BREAKING: Renowned journalist Glenn Greenwald pens a viral takedown of Pete Hegseth's brutal announcement that the U.S.A. will now hold public executions. We're being dragged into a bad dystopian novel... "Not only has the US never televised public executions in its history, but not even the Nazi defendants sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials had their executions televised (it was deemed violative of the human rights that post-WW2 institutions were trying to re-establish)," Greenwald, who's best known for helping to break the Edward Snowden surveillance story, wrote on X. "The most amazing part of this is that Nidal Hasan is paraplegic and close to 60. So this disgusting spectacle will involve rolling him out in a wheelchair, then live-streaming his body as it's pumped full of bullets," he continued. "When I and others pointed out last night that public executions are carried out only by the countries we're told are the most primitive and savage (Afghanistan, North Korea), MAGA enthusiasts replied that we were too weak," he added. "Pummeling an old guy in a wheelchair with bullets -- as a reality TV show -- seems like an odd and dubious definition of 'strength,' let alone an expression of the western values they endlessly claim they and they alone are trying to salvage." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's announcement this week that Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter who killed 13 people and injured 32 others in 2009, will be publicly executed has been met with rapturous applause by the MAGA crowd. These so-called Christians are positively giddy about the prospect of watching a Muslim be killed on TV, seemingly oblivious that these kind of primitive displays make them identical to the Islamist radicals they so despise. ISIS broadcast execution videos to terrorize their enemies. Now, the Trump administration hopes to do the same. None of this is to say that Hasan deserves our affection or even sympathy. This mass murderer belongs in prison for the rest of his life. What we're saying is that killing him for public consumption and entertainment debases us as a nation, morally and spiritually. We can choose to be better than this. Please ❤️ and share if you oppose public executions!

The Sahel is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions. A new US$78 million programme, supported by @theGEF, aims to restore 270,000 hectares of degraded land and improve the livelihoods of five million people across nine Great Green Wall countries. More info:

A discovery from Montana feels like it belongs in a science fiction script — but this one is entirely real. Scientists have confirmed that a 46-million-year-old mosquito fossil still contains traces of ancient blood inside its abdomen. The specimen was originally unearthed in the 1980s from the Kishenehn Formation in Montana by geology student Kurt Constenius. For decades, it sat unnoticed in a basement collection. It wasn’t until retired biochemist Dale Greenwalt, working with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, examined the fossil that its true significance was recognized. Using advanced chemical techniques, researchers detected preserved heme — an iron-containing molecule found in blood. While any hope of recovering dinosaur DNA remains firmly in the realm of fiction (DNA does not survive intact for tens of millions of years), the presence of blood components is still extraordinary. It marks the oldest direct evidence that mosquitoes were already feeding on vertebrate blood during the Eocene epoch. The fossil also highlights how unique the preservation conditions were in Montana’s Kishenehn Formation. Fine lake sediments and low-oxygen conditions allowed delicate biological structures — even chemical traces — to survive for millions of years. Beyond the headline-grabbing “Jurassic Park” comparisons, this discovery provides valuable insight into ancient ecosystems. It confirms that complex host-parasite relationships were already established 46 million years ago, offering a rare biochemical snapshot of life in the deep past. Source: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Walls that breathe. Bricks that grow. Cities that finally stop choking. A team of Dutch engineers just pulled off something straight out of science fiction. They built bricks that grow moss. Real, living moss. Spreading across walls like nature is reclaiming the city one square meter at a time. Behind the magic is a Leiden-based startup called Respyre. Their secret? A "bioreceptive" concrete made from 70% recycled material, rough and porous on purpose, designed so moss can cling, thrive, and multiply. Spray on a moss-growing gel. Wait around 12 weeks. Watch a dead concrete wall turn into a living green skin. And the moss isn't just for show. It eats CO₂. It traps nitrogen dioxide. It catches particulate matter floating in city air. It cools entire wall surfaces by 5–7°C during peak summer heat. It buffers noise. It builds tiny habitats for insects and urban wildlife. One square meter of moss can absorb up to 1.2 kg of CO₂ every single year. No roots clawing into the bricks. No structural damage. No irrigation systems. No fertilizer. No fancy maintenance routine. Just rainwater, humidity, and time. From a single square meter of starter moss, Respyre can grow up to 80 square meters of green wall coverage. Pilot projects are already running across the Netherlands. Schools. Apartment blocks in Amsterdam's Rivierenbuurt. Even the bases of wind turbines in collaboration with Dutch energy company Eneco. Imagine a future where every grey building exhales oxygen. Where the walls themselves cool the streets below. Where the city becomes the forest. It's not coming. It's already here. Brick by living brick. Source: Respyre (Leiden, Netherlands) / Positive News / IO+

More fintech funding! (@btv_vc edition, again) @NotesRoyalties announced it has raised a $5M seed round Notes offers a royalty collection platform for independent musicians. You give it an artist name + list of songs & it scans streaming services, collection societies & registries like the MLC & SoundExchange to find missing royalties, fix the registration issues, & claim what's owed They also just launched Releases, which folds distribution + publishing admin + money mgmt into one release flow (w/ a Stripe partnership behind it) Some stats on the biz: - $10M+ in previously unclaimed royalties identified since the Oct '25 public launch - Catalogs include James Blake, Zach Bryan, Mt. Joy & Girl In Red - Credits . fm, their free open credits database, has indexed 150M+ song codes Round was made up almost entirely of artists, managers & industry execs (Zach Bryan, Benny Blanco, Tainy, Ari Emanuel, Julie Greenwald, Sam Hendel & others) and us @btv_vc

new @greenpillnet pod out today with @griffgreen we talk round 2 of the @thedaofund DAO Security Fund, what round 1 revealed, and how round 2 goes deeper. excited as this can be a schelling point for funding ethereum security. if you have a security project that needs funding, or want to help ensure ethereum security Is proactive, this conversation will be meaningful to you. 00:00 – Intro: Griff Green & the DAO Security Fund 01:25 – What happened in Round 1? 03:49 – From broad funding to deep funding 04:58 – How Round 2 works 07:20 – Security badges, voting & funding allocation 09:47 – RFPs vs. grants 11:44 – Milestones & making sure projects get adopted 11:58 – DAO Security Fund platform demo 20:01 – Bringing market dynamics into public goods funding 22:24 – Formal verification & the Vyper compiler 24:46 – The apartment-building analogy for Ethereum security 26:08 – Why we need to stop funding hackers 27:55 – What does success look like for the DAO Security Fund? 29:37 – Moving Ethereum security from reactive to proactive 30:23 – Can collective security reduce costs? 31:00 – Lightning Round: Ethereum's biggest security threat 31:20 – Most underrated public good 31:55 – Best funding mechanism 32:25 – Are DAOs bullish in 2026? 33:07 – AI & the future of collective organizations 34:42 – The most overrated crypto trend 36:07 – Has crypto forgotten what it was built for? 36:30 – Griff's call to action 38:41 – Final thoughts & how to get involved 39:10 – Outro