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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

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Defector

The Defector Crewneck Sweatshirt Is Back In Stock

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Merch v3


<p>charismatic megafauna (they/them)</p>


Typing

Sabrina Imbler

ITALY-MUMMY-ARCHAEOLOGY-HISTORY

Science

It’s OK That Ötzi The 5,000-Year-Old Ice Man Was Not Hot

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Barry Petchesky

Sunrise Arc (NIRCam Image)

A Quick Update On A Thing 28 Billion Light Years Away

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Chris Thompson

A laser's view of the interior of a hohlraum, the capsule at the ignition point of the fusion reaction.

Researchers Have Once Again Kicked Fusion’s Ass With Bitchin’ Lasers

English: Bronze statue of Henrietta Lacks by sculptor Helen Wilson-Roe located at Royal Fort House, Bristol. The plaque at the foot of the statue reads: Henrietta Lacks 1920-1951. more than a cell. To all the unrecognized Black Women who have contributed to humanity, you will never be forgotten.

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The Settlement For Henrietta Lacks’s Family Is Momentous, But It’s Just One Step

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Patrick Redford

A project engineer makes measurements on the coil form for the Baseball II superconducting magnet while his secretary records the measurements, 1972. (Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).

Superconducting Magnet

A Normal Person’s Guide To The Room-Temperature Superconductor Drama

A NASA image of one of the Voyager space probes. Voyager 1 and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 were launched in 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. (Photo by NASA/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Voyager Space Probe

Voyager 2 Has A Few Last Things To Say

Paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Professor Lee Rogers Berger holds a replica of the skull of "NEO" a new skeleton fossil findings of the Homo Naledi Hominin species at the cradle of Human Kind in Maropeng near Johannesburg on May, 9 2017 in South Africa. Primitive hominids may have lived in Africa at the same time as humans, researchers said Tuesday, in new findings that could change the understanding of human evolution. Fossils found deep in South Africa's Rising Star cave complex in 2013 have been dated by several expert teams with their findings suggesting the hominids, called Homo naledi, may have lived alongside Homo sapiens. It had previously been thought that the hominids were millions of years old. A team of 20 scientists from laboratories and institutions around the world, including in South Africa and Australia, established the age of the fossils which suggests that Homo naledi may well have lived at the same time as humans. (Photo by GULSHAN KHAN / AFP) (Photo by GULSHAN KHAN/AFP via Getty Images)

SAFRICA-SCIENCE-PALEONTOLOGY-EVOLUTION-HUMAN

Here’s A Recap Of Lots Of Science Drama About Ancient Human Death

IN SPACE - MAY 29: In this handout provided by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), back dropped by planet Earth the International Space Station (ISS) is seen from NASA space shuttle Endeavour after the station and shuttle began their post-undocking relative separation May 29, 2011 in space. After 20 years, 25 missions and more than 115 million miles in space, NASA space shuttle Endeavour is on the last leg of its final flight to the International Space Station before being retired and donated to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Capt. Mark E. Kelly, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' (D-AZ) husband, has lead mission STS-134 as it delivered the Express Logistics Carrier-3 (ELC-3) and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-2) to the International Space Station. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)

Space Shuttle Endeavour Makes Last Trip To ISS Under Command Of Astronaut Mark Kelly

We’re Getting Really Good At Reusing Space Pee

Stockton Rush, OceanGates chief executive, spoke at a press conference said during a press conference next to the Cyclops 1, a five-person sub that is different from the one used in the Titanic expedition

What Is Extreme Tourism For?

JERSEY CITY, NJ - JUNE 8: The sun is shrouded as it rises in a smokey sky behind the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and One Vanderbilt in New York City on June 8, 2023, as seen from Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

Smokey Sunrise in New York City

Climate

It’s All The Same Fire

A close-up of a clay model from Mesopotamia that dates back to 1800 BCE, depicting a nude couple kissing and copulating.

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When Was The First Sexy Kiss?

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Albert Burneko

Elon Musk and the Cybertruck, in front of a digital readout bragging about the caliber of gunfire it can withstand for some reason.

cybertruck

The Machines

Get A Load Of This Sorry Piece Of Crap

Museum educator Sabine Liener-Kraft looks at the replica of a skull of a Neanderthal a day before the official opening of the new State Museum of Archeology in Chemnitz, Germany, 14 May 2014. About 6,000 exhibits shed light on 300,000 years of human history. The conversion of the building from a shopping center into the museum cost 31 million Euro with another 13,5 million for the permanent exhibition. Photo: HENDRIK SCHMIDT/dpa | usage worldwide (Photo by Hendrik Schmidt/picture alliance via Getty Images)

State Museum of Archeology opens in Chemnitz

Neanderthals Just Sat There And Watched Us Go Pew Pew Pew With Our Cool Bow And Arrow

DHI QAR, IRAQ - NOVEMBER 15: British Museum and Iraqi archaeologists carry out excavations in the ancient city of Girsu, the capital of the Kingdom of Lagash in Dhi Qar, Iraq on November 15, 2021. (Photo by Arshad Mohammed/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Excavation works in Iraq

I Desperately Want To Have A Beer At This Ancient Sumerian Bar

Old-timey scientists fiddle with knobs and toggles on a contraption

scienceticians

Are Your Memories Indexed By Year?

pillars

How Will We Find Alien Life?

BAY OF BISCAY, SPAIN: Tanker under dark clouds in The Bay of Biscay north of Santander in the Atlantic Ocean, Spain

Tanker in Bay of Biscay, Atlantic Ocean

Arts And Culture

Goodbye To Dark Sky, The Only Good Weather App

People watch the landing of NASA's InSight spacecraft on the planet Mars on television screens at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California on November 26, 2018. - Cheers and applause erupted at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a $993 million unmanned lander, called InSight, touched down on the Red Planet and managed to send back its first picture. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

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Goodbye To InSight, The Lander That Uncovered Mars’s Innermost Secrets

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What’s All This Nuclear Fusion Business? Allow Me, A True Expert, To Explain

DCIM100GOPROGOPR1346.

Artemis Is Our Ticket Out Of Here

Opening Lego Store Munich

An Oral History Of The Time Six Doctors Swallowed Lego Heads To See How Long They’d Take To Poo

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The Most Exciting Thing In Science Is When We Find Out We Were Wrong

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Animals

Folks, We’ve Got A New Animal Friendship

Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar waving a bland hello except his bottom half is long trailing jellyfish tentacles

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We Can Do So Much Better Than Legs

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Justin Ellis

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Life's Rich Pageant

Humanity Can, Should, And Must Keep Hucking Shit Against The Stars