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Bears Will Be Boys: A data analysis of animal gender in children’s books. Melanie Walsh and colleagues at The Pudding investigate which animals we gender, and why. The use of they/them for a singular non-gendered pronoun is pretty recent. (And IMO makes reading more difficult for beginners.) posted by CCBC at 7:21 PM on February 9 [2 favorites] In the methodology notes, they say that the figures in the analysis count each character only once, whilst the grid counts every instance.

'No ICE in Minnesota' Gaming Bundle. "We created this bundle to raise funds for Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota in response to the Trump administration sending ICE agents to the Minneapolis area and the reckless murder of an innocent people by ICE agents." 651 creators on itch.io have donated their games & accessories to this fundraiser. Previous itch.io fundraiser on MeFi. Recent controversy about itch.io on MeFi. I've bought previous bundles like this, and they've had insane value/money spent.

Nuclear Fish Disco February 10, 2026 4:37 PM   Subscribe "Scientists have found that plans that include a “fish disco” to deter migratory marine life from the nearby Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor could help save 90% of fish from the power plant’s water intake pipes – but the measures are set to cost its developer £700m." posted by brundlefly (1 comment total)

Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate suspends his campaign after his daughter is found fatally stabbed Hallie Marie Tobler, 22, was found dead with multiple stab wounds over the weekend in her apartment in St. Cloud, Minnesota, roughly 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis, according to the St. Cloud Police Department. Her husband, Dylan Tobler, 23, was found inside the apartment with self-inflicted stab wounds.

When MF Doom’s passing was announced in New Year’s Eve in 2020 the music world was shocked but details of his death were unknown. In 2022, Rob Conlon, a writer for a Leeds magazine published an article about MF Doom’s last years living in the Yorkshire city, where he’d settled after being exiled from the US by American immigration authorities, a knotty story untangled by Pitchfork writer Noah Yoo. His death was later revealed to have been due to a medical error, for which the hospital apologized.

From The Guardian: Females may be just as likely to be autistic as males but boys are up to four times more likely to be diagnosed in childhood, according to a large-scale study. Research led by the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden scrutinised the diagnosis rates of autism for people born in Sweden between 1985 and 2020. Of the 2.7 million people tracked, 2.8% were diagnosed with autism between the ages of two and 37.

Cyclical and linear conceptions of time thrived side by side for centuries, sometimes blurring into one another. After all, we live through natural, cyclical seasons and unrepeatable events – birth, first marriage, death. Importantly, medievals and early moderns didn’t literally see cyclical time as a circle, or linear time as a line. Yet in the 19th-century world of frock coats, petticoats and suet puddings, change was afoot.

Typing for Love or Money: The Hidden Women’s Labor behind Modern Literary Masterpieces. Christine Jacobson writes in the Public Domain Review about women's contributions to their employers' or husbands' (sometimes both) work through typing, editing and representing them. Some excellent photographs, especially Mary Weld in the bookbindery. I liked the description of Theodora Bosanquet taking dictation from Henry James after his death.

The mustelid of the moment is the stoat February 10, 2026 8:25 AM   Subscribe

The Gordie Howe bridge joining Windsor and Detroit when it opens this year will be the largest land Ports of Entry along the Canada-United States border.