Kingmaker

Before it took off, the bird ate parts of its own liver, kidneys, and gut. That was the only way to be light enough to fly. Then it flew 8,425 miles from Alaska to Australia, in 11 days, without eating, drinking, or landing once. The bird is called B6. It's a bar-tailed godwit, four months old, weighing about as much as a can of beans. In October 2022, scientists at the US Geological Survey tracked its flight from Alaska all the way to Tasmania. The trip took 11 days and 1 hour. It is still the longest non-stop flight of any animal on Earth. For two weeks before takeoff, godwits eat until they almost double in weight. Fat ends up being 55% of their body, more than any bird ever measured. Then they shrink their own insides. About a quarter of their liver, kidneys, stomach, and intestines gets broken down and reused for fuel, making room for the extra fat and cutting weight. Their heart and wing muscles grow bigger at the same time. They never drink along the way. The water they need comes out of burning fat, the same reaction their muscles use for energy. They also never really sleep. B6 flapped its wings for 264 straight hours, cruising around 35 miles per hour with help from storm tailwinds. By the time it landed, it had lost almost half its body weight. The shrunken organs grew back over the following weeks. Scientists still cannot explain the navigation. B6 had never made this flight before. Adult godwits leave Alaska weeks earlier, so young birds fly alone with nobody to follow. How a four-month-old bird finds its way across 8,425 miles of open ocean to a place it has never seen is still an open question. About 100,000 bar-tailed godwits leave Alaska every fall. Most of them land in New Zealand or Australia 10 or 11 days later, having eaten parts of themselves to get there.

You probably won't see another obituary like this today, as seen in today's edition of @TheBuffaloNews.

Integration is largely complete, with the missile paired with the Bars radar and indigenous data links. DRDO is expanding the range of the Astra Mark-2 missile to over 200 km. IAF will procure 700 missiles for Su-30MKI and Tejas Mk1A fleet. Astra Mark-2 will be superior to Pakistan's PL-15E (145 km) and comparable to China's PL-15 (200-300 km).

"Four US Presidents invested years in pulling India closer to America. But now India has been totally rejected by the Trump administration. We have picked Pakistan over India," says former US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel ripping into Trump's foreign policy

President Trump gets a laugh after he calls his McDonald's delivery to the Oval Office "a little tacky." "They come up with these crazy ideas like McDonald's...the garbage truck...we do these things in politics, they're a little embarrassing."

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich.

How do you explain in the aisle at Home Depot you need to cow proof your faucets? 😭

The first human to discover these birds was probably not okay for a few days 😂

This is why Sri Lanka uses sparks to control festival lights

Finally, someone who didn’t lie on their resume

The Jensen Huang episode. 0:00:00 – Is Nvidia’s biggest moat its grip on scarce supply chains? 0:16:25 – Will TPUs break Nvidia’s hold on AI compute? 0:41:06 – Why doesn’t Nvidia become a hyperscaler? 0:57:36 – Should we be selling AI chips to China? 1:35:06 – Why doesn’t Nvidia make multiple different chip architectures? Look up Dwarkesh Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. Enjoy!

Well, well, well. What do we have here?

🔷FIRST LOOK: FAUDA - Season 5

PSA: you can now get good Indian food at SFO! Air India just opened a Maharaja lounge. It’s tiny but the best lounge at SFO, and free for star alliance gold members. problem: it’s in the A gates. You can go airside but it’s a really long walk if coming from United terminals (G/3/2)

🚨 Going viral in Lebanon: a Hezbollah operative trying to run away with his family, gets a call from the Israeli intelligence that they are following him. He gets out of the car, runs to the bushes and is targeted there. If that's indeed the story here - WOW!

Honda has completed a jump with its vertical takeoff and landing prototype.

The Soviet N1 was a massive, five-stage super-heavy launch vehicle developed to take cosmonauts to the Moon, acting as the USSR's rival to the US Saturn V. Designed by OKB-1, it stood 105 meters tall and featured 30 engines on its first stage (Block A). All four test launches (1969–1972) failed, leading to the program's cancellation.

Dogs recognizing their owners.

And You think Your Job Sucks…