What's that smell? Credit: JEFF T. GREEN/GETTY IMAGES
Whats that smell?
What’s that smell? JEFF T. GREEN/GETTY IMAGES

The future is now: The University of Washington’s Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (CSNE) is decoding the human brain. CSNE is creating an interface between the brain and computers through their new trial that implants devices in patients’ brains. Their goal? To allow people who have been paralyzed by injury or stroke to move their limbs again, the Seattle Times reports. Currently, they’re focusing on people with a nerve disorder called essential tremors. So like, I can see why every billionaire keeps throwing money at UW’s science programs.

New bills treat addiction like a medical disorder: Shockingly, people still think addiction is some sort of choice. The Legislature is trying to change that mentality. Currently, there are two bills that would expand resources to combat the opioid crisis in Washington. They aim to fight addiction by treating it like a medical condition by expanding resources. However, the bills are complex and have conservative adversaries in the Legislature.

Not just curmudgeons in Seattle! The Seattle Times Fund for the Needy raised $1.62 million during its latest campaign. That’s a lot! The fund supports 12 local social-service organizations. Individuals in the Puget Sound area sent in donations from $1.70 (which one of you cheapskates did that?) to $30,000. Generosity abounds!

Still striking: Contract negotiations between Seattle school-bus drivers and their employer, First Student, haven’t gone anywhere. This is the fourth consecutive day of the strike. The 12,000 students that normally take the bus have to keep finding alternative routes to school.

Suspicious smells at Hanford: Workers at the contaminated site reported a suspicious smell. This is a wild guess but maybe it’s the plutonium? They refused medical treatment so maybe they’re okay.

We’re in the big leagues now, kid: The ballots are in and — drum roll, please —Seattle and Tacoma rank 16th worst for traffic congestion in the world. It feels good to be globally recognized for something.

Elon Musk is launching his rocket (and his car) into space today: The launch of Falcon Heavy, the powerful rocket designed by SpaceX with a red Tesla Roadster strapped to the top, will occur today at 10:10 a.m. PST. Well, that’s when the countdown starts. Get more facts on GeekWire.

NASA’s got more info on those new Earth-like planets: TRAPPIST-1 planets, baby! Look at these rocky, terrestrial planets outside our solar system. Maybe in the future we can destroy one of those planets after we’re finished killing ours. That’s the ultimate form of manifest destiny, right?

A family business: A father and son were arrested in North Dakota when a sheriff’s deputy found 210 pounds of marijuana, meth, and $2,400 in cash in their car.

Trump quickly distances himself from current stock market trends: Trump loves to take credit for stock market gains. But, apparently, the losses aren’t his fault. Yesterday, the Dow Jones tumbled 1,500 at its lowest point. Trump’s aides downplayed the story by saying markets fluctuate. This was the single biggest one-day point drop in the Dow’s history and “the worst overall performance since 2008,” according to Politico.

Bitcoin looking a bit like the Dow: The cryptocurrency fell 15 percent yesterday. This marks a three-month low. Bitcoin soared in December at $20,000 but yesterday it continued its downward descent to $6,853.53. People aren’t convinced the bubble has burst. They say Bitcoin has bounced back before and it will bounce back again. The extent of the commentary I can offer on that one is an unenthusiastic shrug.

Buy an issue of Real Change on Wednesday: And you might recognize a familiar face selling you the paper.

Frank Ocean interviewed Timotheé Chalamet: And it was cute. The Oscar-nominated “Call Me by Your Name” and “Lady Bird” actor is a huge Frank fan— which, like, who isn’t? — and got to talk to him on the phone. Ocean, who raved about “Call Me by Your Name” in a Tumblr post, called Chalamet, and the two chatted. They talked art, traded hotspots in Chalamet’s native New York and Ocean’s native Los Angeles, and, of course, they talked about an embarrassing video of Chalamet rapping in his statistics class in high school. Here’s the whole interview. I enjoyed it a lot. I hope you do, too.

What is with these false alarms? I swear, the apocalypse is going to come and no one is going to know because we’ll be desensitized to all these false alarms. Shit. Maybe that’s their plan. Who is they? I don’t know, but it fits, doesn’t it? Someone’s hacked into the mainframe, they’ve got the codes, they’ve —

Setting the Tinfoil hat aside for a second, there was a tsunami warning issued that was another false alarm. The alarm alerted people across the country which is strange. People in South Carolina, Texas, Florida, Connecticut, and more got the alerts.

Best story of the week so far: NorCal Coyote Rescued After Wandering Around With Jar Stuck on Its Head

The future is now You’re familiar by now with the concept of taking video of someone’s face (usually a celebrity) and attaching it to a pornstar’s body to make hyper-realistic porn of anyone you could possibly dream of, right? Right. Well, people online are profiting off of it now through commissions. Yeah, you read that right. People are offering money and making personalized requests. Selling these services most definitely infringes on copyright laws — both for the pornstar’s work and the use of a celebrity’s likeness — but, some requests are for not famous people. That’s right. People are offering to pay someone to make face swap porn of someone they know. I don’t like this future.

Looking for Tuesday-night entertainment? Check out the book launch for Ross McMeekin’s The Hummingbirds, the opening reception for the
Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency with C. Davida Ingram, or the Seattle show for LA synth trio Prettiest Eyes.

Reminder to send pictures of your breakfast to me tomorrow (Wednesday) to have them featured in tomorrow’s Slog AM. Get ’em in before 8 a.m.

Nathalie Graham covers anything she finds fun, weird, or interesting. You can find a lot of that in her column, Play Date. Her work has also appeared around town in The Seattle Times, GeekWire, and the...