Author: Geek Planet

2025 was another challenging year for the retail industry, as tariffs added another crushing blow to an industry that had already been dealing with sky-high inflation and waning VC dollars in recent years. The numbers lay bare how challenging it was for the retail industry: As of October, job cuts across U.S. firms hit a 22-year high, with retail being one of the hardest-hit industries. And of course, there were bankruptcies. U.S. business bankruptcies as a whole reached 6,574 in the third quarter of 2025, the highest since mid-2014. In turn, Modern Retail staff rounded up some of the most…

The Neanderthals now exist as a separate group only in terms of what we can find out about them. We could say the same for a lot of groups. But we are still learning and surmising new things. Did genetic defects contribute to the Neanderthal population decline? One theory, aired recently at New Scientist, is that modern human–Neanderthal hybrids may have suffered from a genetic defect: We know from genetic studies that there was sustained interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals between approximately 50,000 and 45,000 years ago. The Neanderthals went extinct around 41,000 years ago, but some of their…

In a recent New Yorker article, “The Case That A.I. Is Thinking,” James Somers explains his conversion from finding “comfort in the idea that [large language models (LLMs)] had little to do with real intelligence or understanding” to believing that “these models have become increasingly intelligent” and that ChatGPT now “seems to know what it’s talking about.” I am not convinced. An illusion is an illusion Somers’ key argument is: “How convincing does the illusion of understanding have to be before you stop calling it an illusion?” Yes, the confident blather produced by LLMs conveys an illusion of understanding. But…

“From this day on, America will follow the rule that everyone in Bitcoin knows very well — never sell your Bitcoin.” -President Donald Trump, 3/7/25 at inaugural White House Crypto Summit The President of the United States is now reciting popular Bitcoin maxims as they pertain to America’s bitcoin stack. Wild. It’s clear that he’s gotten the message that bitcoin is something altogether different than all other digital assets. He’s proven this not only by what he said at today’s Crypto Summit, but also by signing an executive order (EO) last night that established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) independently…

Christine Webb, an environmental studies prof at New York University, published a book in September, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters: Darwin considered humans one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural hierarchy. Yet today many maintain that we are the most intelligent, virtuous, successful species that ever lived. This flawed thinking enables us to exploit the earth towards our own exclusive ends, throwing us into a perilous planetary imbalance. But is this view and way of life inevitable? The Arrogant Ape shows that human exceptionalism is an ideology…

AI has already changed how we work, travel, and communicate – but we’re still finding new uses for it every day. Over the past year, I’ve used it to help tweak my fitness goals, and it’s made me realise just how incredibly useful a tool it would have been when I first started out. If you’re jumping into fitness for your New Year’s resolution (whether for the first time or not), I’ve outlined a few key ways that AI can massively help you reach success. From helping you lose weight to improving your cardio or gaining muscle (or all of…

I hate time travel. I mean, I really hate it! From a storytelling standpoint, it’s almost as bad as the Liar Revealed trope, where most of the story is taken up with covering up a deception. So, if I were to write a story with a time machine — and not take the idea too seriously — my first question would be, “How do I break this stupid thing so the reader will care about the plot! Why should anyone care about what’s going to happen if it can all be repeated again? Still, a few time-travel stories have been…

Bitcoin mining pool Braiins has reached a major milestone by processing over 1,000 daily payouts on the Lightning Network. This achievement demonstrates the potential for Lightning to enable instant, low-cost transactions at scale for the mining sector. Since first introducing Lightning payouts in February 2024 through a partnership with payments platform Voltage, Braiins has experienced consistent double-digit monthly growth in Lightning transactions. Miners now have access to immediate payouts of their earnings rather than relying on slower, expensive on-chain settlement. According to Braiins CEO Eli Nagar, “Lightning payouts have completely changed the way miners receive their earnings. Rather than waiting…

It’s likely to come up around 3:00 a.m.— six beers or cups of bad coffee later — in a long discussion among frosh: Our universe is a simulation. Controlled by intelligent aliens no doubt… Yeah, just like in the Terminator series. Skynet, you know… Yeah, Skynet… Image Credit: Pixels Hunter – Adobe Stock Go to bed. At ScienceDaily, the University of British Columbia (Okanagan) reports that new research suggests that the idea that the universe is a simulation is mathematically impossible. By applying advanced mathematical principles, including Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, they proved that any consistent and complete model of existence…

Yesterday, Andrew McDiarmid’s recent interview with neurosurgeon Michael Egnor dropped at Discovery Science. Dr. Egnor is the author, along with , of The Immortal Mind: A neurosurgeon’s case for the existence of the soul (2025): “Does the Human Soul Really Exist? Neurosurgeon Explains the Evidence,” Nov 15, 2025 [27:41 min]Here’s an excerpt from midway through the podcast [12:38 and following]: Michael Egnor: Near-death experiences are surprisingly common. There’s no question there. There’s been probably tens of millions of people over over human history who have had things like this. And there tends to be patterns to them that occur across…