Sep 23, 2026 · 4 min listen · Last updated September 23, 2026
From storyflo. This is your daily audio brief. Hey, it's Chloe. September 23rd. Ten stories — one trial, three reviews, six takes you can actually use. Let's get into it. First, from crystal clear. the paradox of insecurity that changed my brain chemistry.
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Daily Science Brief · September 23rd
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the paradox of insecurity that changed my brain chemistry
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the emotional discomfort of insecurity: those feelings triggered by one thing or another that feel so completely overwhelming, the ones that have such an all-consuming grip on you, that you end up googling things like “how to stop feeling XYZ”. This will be completely personal to anyone reading, but you’ll know what it is for you. I’m thinking about the feelings, fears, or insecurities that keep coming up, that you try to work on and get rid of, but always seem to circle back into at some point.
A ‘devil-like’ flower from Thailand is new to science — and critically endangered
Botanists in Thailand have identified a new-to-science species of “fairy lantern” — plants that live almost entirely buried under leaf litter, emerging aboveground only occasionally to flower. Researchers were surveying evergreen forests in the mountains of Thong Pha Phum National Park when they chanced upon a plant none of them had ever seen before, at an elevation of almost 1,000 meters (about 3,300 feet). They’ve since named it Thismia daemona, according to a recent study. Like other plants within the Thismia genus, commonly referred to as fairy lanterns, T.
Research project identifies pathways to climate-resilient water and soil management
How can regions better adapt their water and soil resources to the impacts of climate change? After four years of research, the European collaborative project Blue Transition, led by the LIAG Institute for Applied Geophysics in Hanover, takes stock. The final report brings together the findings from 16 pilot regions in six countries and identifies three key levers to strengthen climate resilience: changing land use, improving soil health and diversifying water resources and optimizing their use.
As fires spread in Indonesia, Bornean orangutans run out of forest to flee
JAKARTA — As fires continue to engulf large swaths of forest in Indonesian Borneo, orangutans have increasingly fewer places to flee, with fires either surrounding them or eliminating the forest on which they depend. Fires are spreading across a connected but heavily fragmented forest landscape and the habitat of critically endangered Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) in West Kalimantan, including Gunung Palung National Park and the Mendawak Biodiversity Corridor.
El Niño heat could kill half a million people by February
Around 450,000 people worldwide could die by February as a result of hotter weather caused by the record-breaking El Niño, climate scientists are warning. The estimate is based on how many deaths have resulted from past temperature extremes around the world. “We’re hoping this information is actionable, that decisions can be made to move resources ahead of time,” says Emily Grover-Kopec at the Rhodium Group. This could include assigning health workers to check on the most vulnerable, ensuring people have enough water and providing fans or air conditioning.
You can barely listen to a podcast or read the news at the moment without hearing an apocalyptic warning about artificial intelligence. The head of Microsoft AI suggests the technology could become a new “silicon species” that competes with humans. A former Anthropic employee says there is a strong chance that we could all die at the hands of it. And Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI”, says we may lose control of it entirely within a year.
Welcome to the Unsolicited Advice Reading Group! This month we are reading excerpts from the work of French philosopher Simone Weil. To remind everyone, the schedule is as follows: Today we are looking at her essay “The Needs of the Soul” from her work The Need for Roots. This work was written in 1943, during Vichy France, but when the outcome of the Second World War was still up in the air. Weil writes this book as part political treatise and part spiritual examination, outlining what France could look like should the allies win and France be free again.
If you have spent any time around the online self-help sphere, or read a few self-help books, then you will likely have a rough idea of what I mean when I talk about the aesthetic dramatization of basic self-help advice. It is something that actually really used to annoy me, and still does in certain contexts (e.g., Marcus Aurelius being reduced to a gymbro with a sick beard). However, I have warmed to some of it over the years. Here is why.
Bookshelf Tour: Cambridge Pragmatism by Cheryl Misak
Hello there! I will be uploading the previous bookshelf tours to supporters on Substack, but in the meantime here is the newest one, looking at Cambridge Pragmatism by Cheryl Misak (which is an excellent book, and one of the reasons I got so into pragmatism as a metaphilosophy). If you are already a supporter on Patreon it will also be uploaded there :).
Welcome to the Unsolicited Advice Reading Group! This month we are reading excerpts from the work of French philosopher Simone Weil. To remind everyone, the schedule is as follows: Before we begin today’s blogpost I have a confession for you, dear reader. I read the Iliad once, far too young to understand anything other than the most basic outlines of the plot and surface-level themes, and have not revisited it since. As a result I will be unable to provide much commentary on what Weil claims in this essay.