Bookmarks 2025-10-08T06:20:42.948Z
by Owen Kibel
24 min read
Bookmarks for 2025-10-08T06:20:42.948Z
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Haotian Liu on X: ""Imagine we begin again tonight." - @grok imagine https://t.co/V07MYEyQ2X" / X Added: Oct 7, 2025
Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Mamdani's stance on Israel isn't an attack on Netanyahu, it's an antisemitic affront to Jews
Added: Oct 7, 2025Mamdani’s stance on Israel isn’t an attack on Netanyahu, it’s an antisemitic affront to Jews
Site: New York Daily News
On today’s two-year anniversary of the horrid Hamas Oct. 7 pogrom against Israel, there will be protests in New York both against and in support of Israel.
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Bari Weiss’s CBS News Role Triggers Liberal Meltdown | National Review Added: Oct 8, 2025
Bari Weiss’s CBS News Role Triggers Liberal Meltdown | National Review
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Charlie Kirk WARNED Of His Assassination Says Candace Owens, Its Time To Tell THE TRUTH | Tim Pool - YouTube Added: Oct 8, 2025
Candace Owens Says Charlie WARNED He'd Be Assassinated DAY Before Murder | Tim Pool
Site: YouTube
This has gotten out of hand, what really happened, what is going on??Become A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - https://rumble.com/pl...
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The Future of The Free Press - by Bari Weiss Added: Oct 8, 2025
The Future of The Free Press
The Free Press is joining Paramount.
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Bari Weiss Named Editor-in-Chief at CBS News: Legacy Media in Dire Need of Reform | National Review Added: Oct 8, 2025
Bari Weiss Named Editor-in-Chief at CBS News: Legacy Media in Dire Need of Reform | National Review
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Taylor Swift's accent: Scientists trace the evolution of singer's dialect Added: Oct 8, 2025
Taylor Swift's accent: Scientists trace the evolution of singer's dialect
Site: PsyPost - Psychology News
Taylor Swift’s voice has shifted as her career and surroundings have changed. A new study in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America tracks how her speech patterns evolved across Nashville, Philadelphia, and New York, revealing how accents reflect identity.
A new study provides evidence that pop star Taylor Swift’s speaking voice shifted in measurable ways as she moved through different social and geographic communities during her career. Researchers found that Swift adopted Southern speech patterns during her early years in Nashville, gradually returned to features associated with Philadelphia English, and later adopted vocal traits linked to urban prestige while living in New York City. These findings suggest that even in adulthood, a person’s accent may adjust in ways that reflect their community ties, career goals, and public identity.
The research was published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0039052" target="_blank">The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America</a></em>.
Most research on dialects tends to focus on how groups of people from different regions sound at a single point in time. But when a person moves between communities with distinct dialects, their speech may offer insights into how accents can change. This is especially true when the individual is highly visible and well-documented, as is the case with Swift.
The authors were interested in whether Swift's accent changed over the course of her career in ways that aligned with her geographical movements and professional shifts. She moved from Pennsylvania to Tennessee as a teenager to pursue country music and later shifted away from country toward pop music while returning to the Northeast. Her media interviews, recorded across different phases of this journey, provided material to study how specific vowel sounds changed in her speech, as well as how her vocal pitch varied over time.
The researchers also considered the social function of accent. Prior studies suggest that people often unconsciously adapt their speech to match those around them, and this adaptation can be strengthened by social or professional motivations. For someone building a career in country music—a genre strongly linked with Southern identity—aligning her speech with regional expectations could enhance her authenticity and connection with the audience.
"This work was made possible by Miski Mohamed, who is a huge Taylor Swift fan. Miski was a student in my class where I taught about measuring physical properties of the voice, and we generated the idea for the Taylor Swift study based on her accent change and the opportunity to see changes in her music when comparing in-studio versus live shows," said senior author <a href="https://sites.google.com/umn.edu/listen-lab/" target="_blank">Matthew Winn</a>, an associate professor of audiology at the University of Minnesota.
"It is usually extremely difficult to studying how dialects change, because it is not realistic to follow around someone with a microphone and hope that they move to a different city and change how they speak. But Taylor Swift gives us that rare opportunity because she was recorded many times over the years in interviews and media appearances. She lived in different geographic regions, and also had different kinds of social influences and career aspirations that might have further shaped how she wanted to sound."
The researchers analyzed Swift’s speech from interviews during three periods of her career: in 2008 when she was promoting a country album and living in Nashville; in 2012 when she had transitioned into pop and was reconnected with the Philadelphia region; and in 2019 when she was living in New York City and speaking publicly about social justice issues.
Audio clips were selected carefully to avoid noise and overlapping voices, and only natural, unstressed vowels were analyzed. They focused on vowels because these are reliable indicators of accent differences. Special attention was given to the vowels in words like “ride,” “code,” “thought,” and “cot,” as these vary across American dialects.
During the Nashville period, Swift’s pronunciation included traits associated with Southern White English. The most striking was a shortening of the /aɪ/ vowel, which occurs in words like “ride.” She also produced a more fronted /u/ vowel. This fronting occurred even when the surrounding sounds did not typically promote it, suggesting it was not just an automatic effect but likely influenced by broader social exposure and goals.
When she returned to promoting music outside of country genres, her speech showed signs of returning to features consistent with her roots in the Philadelphia area. Her /aɪ/ vowels regained a longer, more distinct trajectory, especially in voiced contexts like “ride,” although the difference was less noticeable in unvoiced contexts like “right.” Her /u/ vowel also became less fronted.
By 2019, Swift’s speech had shifted further. While living in New York, she showed a clearer separation between the vowels in “cot” and “caught,” a distinction common in Northern dialects but not prominent in the South. Her /aɪ/ vowels became even longer and more distinct from their Nashville versions. These changes suggest a deliberate or unconscious distancing from her earlier Southern accent.
"Many people think that dialects just reflect where a person grew up, but it also includes the social community that you want to be a part of," Winn told PsyPost. "When Taylor was in Nashville in the country music scene, she added southern features to the pronunciation of two vowels. First, the vowel in 'my' which becomes similar to 'ma' (we call this monophthongization of /aɪ/). Also, she used a fronted version of the /u/ vowel ('boom' would shift toward 'bee-oom'). She dropped these features when she shifted to pop music."
The researchers also tracked changes in her voice pitch. Swift's average pitch, measured across vowel sounds, was significantly lower in her New York City interviews than in earlier years. This change coincided with her increased public engagement on issues such as sexism and musicians’ rights. Prior studies suggest that lowering one’s pitch can signal authority, seriousness, or competence, particularly for women in public-facing roles. Although the researchers acknowledge this change could also be influenced by age, the timing suggests that her lower pitch may have supported her evolving public persona as a leader and advocate.
"We did not expect the change in her voice pitch," Winn said. "Also we did not expect that she would show the /u/ vowel fronting as strongly as she did. Normally this happens only in specific contexts, but she showed it rather consistently."
Across all three periods, Swift preserved some consistent features. For instance, in words that end with the letter “l,” like “cold” or “school,” her vowels remained farther back in her mouth, a trait associated with Philadelphia English. This consistency supports the idea that people retain parts of their native dialect even as they adapt to new environments.
Importantly, the researchers stress that changing one's accent over time does not suggest inauthenticity or deception.
"Observing these accent changes does not mean that a person is 'faking' who they are," Winn told PsyPost. "It is a totally normal behavior for people who become part of a community. Also, a person doesn’t need to lower their pitch just to be taken seriously – it’s a common thing to do, but it isn’t necessary."
As with all research, there are limitations to consider. The analysis is based on a single speaker, which means the results cannot necessarily be generalized to others. Also, the interviews were conducted in casual, uncontrolled settings, so some variation in speaking style could be influenced by context, emotional tone, or conversational partner.
Another limitation is the lack of control over what words were spoken during each era. Because the interviews were not scripted, the researchers had to work with the words Swift happened to say, which affected how many tokens they had for each vowel.
Future studies might compare other highly visible public figures who have crossed regional or cultural boundaries. The authors also expressed interest in returning to their lab’s main research focus, which involves studying how hearing loss affects speech perception and effort.
"The main focus of the research in our lab is actually not dialects or Taylor Swift!" Winn explained. "We do most of our work trying to understand how speech communication is affected by hearing loss. We work with people who listen using a cochlear implant, and try to understand the factors that might make listening effortful for them."
"Hearing loss affects 1 in 7 adults in the United States, and yet we have much to learn about how hearing difficulties can affect a person’s stress, ability to work, and willingness to socialize with friends and family. These are the topics that motivate our work. We run experiments that measure changes in pupil dilation and eye movements as signatures of how hard a person has to work to understand what they hear."
The study, "<a href="https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0039052" target="_blank">Acoustic analysis of Taylor Swift's dialect changes across different eras of her career</a>," was authored by Miski Mohamed and Matthew B. Winn.
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“Insane” – Bizarre Fish Discovery Flips Long-Standing Assumption in Evolutionary Biology Added: Oct 8, 2025
“Insane” – Bizarre Fish Discovery Flips Long-Standing Assumption in Evolutionary Biology
Site: SciTechDaily
Male spotted ratfish have true teeth on a forehead appendage used for mating. Across vertebrates, teeth share many defining traits. Regardless of their shape, size, or sharpness, they stem from the same genetic origins, display similar physical features, and are typically found within the jaw.
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Exclusive | Megyn Kelly tells Miranda Devine that Joy Reid is 'insane lunatic' whose podcast will fail Added: Oct 8, 2025
Exclusive | Megyn Kelly tells Miranda Devine that Joy Reid is ‘racist,’ ‘insane lunatic’ whose podcast will fail
Site: New York Post
The former Fox News star’s remarks came during an interview with The Post’s Miranda Devine, which will stream on this week’s “Pod Force One.”
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Megyn Kelly tells Miranda Devine she got bodyguards at campus event after Charlie Kirk assassination
Site: New York Post
Kelly took the stage alongside Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) at Burruss Auditorium on the Blacksburg campus of Virginia Tech on Sept. 24.
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Ex-MSNBC host Joy Reid claims ‘illegals’ is the Republican Party’s new ‘n-word’
Site: New York Post
Ex-MSNBC host Joy Reid says the Republicans’ blatant use of the word “illegals” is now their “new n-word.”
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Randi Weingarten prioritizes far-left politics — and selling books — over students’ tests scores
Site: New York Post
Randi Weingarten has taken to wearing a paper clip on her lapel as a bizarre symbol of her crusade against “fascism,” aka Donald Trump.
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Trump rightly defies judge to protect ICE agents from Portland militants — it shouldn’t be this hard
Site: New York Post
A federal judge on Saturday issued a temporary restraining order blocking President Trump from sending Oregon’s National Guard to Portland to defend federal agents from violent attacks by black blo…
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Biden covered up Ukrainian complaints of corruption ‘double standard,’ secret CIA files reveal
Site: New York Post
Kyiv accused the US of a “double standard” given Joe Biden’s family ties to corrupt energy firm Burisma.
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Matt Gaetz Debates Timcast Journalist On Iran, Elaad Says No Nuclear Deal For Iran
Site: YouTube
Matt Gaetz Debates Timcast Journalist, Elaad Says No Nuclear Deal For Iran SUPPORT THE SHOW BUY CAST BREW COFFEE NOW - https://castbrew.com/Join - https://ww...
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LEAKED Memo Says NO BACK PAY For Federal Workers Amid Government Shutdown | Timcast IRL
Site: YouTube
SUPPORT THE SHOW BUY CAST BREW COFFEE NOW - https://castbrew.com/Join - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLwNTXWEjVd2qIHLcXxQWxA/joinHosts: Matt Gaetz @MattG...
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Memories are stored in other parts of the body, not just in the brain - Earth.com Added: Oct 8, 2025
Scientists learn that memories are stored in other parts of the body, not just in the brain
Site: Earth.com
Ordinary human cells, not just neurons, respond more strongly to memory signals when they arrive in spaced bursts rather than all at once.
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Comey case: Ex-FBI director pleads not guilty charges from Trump's DOJ Added: Oct 8, 2025
Comey pleads not guilty to charges from Trump's DOJ
Site: Axios
Comey was arraigned Wednesday morning in Alexandria, Virginia.
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Trump says Illinois’ Pritzker and Johnson ‘should be in jail’ - POLITICO Added: Oct 8, 2025
Trump says Illinois’ Pritzker and Johnson ‘should be in jail’
Site: POLITICO
The rhetoric marks an intensification in Trump’s clash with Illinois leaders.
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Googler Michel Devoret awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics
Site: Google
Google now celebrates five Nobel laureates, including three prizes in the past two years.
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Trio win Nobel chemistry prize for work on 'Hermione's handbag' materials | Reuters Added: Oct 8, 2025
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Why do avocados turn brown so quickly — and are they OK to eat at that point? | Live Science Added: Oct 8, 2025
Why do avocados turn brown so quickly — and are they OK to eat at that point?
Site: Live Science
Why do avocados turn brown in a flash? The answer is in the air.
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Amazon Caught Peddling AI Slop Version of Cory Doctorow That's So Ironic That We Have to Go Outside and Stare at the Sky for a Bit
Added: Oct 8, 2025Amazon Caught Peddling AI Slop Version of Cory Doctorow That's So Ironic That We Have to Go Outside and Stare at the Sky for a Bit
Site: Futurism
The renowned tech critic's book "Enshittification" hasn't even been out for a full day, and Amazon is already selling AI-generated knockoffs.
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Leftist Terrorist Just Tried To BLOW UP Church & Supreme Court Justices | Tim Pool
Site: YouTube
This is Getting INSANE, antifa and the far left must be stoppedBecome A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - https://rumble.com/playlist...
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“I Felt the Earth Was Lying to Us”: Scientists Detect Hidden Structures Beneath the Pacific That Defy Every Geological Model (and no one knows what they are)
Added: Oct 8, 2025“I Felt the Earth Was Lying to Us”: Scientists Detect Hidden Structures Beneath the Pacific That Defy Every Geological Model (and no one knows what they are)
Site: Rude Baguette
The Earth beneath our feet conceals mysteries that have long intrigued scientists. While surface exploration has advanced considerably, the inner workings of
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Deadly Palisades Fire set ‘maliciously’ by Florida firebug Jonathan Rinderknecht, feds say
Site: New York Post
The suspect is accused of sparking January’s raging inferno that devastated more than 6,000 homes and buildings in the wealthy coastal enclave.
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FBI shuts down corruption group, fires agents after they monitored GOP lawmakers
Site: Axios
The firings come after Fox News reported agents had monitored communications from nearly a dozen Republican senators.
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Actually, we are going to tell you the odds of recovering New Glenn’s second launch - Ars Technica
Added: Oct 8, 2025Actually, we are going to tell you the odds of recovering New Glenn’s second launch
Site: Ars Technica
To be financially sustainable, New Glenn must be reused often.
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Antifa FOUND OUT, Faces 8 Years In Prison For FELONY Assault On DHS | Tim Pool
Site: YouTube
Become A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - https://rumble.com/playlists/aa56qw_g-j0BUY CAST BREW COFFEE TO FIGHT BACK - https://castb...
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Here Are The Real Images Of Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS | IFLScience
Added: Oct 8, 2025Ignore The Nonsense: Here Are The Real Images Of Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS
Site: IFLScience
There are a lot of fake images of comet 3I/ATLAS going around. Here are the real ones.
On July 1 this year, astronomers discovered an object moving through the Solar System at escape velocity, our third interstellar visitor that we know about. The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, is now known to be a comet due to outgassing as it gets closer to the Sun on its way through the Solar System. Astronomers have attempted to observe it as it continues its journey, before it departs again for interstellar space, and perhaps future flybys of other star systems far into the future. There have been plenty of conspiracy theories around the object, and many images that people claim have captured it, usually with an "aliens are coming to get us" angle attached. Take these images, for instance, which are categorically not of our interstellar comet visitor: ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites. ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites. Fortunately, we do have a lot of real observations we can show you, including one taken by spacecraft orbiting Mars. Let's begin with the first observation, by the NASA-funded ATLAS telescope in Chile on July 1. The first observation of 3I/ATLAS, by the ATLAS telescope in Chile. Image credit: ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA 3I/ATLAS in motion, as seen by the ATLAS telescope. Image credit: ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA The Hubble space telescope imaged the comet on July 21, as the comet was 445,788,000 kilometers (277 million miles) from Earth. Hubble space telescope image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Image credit: ASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) The comet has also been observed by JWST, though these observations were taken with its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument, so the resulting image does not look like the others, even if there is a lot to be learned by using this powerful telescope. JWST observations of 3I/ATLAS. Image credit: NASA/JWST NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) imaged the comet from August 7-15, getting a more dramatic view of the object. NASA/SPHEREx view of 3I/ATLAS brightening and moving in the sky. Image Credit: NASA NASA’s SPHEREx view of comet 3I/ATLAS. Image Credit: NASA/SPHEREx There have been claims that the Perseverance rover on Mars may have captured an image of 3I/ATLAS. While this is possible, it is not confirmed, and one claim appears to be Phobos, one of Mars's moons. However, we now do have a timelapse from the European Space Agency's (ESA) ExoMars spacecraft. ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter observes comet 3I/ATLAS. Image credit: ESA/TGO/CaSSI "On 3 October, ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) turned its eyes towards interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passed close to Mars," ESA explained of the image. "Together with Mars Express, ExoMars TGO had the closest view of the comet of all ESA spacecraft. It looked towards the interstellar interloper from 30 million km [18.6 million miles] away during its closest approach to the Red Planet." Other images may look less real than the fake ones above, but are still bona fide observations, like the below from NOIRLAB, which shows the object in three different filters. Comet 3I/ATLAS observed by Gemini North. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/K. Meech (IfA/U. Hawaii) Image Processing: Jen Miller & Mahdi Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) 3I/ATLAS is currently behind the Sun from our perspective, where only Mars orbiters and the ESA's JUICE mission can see it. But when it reemerges, it may even be possible to see it using amateur telescopes. Until then, enjoy the professional telescope images, and be skeptical of anyone telling you they have captured the object, particularly if they then go on to tell you it is an alien craft.
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DHS escalates fight over Zach Bryan's controversial ICE lyric
Site: Axios
DHS and the White House have criticized and mocked Bryan over the song.
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From refugee to Nobel: Yaghi hails science's 'equalising force' Added: Oct 8, 2025
From refugee to Nobel: Yaghi hails science's 'equalising force'
Born into a family of Palestinian refugees in Jordan with little schooling, Nobel chemistry laureate Omar Yaghi on Wednesday paid tribute to science's "equalizing force".
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Three Scientists Receive Nobel Prize in Physics for Pioneering Work That Put Quantum Mechanics on a 'Human Scale' Added: Oct 8, 2025
Three Scientists Receive Nobel Prize in Physics for Pioneering Work That Put Quantum Mechanics on a 'Human Scale'
Site: Smithsonian Magazine
The trio’s research in the 1980s demonstrated a bizarre quantum phenomenon in a way people could see and hold
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