In a clip from today’s podcast, Oli and Ava dive into parliament’s controversial Online Safety Act. The law means that age verification is now required when accessing explicit content online. But is this really the best way to protect young people? Or is it just a case of punishing the wrong platforms?
Oli and Ava unpack how lawmakers have shifted the focus from social media giants where users are often served graphic content without consent to adult websites like Pornhub. They highlight how the Online Safety Act is less about actual safety and more about political optics, especially after tech companies failed to self-regulate.
Ultimately, who really gets locked out? Tech-savvy teenagers or a middle-aged man browsing on the family laptop? For better or worse, the UK is now leading the world in internet regulation, setting a precedent that other countries are watching closely.
Like PoliticsJOE? We need your support:
/ politicsjoe
[…]
There are many cases of convergent evolution, but did you know the caffeine made by plants is one of them? In this video, we take this channel’s first steps covering the fascinating science of botany, and talk about how ancient ancestral genes were copied and mutated multiple times independently, leading to the caffeine we know and love today.
REFERENCES
Schönenberger & von Balthazar (2013): https://academic.oup.com/botlinnean/a…
Denoeud et al. (2014):
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.11…
Zhang et al. (2020):
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/…
Huang et al. (2016):
https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073…
Wright et al. (2013):
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.11…
Ceja-Navarro et al. (2015):
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomm…
Ransom (1912):
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles…
Fairtrade:
https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/farmers-…
International Institute for Sustainable Development (2025). Global Market Report: Tea prices and sustainability.
https://www.iisd.org/system/files/202…
Spinosaurus image by Bogdanov, modified by Matt Martyniuk and FunkMonk, from Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…)
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 – Intro
1:13 – Tea, coffee, and more
5:03 – The biochemistry
8:27 – How did this happen?
10:51 – Outro
#science #biology #plants #caffeine #evolution #botany #tea #coffee #convergence #convergent
[…]
We have known for a long time that plants move, but today we are discovering that they can sense, touch, and taste. They react to stimuli of various kinds.
They also have a keen ear, memory, and can perceive shapes. Plants interact much more than we believed with the external world.
We knew they were sensitive to temperature, sunlight, humidity… Recent research proves that plants possess many other surprising senses, leading us to look at them with fresh eyes.
Documentary: Genius Plants – Episode 1: Superpower
Director: Thierry Berrod & Quincy Russell
Production: Arte France & Mona Lisa Production (2023)
[…]
Enjoy learning about the origins of words like “inch” and “furlong”. 🌏 Then get an exclusive NordVPN deal + 4 months extra here → https://nordvpn.com/robwordsvpn It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌️
Why is a foot 12 inches long? Why is a pound abbreviated to “lb”? What did the original metre measure?
In this video, let’s explore the historical and linguistic origins of the metric and imperial systems. From ancient Roman feet to French revolutionary timekeeping, we look at the surprising stories behind the units we still use today — including the inch, yard, mile, pint, and tonne.
👣 Whose feet inspired the original foot?
🌽 What does a barleycorn have to do with your shoe size?
🐂 How did cows invent the furlong?
⚖️ Why are there so many types of ton?
Whether you’re wondering how tall you are in fathoms or what exactly a “quart” is a quarter of, this video has the answer.
[…]
After two years of living in a camper with his young daughter, architect Jan Körbes wanted something better suited to their active lifestyle, so he decided to realize a longtime dream of turning a grain silo into a microhome. With the help of his team at REFUNC, specialists in creative recycling, they bought an old grain bin from a farmer and set to work making it habitable.
Working with a footprint of 4m2 (43 square feet), the group started by adding floors to the space. The final home is 3 stories and includes a climbing wall as sole means of reaching the top floor bedroom. The middle floor includes a kitchen, toilet, and shower.
The crew built out the final space of 13m2 with a budget of about $27,000 and lots of recycled items (including floor, ceiling, and paneling). The home, an experiment in mobile living (it’s already moved once) dubbed “Silo City”, fills in REFUNC’s portfolio of recycled microarchitecture which includes mobile shelters made from shrink-wrap, pallets, a retired ski gondola, and shipping containers and wind turbine blades.
“This is an example of an object which is industrial which after a certain lifespan is not used any longer,” explains Körbes. “And this is when we come in. So we analyze objects which could become microarchitecture, for example, this grain silo it’s actually a perfect size for a mini, mini, mini house.“
*Photo credits: Ishka Michocka, Christian van der Kooij, Jan Korbes
Silo House: http://www.silocity.space
REFUNC: http://refunc.nl
On *faircompanies: https://faircompanies.com/videos/berl…
[…]
msamba 