May 8, 2017

Personal bankruptcies are down by half since the Affordable Care Act was implemented. / Consumer Reports

Meet Chokwe Lumumba: a black radical just elected mayor of Jackson in a Deep South hollowed out by austerity. / In These Times

Instacart releases trove of 3 million orders for research on food and consumer behavior. / Instacart

Melting permafrost unfreezes anthrax, killing thousands of reindeer—we may soon encounter ancient viruses. / BBC

Science first found fractals—balancing order and chaos—in aesthetics, then in heartbeats, and now in our brains. / Nautilus

Opioid sales exec indicted for fraud was himself addicted to his product. Now he says medical marijuana is better. / STAT

There’s enough ambient energy in radio waves from TVs and phones to power small devices, like IoT sensors. / Science Magazine

Another fun Kendrick video: “HUMBLE.” with the audio removed and rescored in film style. / Vimeo

“A 1-standard-deviation increase in ‘likes clicked,’ ‘links clicked,’ or ‘status updates’ was associated with a decrease of 5%–8% of a standard deviation in self-reported mental health.” Does Facebook use hurt mental health, or do people with problems spend more time on the platform? / American Journal of Epidemiology

Maybe even pro gamers have to worry about job displacement from automation: MarI/O is a neuroevolved program that learns to beat video game levels. / YouTube

Music label Auris Apothecary’s releases are made to be unlistenable—e.g., cassettes cut in half or filled with sand. / Noisey

One reason the Macron hack was ignored by French media: There’s no thriving tabloid culture in France. / The New York Times

“Fatal attacks have resulted in self-censorship.” In Bangladesh, the government doesn’t protect free speech. / LitHub

Purchasing fake IDs today: less dorm room inkjet, more bitcoin going to China. / Mel

When public figures are hacked, it’s often spearphishing—targeted social engineering, rather than forced entry. / GQ