “business savvy” of these computer-generated BS statements alongside real quotes from Fortune 500 leaders. Divided into four distinct studies, the research verified the scale as a statistically reliable measure of individual differences in receptivity to corporate bullshit, then, through use of established cognitive tests, made connections between receptivity to BS and analytic thinking skills known to be essential to workplace performance.

The results revealed a troubling paradox. Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and “visionary,” but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytic thinking, cognitive reflection and fluid intelligence. Those more receptive to corporate BS also scored significantly worse on a test of effective workplace decision-making.

Essentially, the employees most excited and inspired by “visionary” corporate jargon may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions for their companies.

“This creates a concerning cycle,” Littrell said. “Employees who are more likely to fall for corporate bullshit may help elevate the types of dysfunctional leaders who are more likely to use it, creating a sort of negative feedback loop. Rather than a ‘rising tide lifting all boats,’ a higher level of corporate BS in an organization acts more like a clogged toilet of inefficiency.”

When BS goes too far or gets called out, real reputational or financial damage can occur, Littrell said. For instance, a 2014, a memo from the former executive vice president of Microsoft Devices Group to employees, later dubbed in the press “the worst email ever,” opened with 10 paragraphs of jargon, including “Our device strategy must reflect Microsoft’s strategy and must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope,” burying the real news in paragraph 11 – that 12,500 employees were going to lose their jobs.

“Most of us, in the right situation, can get taken in by language that sounds sophisticated but isn’t,” Littrell said. “That’s why, whether you’re an employee or a consumer, it’s worth slowing down when you run into organizational messaging of any kind – leaders’ statements, public reports, ads – and ask yourself, ‘What, exactly, is the claim? Does it actually make sense?’ Because when a message leans heavily on buzzwords and jargon, it’s often a red flag that you’re being steered by rhetoric instead of reality.”

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

Why exercise should be a core treatment for mental illness
https://knowridge.com/2026/03/why-exerci...e_vignette

INTRO: People living with serious mental health conditions often face a hidden health crisis that many people do not realize. Studies have shown that individuals with illnesses such as schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder die much earlier than the general population. On average, their life expectancy is reduced by about 10 to 20 years.

Many people might assume that suicide or direct effects of mental illness are the main reasons for this shorter lifespan. However, research shows that the biggest causes of early death in people with severe mental illness are actually physical health problems.

In particular, cardiovascular diseases and metabolic disorders such as heart disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes play a major role. Scientists say that one of the key factors contributing to these health problems is a lack of physical activity.

An international group of researchers led by Professor Brendon Stubbs from the Medical University of Vienna has now called for exercise to be treated as a central part of psychiatric care. Their review, which analyzed hundreds of scientific studies, was published in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry... (MORE - details)

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Less trippy, more therapeutic ‘magic mushrooms’
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1119061

PRESS RELEASE: Psilocybin — the psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms” — is gaining scientific attention for its potential in treating neuropsychiatric conditions including depression, anxiety, substance use disorders and certain neurodegenerative diseases. However, its hallucinogenic effects may limit broader therapeutic applications. Researchers publishing in ACS’ Journal of Medicinal Chemistry synthesized modified versions of psilocin, the active form of psilocybin, that retained their activity while producing fewer hallucinogenic-like effects than pharmaceutical-grade psilocybin in a preliminary study in mice.

“Our findings are consistent with a growing scientific perspective suggesting that psychedelic effects and serotonergic activity may be dissociated,” says Andrea Mattarei, a corresponding author of the study. “This opens the possibility of designing new therapeutics that retain beneficial biological activity while reducing hallucinogenic responses, potentially enabling safer and more practical treatment strategies.” 

Mood disorders and some neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, involve imbalances of the neurotransmitter molecule serotonin, which helps regulate mood and other brain functions. For decades, scientists have been investigating the therapeutic use of psychedelics such as psilocybin on serotonin-signaling pathways. However, the hallucinations that can accompany these drugs may make people wary of taking them, even if there is a medical benefit.

So, a team led by Sara De Martin, Mattarei and Paolo Manfredi chemically engineered five psilocin derivatives for slower, sustained and potentially non-hallucinogenic release into the brain. They first tested these five compounds using human plasma samples and laboratory conditions mimicking gastrointestinal absorption. These experiments allowed the team to identify a compound they named 4e as the most promising candidate because it displayed favorable stability for absorption and enabled a gradual release of psilocin — a feature that could potentially mitigate hallucinogenic effects. Importantly, 4e retained activity at key serotonin receptors at levels comparable to psilocin.

Next, the researchers compared the effects of equivalent doses of 4e with pharmaceutical-grade psilocybin in mice. The team administered the compounds orally to mice and measured how much psilocin reached the bloodstream and brain over a 48-hour period. In mice dosed with 4e, the compound was able to cross the blood–brain barrier effectively and exhibited a lower but more sustained presence of psilocin in their brains compared to those treated with psilocybin. When the researchers looked at mouse behavior, they observed that 4e-treated animals exhibited significantly fewer head twitches — a well-established marker of psychedelic-like activity in rodents — than those receiving psilocybin, despite the strong serotonin receptor activity of 4e. This behavioral difference appeared to be associated primarily with the amount and timing of psilocin released in the brain. 

The researchers say their findings demonstrate the feasibility of developing stable brain-penetrating psilocin derivatives that retain serotonin receptor activity while reducing acute mind-altering effects. Further studies will be needed to clarify their mechanism of action and fully characterize their biological effects before assessing their therapeutic potential and safety in humans. 

The authors acknowledge funding from MGGM Therapeutics, LLC, in collaboration with NeuroArbor Therapeutics Inc. Several authors declare they are inventors on patents related to psilocin.

https://psyche.co/ideas/iq-scores-are-fa...ore-stupid

EXCERPTS: In the past decade, researchers have found data suggesting that, on average, the populations of developed Western countries are becoming more stupid. It’s a reversal of the so-called Flynn Effect, named after the New Zealand philosopher and intelligence researcher James Flynn. In the 1980s, Flynn had shown that, between the 1930s and the 1970s, average intelligence rose by three IQ points per decade in the United States and in other Western nations, a trend that seemed to persist until the 1990s. But then in the early years of the 21st century, Flynn noticed something disturbing: IQ scores for even the brightest children in the US and the UK had started to decline. And in Nordic nations, Flynn projected that average national intelligence scores – some of which had been declining since the mid-1990s – could drop by around seven IQ points over the following 30 years.

Plenty of reasons are given for this decline. In November 2025, Lane Brown, a feature writer for New York magazine, cited several possible factors: outsourcing our cognitive labour to AIs, being glued to our screens, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 and, though this is probably a niche factor, too-strong weed. ‘The world is dumber, and we all know it,’ writes Brown. ‘Lately, it feels like that culturewide upgrade to our mental operating systems has been rolled back to an older and buggier version.’

The negative Flynn Effect, however, isn’t what it seems. Firstly, falling average intelligence among Western nations is perfectly compatible with rising intelligence rates among certain sections of their populations. But more worryingly, the IQ tests on which Flynn relies are of doubtful value. Our stupidity, it turns out, is not always easy to understand.

[...] So, even if our intelligence measures really are flawed, what explains the rise and fall of IQ scores? Flynn hypothesised the importance of environmental factors, including changes in education, nutrition, family structure, economic pressures, microplastics, antidepressants and woodfire smoke. But that’s not an adequate explanation: from the 1930s, when average national intelligence rose in developed Western nations decade on decade, other deleterious environmental factors were at play. There was a lack of free public education and socialised healthcare, and toxic air pollution – a known factor influencing intelligence scores and cognition – was often unchecked. Complicating things further, what Flynn proposed as negative factors may be positive ones, and vice versa. Antidepressants, for instance, might help with improving one’s intelligence precisely by lifting one out of existential hopelessness.

More recently, observers have suggested two knockdown factors accounting for the apparent declines in average national intelligences: screens and social media. For many, these are intuitively seen as accelerants to the 21st century’s bonfire of stupidity – we seem to collectively sense that they are dumbing us down.

On this point, it’s worth noting that the scores used to support the negative Flynn Effect weren’t down in every category. [...] citizens tracked falling scores in logic, vocabulary, visual and mathematical problem-solving, and analogical reasoning. Only scores for spatial ability ­– the measure of the mind’s ability to analyse three-dimensional objects – rose during that period for the average American. [...] spatial ability, for instance, is more important to today’s cognitive elites than reading. Certainly, you’ll need the former if you’re going to be any good at fast, visually intensive online games such as Fortnite.

[...] Intuitively, the argument that digital media is dumbing us down is plausible. And book after book, based on study after study, appears to confirm our intuitions. Computers and smartphones spare us cognitive labour. As a result, the human mind has less to do. Therefore, the need to be intelligent is less of an evolutionary imperative than it was in the pre-digital era. Computers and smartphones are more complex than ever, but human routines are oddly simpler. Generations ago, dishwashers and clothes dryers eased physical labours in daily life. Today, an iPhone or an Amazon Echo can ease mental labour, enabling us, the creators of these machines, to slide into the warm bath of mental fatuity. But perhaps, in principle at least, using an Echo or talking with ChatGPT allows you to free your mind for more cognitively challenging work... (MORE - missing details)

https://theconversation.com/this-is-why-...ime-276407

INTRO: One of the most bothersome things about being sick or having seasonal allergies is that it makes your nose stuffy and blocked. This makes breathing in through your nostrils frustrating – if not altogether impossible.

But even when you aren’t sick, perhaps you’ve noticed that when you take a deep breath, only one of your nostrils seems to be allowing the air in. Before you panic and wonder if you’re coming down with something, what you’re experiencing is actually a normal bodily process.

Multiple times a day, without us even noticing, the nostrils naturally switch between a dominant nostril for airflow. This process is called the nasal cycle and it plays an important role in the health of our nose.

The body actually switches the dominant nostril as frequently as every two hours while we’re awake. This switch is less frequent when we’re sleeping as our breathing rate slows and the volume of air entering and leaving the body lowers.

There are two key aspects to the nasal cycle: congestion and decongestion.

During the congestion phase, one nostril will experience reduced airflow, while the opposite nostril will be open, or decongested – allowing for more air to pass through it. The decongested phase actually fatigues the open nostril, as air dries it out and brings pathogens into contact with it. This is why it’s important for the dominant nostril to swap.

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This alternating cycle is automatic, regulated subconsciously by the hypothalamus in the brain. However, some people have no nasal cycle (such as those who have a hypothalamic disorder). There’s also evidence that the left nostril may be more dominant – particularly in right handed people.

Studies looking at nasal breathing even suggest that when the right nostril is dominant, the body is in a more alert or stressed state. But when the left nostril takes over, the body is in a more relaxed state.

The nasal cycle is important for a number of reasons... (MORE - details)

Akin to 2004's "Primer", this was another indie film about time, but presumably with a bigger budget than a mere $7,000.

Features Danielle Panabaker just before she joined the cast of CW's The Flash. Nothing innovative, but not that bad, because one can casually get involved in the gradually accumulating mess that this trio creates for themselves as they exploit their limited access to the future. Currently free on Tubi TV (maybe others).

https://youtu.be/_YhP-VfH81E

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/_YhP-VfH81E

See ya! Wouldn't wanna be ya!


https://apnews.com/article/trump-homelan...b8f8b5961a
"President Donald Trump on Thursday fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, after mounting criticism over her leadership of the department, including the handling of the administration’s immigration crackdown and disaster response.

Trump, who said he would nominate in her place Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, made the announcement on social media two days after Noem faced a grilling on Capitol Hill from GOP members as well as Democrats.

Trump said he’ll make Noem a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative that he said would focus on the Western Hemisphere...."

Apocalyptic beliefs are no longer fringe—and they’re shaping how people respond to global threats
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1118926

INTRO: In an era of climate anxiety, geopolitical tensions and rapidly advancing artificial intelligence, apocalyptic thinking is no longer confined to the fringes of society, according to new research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“Belief in the end of the world is surprisingly common across North America, and it’s significantly influencing how people interpret and respond to the most pressing threats facing humanity,” said Dr. Matthew I. Billet, the study’s lead author who conducted the research as a PhD candidate in UBC’s psychology department. He is now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine.

The research draws on surveys of more than 3,400 people in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. national sample of 1,409 respondents, nearly one‑third said they believe the world will end within their lifetime.

In both Canada and the U.S., the study shows that people think about the end of the world in multiple ways—including when it might happen, who or what would cause it, and whether it is something to fear or welcome. In the U.S., these beliefs were strongly linked to how people perceive and respond to global risks like climate change, pandemics, nuclear conflict and emerging technologies. Because Canadians think about the end of the world in similar ways, these beliefs may also influence how global risks are understood in Canada, even though this was not directly tested.
Five dimensions of the apocalypse

Billet and his UBC colleagues developed a comprehensive psychological measure of end-of-world beliefs, identifying five key dimensions that matter for how people think and act:

• perceived closeness (how soon the end will arrive)
  
• anthropogenic causality (whether humans will cause it)
  
• theogenic causality (whether divine or supernatural forces will cause it)
  
• personal control (how much influence one personally has over the outcome)
  
• emotional valence (whether the end will ultimately be good or bad)
  

“Different narratives people believe about the end of the world can lead to very different responses to societal issues,” said Dr. Billet. “Someone who believes humans are causing the apocalypse through climate change will respond very differently to environmental policy than someone who believes the end times are controlled by divine prophecy.”

The research revealed differences across religious denominations... (MORE - details, no ads)