LA’s Museum of Jurassic Technology damaged by fire

The fire gutted the museum’s gift shop and caused significant smoke damage to several exhibits.

One of the quirkier cultural gems in Los Angeles is the Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT), featuring an eclectic collection of exhibits (of varying authenticity) inspired by historical Renaissance "cabinets of curiosities" (wunderkammers). It hasn't been broadly reported, but earlier this month, a fire broke out late at night, gutting the museum's gift shop and inflicting smoke damage on several exhibits, with lost revenues estimated to be around $75,000 until the doors reopen sometime next month.

The museum was founded in 1988 by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson, "dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic." The collections don't actually have much to do with that geologic epoch, channeling instead the private natural history collections that became common in the 16th century and the later emergence of public museums in the 19th century. Since 2005 there has also been a Russian tea room, a mini-reconstruction of Tsar Nicholas II's study at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

There are more than 30 permanent exhibits, including one devoted to the life and exploits of the German polymath and Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher. There is also an exhibit called "The Garden of Eden on Wheels," about LA-area trailer parks; another celebrating the micro-miniature sculptures of Hagop Sandaldjian, carved from a single hair and displayed in the eye of a needle; a collection of stereographic radiographs of flowers; a collection of decomposing antique dice once owned by magician Ricky Jay; 19th-century microscopic mosaics made from butterfly wing scales; and a collection of crackpot letters sent to the Mount Wilson Observatory between 1915 and 1935.

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Tesla skepticism continues to grow, robotaxi demo fails to impress Austin

Worse, fewer and fewer consider the brand safe.

Tesla’s eroding popularity with Americans shows little sign of abating. Each month, the Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report surveys thousands of consumers to gauge attitudes on EV adoption, autonomous driving, and the automakers that are developing those technologies. Toyota, which only recently started selling enough EVs to be included in the survey, currently has the highest net-positive score and the highest “view intensity score”—the percentage of consumers who have a very positive view of a brand minus the ones who have a very negative view—despite selling just a fairly lackluster EV to date. Meanwhile, the brand that actually popularized the EV, moving it from compliance car and milk float to something desirable, has fallen even further into negative territory in July.

Just 26 percent of survey participants still have a somewhat or very positive view of Tesla. But 39 percent have a somewhat or very negative view of the company, with just 14 percent being unfamiliar or having no opinion. That’s a net positive view of -13, but Tesla’s view intensity score is -16, meaning a lot more people really don’t like the company compared to the ones who really do. The problem is also growing over time: In April, Tesla still had a net positive view of -7.

Tesla remained at the bottom of the charts when EVIR looked more closely into demographic data. Tesla was the least-positively viewed car company regardless of income, although the effect was most pronounced among those with incomes less than $75,000, as were the results based on geography (although suburbanites held it in the most disdain) and age (where those over 65 have the most haters).

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xAI workers balked over training request to help “give Grok a face,” docs show

Slack messages: Some xAI employees refused to join invasive Grok training.

Dozens of xAI employees expressed concerns—and many objected—when asked to record videos of their facial expressions to help "give Grok a face," Business Insider reported.

BI reviewed internal documents and Slack messages, finding that the so-called project "Skippy" was designed to help Grok learn what a face is and "interpret human emotions."

It's unclear from these documents if workers' facial data helped train controversial avatars that xAI released last week, including Ani—an anime companion that flirts and strips—and Rudi—a red panda with a "Bad" mode that encourages violence. But a recording of an xAI introductory meeting on "Skippy" showed a lead engineer confirming the company "might eventually use" the employees' facial data to build out "avatars of people," BI reported.

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Win for chemical industry as EPA shutters scientific research office

Companies feared rules and lawsuits based on Office of Research and Development assessments.

Soon after President Donald Trump took office in January, a wide array of petrochemical, mining, and farm industry coalitions ramped up what has been a long campaign to limit use of the Environmental Protection Agency’s assessments of the health risks of chemicals.

That effort scored a significant victory Friday when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced his decision to dismantle the agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD).

The industry lobbyists didn’t ask for hundreds of ORD staff members to be laid off or reassigned. But the elimination of the agency’s scientific research arm goes a long way toward achieving the goal they sought.

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