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"At least 41,000 years ago, a grisly scene may have played out in dark limestone caves located in what's now Belgium. Neanderthals appear to have feasted on their own species, according to the remains of more than six individuals that were unearthed at an archaeological site called the Troisième Caverne. The victims included four adolescent or adult females and a young male, according to a recent paper published in Scientific Reports. This adds to decades of evidence that Neanderthals sometimes craved the taste of their own kind."

Welcome to ChatPlayground: the AI jungle gym where prompt nerds run wild. Toss one idea in and watch GPT-5.1, Claude, Gemini, and 25+ other models battle it out for best in show. Want to compare outputs? Refine your phrasing? Save convos and build weird little AI Frankensteins? Go for it. This isn't work — it's recess for your inner genius, with no word count limits and zero adult supervision. [Ad]

"No one knows exactly when Gramma the Galápagos tortoise was born on that volcanic chain of Pacific islands. What is clear, though, is that she lived through the fall of empires, two world wars, and the tenure of more than 20 U.S. presidents. If the estimated birth year of 1884 is accurate, Chester Arthur occupied the Oval Office, and there were only 39 states at the time."

"The Gemini South telescope is turning 25, and astronomers are celebrating its birthday with a dazzling new image of the Butterfly Nebula. Also cataloged as NGC 6302, this planetary nebula is located in the constellation Scorpius, the Scorpion. Its precise distance is unclear, but astronomers think it's between 2,500 and 3,800 light-years away. At the heart of the Butterfly Nebula is a white dwarf radiating at an incredible 250,000 degrees Celsius (450,000 degrees Fahrenheit). It was once a normal star that was a bit more massive than the Sun. But when it began to reach the end of its life, it expanded to become a red giant, which then cast off its outer layers to form the nebula. What remained was its hot core in the form of the white dwarf with a mass two-thirds that of the Sun. This is the fate of all stars with less than eight times the Sun's mass."

The Retropian Color is basically a cheat code for reliving your pixelated glory days. It comes with 1,000+ retro games preloaded — no cartridges, no internet tantrums, just instant SNES-GBA-PS1 magic. It's the gaming console 10-year-old you dreamed of and 30-something you can finally afford. Gift it to yourself to finally beat your old score or pass the torch to your Y2K-obsessed teen. Order by 12/15 to get it before Christmas. [Ad]

"Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have identified a natural process in the brain that can remove existing amyloid plaques in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease while also helping preserve memory and thinking ability. This process relies on astrocytes, star-shaped support cells, which can be guided to clear out the toxic plaque buildup commonly seen in Alzheimer's. When the team increased the amount of Sox9, a protein that influences many astrocyte functions during aging, the cells became more effective at removing amyloid deposits. The findings, reported in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that strengthening astrocyte activity could one day help slow cognitive decline linked to neurodegenerative disorders."

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