Summary: the mushroom Lanmaoa asiatica makes careless eaters see little people using toxins which other shrooms haven't discovered.

"Biosynthetic gene mining of the L. asiatica genome found no close hits with any genes known in the production of mushroom psychoactive compounds," write the researchers in their published paper.

"This supports our hypothesis of the presence of a novel unidentified metabolite responsible for the unique hallucinogenic properties of L. asiatica."

Taiwan has insisted it is a sovereign, independent nation, after US President Donald Trump cautioned it against formally declaring independence from China.

Researchers at Helsinki University compared how effectively various colours and patterns on simulated wind turbine blades discourage a tit from pecking a target it has been trained to associate with food. They found that white blades were the least deterring, followed by red-striped blades, one blade painted black, and the most effective deterrent was a combination of black, red and yellow - colours used by multiple species to indicate bad taste or poison. Field experiments with actual wind turbines are recommended, but not yet possible becuse aviation law requires white blades.

Direct link to PDF, summary in Finnish, main content in English.

Finnish-language news article with video of experimental conditions.

Upon excitation at 300 nm, pyrimidones underwent valence isomerization to form the corresponding Dewar isomers.

/.../

Addition of hydrochloric acid (HCl) to Dewar pyrimidone (107 mg in 0.46 ml of water) increased the solution temperature to 100°C and induced boiling within 1 s, demonstrating rapid macroscopic heat transfer to an environmentally benign medium under ambient conditions.

Speaking later, von der Leyen said she thought it would be possible to disburse the first tranche of the €45bn funding planned for 2026 in this quarter, meaning by the end of June. The first payment, she indicated, would fund Ukraine’s domestic drone production – “drones from Ukraine for Ukraine”.

NYT reports that one of the US aircraft carriers has to withdraw to port due to a laundry room fire. About 600 sailors lost access to their bunks.

The fire, according to two officials, began in the vent of a dryer in the ship’s laundry facilities and quickly spread. Sailors battled the blaze for more than 30 hours, officials and sailors said.

The Navy did not respond to a request for comment. Central Command said in its statement that the fire caused “no damage to the ship’s propulsion plant, and the aircraft carrier remains fully operational.”

The Trump administration has been in active discussions with Iranian opposition groups and Kurdish leaders in Iraq about providing them with military support, the sources said.

Iranian Kurdish armed groups have thousands of forces operating along the Iraq-Iran border, primarily in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Several of the groups have released public statements since the beginning of the war hinting at imminent action and urging Iranian military forces to defect. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been striking Kurdish groups and said on Tuesday that it targeted Kurdish forces with dozens of drones.

"Our cup of patience has overflowed. Now it is open war between us and you (Afghanistan)," Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said on Friday.

The strikes threaten to unleash a protracted conflict along the 2,600-km (1,615-mile) frontier with relations between Kabul and Islamabad shattered by a long-running dispute over Pakistan's accusation that Afghanistan harbours militants carrying out attacks across the border.

Two women have been arrested and detained in Uganda after allegedly kissing in public, an act of “same-sex activity” which can lead to a life sentence in the east African country.

Summary: according Guardian, the vice president and her brother appear to have promised cooperation after Maduro's fall, but not assistance in making him fall.

According to Reuters, the interior minister also participated in some talks with US officials, the content of which isn't mentioned.

Summary: we could have considerable extra time to figure out how to not pollute everything and ourselves with microplastic. Systematic flaws in several microplastic studies point towards human body fat mimicking the signature of polyethylene, leading to serious overestimation of how far microplastic can penetrate:

"One of the team behind the letter was blunt. “The brain microplastic paper is a joke,” said Dr Dušan Materić, at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. “Fat is known to make false-positives for polyethylene. The brain has [approximately] 60% fat.” Materić and his colleagues suggested rising obesity levels could be an alternative explanation for the trend reported in the study."

Summary: the ceasefire did not hold, Kurds are withdrawing and doing a general mobilization, Kobani is under siege, imprisoned Islamic State fighters broke out of an abandoned prison, etc. The Syrian civil war has basically started again.

State media said on Saturday that the army took over the northern city of Tabqa and its adjacent dam, as well as the major Freedom dam, formerly known as the Baath, west of the Syrian city of Raqaa. It came despite US calls to halt the advance.

Summary: Republicans are 50/50, everyone else is strongly opposed.

Summary: the Iranian government has intensely used lethal force on protesters. In Tehran alone, several hundred people have been killed. In the whole country - most likely several times more.

Summary: the ICE agent Jonathan Ross was not in danger of getting run over when he killed Renee Good. He came in contact with the car, but could clearly see that the driver was steering away from him. Regardless, he shot 3 times, once after being passed by.

As strikes and protests spread to several major cities across Iran on Wednesday, the head of the judiciary threatened to intensify crackdowns and prosecute protesters.

On January 7, US president Donald Trump promised to withdraw the US from 35 international organizations and 31 UN agencies:

The Memorandum orders all Executive Departments and Agencies to cease participating in and funding 35 non-United Nations (UN) organizations and 31 UN entities that operate contrary to U.S. national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty.

Unverified: then the White House deleted the announcement from their website (personal note: I did receive 404 on it for a while).

Correction: announcement is still up or has reappeared. An archived copy is also available in case they change their mind.

A first big step, which EU governments agreed on Friday, is to immobilise 210 billion euros ($246 billion) worth of Russian sovereign assets for as long as needed instead of voting every six months on extending the asset freeze.