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Math Is Still...
How Can Math Help Beat Cancer? Cancer treatment has come a long way in recent decades. But finding the best course of treatment for...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
Cancer treatment has come a long way in recent decades. But finding the best course of treatment for each case of this diverse, dynamic disease remains a challenge. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with computational biologist Franziska Michor about how math,...
nanoscale views
Annual Nobel speculation thread Not that prizes are the be-all and end-all, but this has become an annual tradition.  Who are your...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
Not that prizes are the be-all and end-all, but this has become an annual tradition.  Who are your speculative laureates this year for physics and chemistry?  As I did last year and for several years before, I will put forward my usual thought that the physics prize could...
Quantum Frontiers
The rain in Portugal My husband taught me how to pronounce the name of the city where I’d be presenting a talk late last...
a year ago
85
a year ago
My husband taught me how to pronounce the name of the city where I’d be presenting a talk late last July: Aveiro, Portugal. Having studied Spanish, I pronounced the name as Ah-VEH-roh, with a v partway to a hard b. … Continue reading →
Casey Handmer's blog
Long duration propellant stability in Starship Some ideas on preventing cryogenic propellant boiloff in Starship during long duration cruise or...
a week ago
10
a week ago
Some ideas on preventing cryogenic propellant boiloff in Starship during long duration cruise or while operating orbital fuel depots. The usual caveats apply! One of the major concerns with using Starship for the Human Landing System is that propellant (cryogenically liquid...
wadertales
Counting breeding shorebirds using listening devices With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments...
3 months ago
57
3 months ago
With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments such as wind turbines and monoculture forestry, conservationists are often asked to assess the potential effects of landscape change. Do passive acoustic devices have a role to play...
Math Is Still...
A New Experiment Casts Doubt on the Leading Theory of the Nucleus By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force...
a year ago
70
a year ago
By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force that binds protons and neutrons. The post A New Experiment Casts Doubt on the Leading Theory of the Nucleus first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 10: The Owlet Lodge (February 11 and 12, 2024) February 11, 2024 Laura and I were looking forward to our one-night visit to the Owlet Lodge. Up to...
8 months ago
3
8 months ago
February 11, 2024 Laura and I were looking forward to our one-night visit to the Owlet Lodge. Up to this point we had only stayed at cheap hotels, while we had also eaten simply, with at least two meals each day consisting of sandwiches/snacks that we prepared. For once, someone...
Stephen Wolfram...
Yet More New Ideas and New Functions: Launching Version 14.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector Databases and Semantic Search RAGs and Dynamic Prompting for LLMs Connect to Your Favorite LLM Symbolic Arrays and Their Calculus Binomials and Pitchforks: Navigating Mathematical...
The Roots of...
Making every researcher seek grants is a broken model When Galileo wanted to study the heavens through his telescope, he got money from those legendary...
a year ago
53
a year ago
When Galileo wanted to study the heavens through his telescope, he got money from those legendary patrons of the Renaissance, the Medici. To win their favor, when he discovered the moons of Jupiter, he named them the Medicean Stars. Other scientists and inventors offered flashy...
Math Is Still...
An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents...
a year ago
53
a year ago
The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents to NASA’s preparations for visits to other ocean worlds in our solar system. The post An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds first appeared on...
Asterisk
China’s Silicon Future China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts will succeed is far from clear.
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Cold Brew Coffee While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory...
8 months ago
10
8 months ago
While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory cost-benefit analysis shows that they get back more than they spend. Coffee's caffeine content boosts a person's focus and attention, and it reduces mental fatigue, all of these...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Actually good 2024 healthcare predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Geometers Engineer New Tools to Wrangle Spacecraft Orbits Mathematicians think abstract tools from a field called symplectic geometry might help with planning...
11 months ago
47
11 months ago
Mathematicians think abstract tools from a field called symplectic geometry might help with planning missions to far-off moons and planets. The post Geometers Engineer New Tools to Wrangle Spacecraft Orbits first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
The Book of Mark, Chapter 2 Late in the summer of 2021, I visited a physics paradise in a physical paradise: the Kavli Institute...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Late in the summer of 2021, I visited a physics paradise in a physical paradise: the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP). The KITP sits at the edge of the University of California, Santa Barbara like a bougainvillea bush at … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
It’s Not Possible – Until Suddenly It Is There are a couple of recent stories that remind me that perhaps the most powerful thing in the...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
There are a couple of recent stories that remind me that perhaps the most powerful thing in the world is political will. Often politicians and motivational speakers will say something along the lines of, “We can do anything, if we put our minds to it.” While this sounds like...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Patient Communities Should Change | Out-Of-Pocket Evolving from ads to outcomes
a year ago
Uncharted...
6 Questions You Asked Yourself about Solar How fast will it take over, how fast are costs shrinking, why is it so cheap, what industries will...
4 months ago
22
4 months ago
How fast will it take over, how fast are costs shrinking, why is it so cheap, what industries will it birth, how much surface will it take up, where will it appear first?
NeuroLogica Blog
Trust in Science How much does the public trust in science and scientists? Well, there’s some good news and some bad...
a year ago
12
a year ago
How much does the public trust in science and scientists? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Let’s start with the bad news – a recent Pew survey finds that trust in scientist has been in decline for the last few years. From its recent peak in 2019, those who answered...
Beautiful Public...
A Rover's First 590 Days* on Mars I downloaded 60,000 images to experience what NASA's Perseverance rover has been seeing since...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
I downloaded 60,000 images to experience what NASA's Perseverance rover has been seeing since landing there in Feb. 2021.
Uncharted...
Is Desalination Everywhere Realistic? Which countries are doing it already? Are they happy? Is desalinated water safe to drink? Does it...
4 months ago
24
4 months ago
Which countries are doing it already? Are they happy? Is desalinated water safe to drink? Does it taste good? Does it pollute too much? Can we shrink its cost?
The Works in...
The asbestos times How asbestos saved cities, before we realized its risks
a year ago
Asterisk
The Art of Asking Questions Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other...
3 months ago
21
3 months ago
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other inaccuracies. We all use them anyway. How can we ask them better?
Math Is Still...
Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still...
3 months ago
41
3 months ago
The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well. The post Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
Trump Should Finish What He Started A guestpost calling for Trump to finish radically reforming the tax system
4 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Why are docs late? Why can’t I find prices for anything? | Out-Of-Pocket And why can’t I get my record into one place?
3 weeks ago
Blog - Practical...
The Hidden Engineering of Wildlife Crossings [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Wallis Annenberg...
3 months ago
71
3 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing under construction over the 101 just outside Los Angeles, California. When it’s finished in a few years, it will be the largest wildlife crossing (*of its kind) on...
The Roots of...
Why you, personally, should want a larger human population What is the ideal size of the human population? One common answer is “much smaller.” Paul Ehrlich,...
a year ago
39
a year ago
What is the ideal size of the human population? One common answer is “much smaller.” Paul Ehrlich, co-author of The Population Bomb (1968), has as recently as 2018 promoted the idea that “the world’s optimum population is less than two billion people,” a reduction of the current...
Math Is Still...
Across a Continent, Trees Sync Their Fruiting to the Sun European beech trees more than 1,500 kilometers apart all drop their fruit at the same time in a...
9 months ago
59
9 months ago
European beech trees more than 1,500 kilometers apart all drop their fruit at the same time in a grand synchronization event now linked to the summer solstice. The post Across a Continent, Trees Sync Their Fruiting to the Sun first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
The Unlikely Inventor of the Automatic Rice Cooker How the automatic rice cooker was invented It isn’t often that housewives get credit in the annals...
4 months ago
49
4 months ago
How the automatic rice cooker was invented It isn’t often that housewives get credit in the annals of invention, but in the story of the automatic rice cooker, a woman takes center stage. That happened only after the first attempts at electrifying rice cooking, starting in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
GMOs and Butterflies Are attitudes towards genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our agriculture softening? Back in...
a year ago
25
a year ago
Are attitudes towards genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our agriculture softening? Back in 2015 a Pew survey found that the gap between public opinion and that of scientists was greatest on acceptance of GMOs (more than any other topic surveyed), with a 51% gap. But more...
symmetry magazine
Creating the next 3D maps of the universe Scientists have proposed new instruments that would use spectroscopy to decode dark matter, dark...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
Scientists have proposed new instruments that would use spectroscopy to decode dark matter, dark energy and cosmic inflation. Telescope images can tell us a whole lot about celestial objects: where they are located in the sky, how bright they are, how big they...
NeuroLogica Blog
Roleplaying Games May Help Autistic People Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic...
7 months ago
49
7 months ago
Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic people“. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game where a small group of people each play characters adventuring in an imaginary world run by the dungeon master (DM)....
NeuroLogica Blog
RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, and Vaccines RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will...
a year ago
31
a year ago
RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will vehemently deny this, but I don’t buy it for a second. He is simply playing the, “I’m not anti-vaccine, I am pro-safe vaccine” gambit, which is disingenuous and always has been. We...
Casey Handmer's blog
Part 6 Guns Under The Table Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier chapters. Google Mars .kml. Literary commentary podcast. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the last update of this – in that time I read my children all of Green Mars...
Beautiful Public...
WWII Japanese Mass Incarceration collections Haunting photos and documents document a shameful chapter of America’s history—the forced...
a week ago
9
a week ago
Haunting photos and documents document a shameful chapter of America’s history—the forced displacement and incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII.
Quantum Frontiers
Lessons in frustration Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken.  I was a master’s student in...
a month ago
19
a month ago
Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken.  I was a master’s student in the Perimeter Scholars International program at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Perimeter trotted in world experts to lecture about modern physics. Many … Continue...
nanoscale views
Really doing mechanics at the quantum level A helpful ad from Science Made Stupid. Since before the development of micro- and...
4 months ago
5
4 months ago
A helpful ad from Science Made Stupid. Since before the development of micro- and nanoelectromechanical techniques, there has been an interest in making actual mechanical widgets that show quantum behavior.  There is no reason that we should not be able to make a mechanical...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Clipper Europa Mission I wrote earlier this week about the latest successful test of Starship and the capture of the Super...
5 months ago
50
5 months ago
I wrote earlier this week about the latest successful test of Starship and the capture of the Super Heavy booster by grabbing arms of the landing tower. This was quite a feat, but it should not eclipse what was perhaps even bigger space news this week – the launch of NASAs...
nanoscale views
What is "static electricity"/"contact electrification"/triboelectricity? An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static...
a month ago
9
a month ago
An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static electricity:  an electrical insulator like a wool cloth or animal fur is rubbed on a glass or plastic rod, and suddenly the rod can pick up pieces of styrofoam or little bits of paper. ...
Math Is Still...
How Math Achieved Transcendence Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to understand them. The post How Math Achieved Transcendence first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
How Quantum Physicists Explained Earth’s Oscillating Weather Patterns By treating Earth as a topological insulator — a state of quantum matter — physicists found a...
a year ago
14
a year ago
By treating Earth as a topological insulator — a state of quantum matter — physicists found a powerful explanation for the movements of the planet’s air and seas. The post How Quantum Physicists Explained Earth’s Oscillating Weather Patterns first appeared on Quanta...
Math Is Still...
What Is the Nature of Consciousness? Consciousness, our experience of being in the world, is one of the mind’s greatest mysteries, but as...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Consciousness, our experience of being in the world, is one of the mind’s greatest mysteries, but as the neuroscientist Anil Seth explains to Steven Strogatz, research is making progress in understanding this elusive phenomenon. The post What Is the Nature of...
Math Is Still...
The Year in Biology In a year packed with fascinating discoveries, biologists pushed the limits of synthetic life,...
a year ago
16
a year ago
In a year packed with fascinating discoveries, biologists pushed the limits of synthetic life, probed how organisms keep time, and refined theories about consciousness and emotional health. The post The Year in Biology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Mud Murdo The beautiful ambiance of a McMurdo summer.
over a year ago
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Marvel at ‘Crazy’ Cuts Through Four Dimensions Topologists prove two new results that bring some order to the confoundingly difficult study of...
11 months ago
94
11 months ago
Topologists prove two new results that bring some order to the confoundingly difficult study of four-dimensional shapes. The post Mathematicians Marvel at ‘Crazy’ Cuts Through Four Dimensions first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Caltech’s Ginsburg Center Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement, which will open in 2025. At a lunch following the ceremony, John Preskill made these remarks. Hello everyone. … Continue...
brr
McMurdo Postal Mail How to mail things to and from Antarctica!
over a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
Skylab: The Space Station That Fell on Australia end cap from one of Skylab’s oxygen tanks in the dirt. Cattle were drinking collected rainwater from...
a year ago
18
a year ago
end cap from one of Skylab’s oxygen tanks in the dirt. Cattle were drinking collected rainwater from the remains of a US $2.2 billion NASA investment. Skylab’s Failure and Recovery Skylab’s fate was sealed moments after lift-off when the sun shield and main solar panel were...
pcloadletter
Write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am The older I get, the more I dislike clever code. This is not a controversial take; it is pretty-well...
10 months ago
83
10 months ago
The older I get, the more I dislike clever code. This is not a controversial take; it is pretty-well agreed upon that clever code is bad. But I particularly like the on-call responsiblity framing: write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am. If you have never...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Why don’t healthcare companies say what they do? | Out-Of-Pocket And some tips to figure out what a company does
a year ago
Beautiful Public...
All of the 8,291 License Plates in America States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations,...
a year ago
42
a year ago
States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations, professions, sports teams, causes and other groups.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
A Comet Visible in Our Evening Sky A newly discovered comet is now faintly visible in our skies soon after sunset, if you have clear...
5 months ago
57
5 months ago
A newly discovered comet is now faintly visible in our skies soon after sunset, if you have clear skies and a view low toward the west-southwest horizon. See our diagram from Sky & Telescope magazine, in which the yellow numbers show you the comet’s location in the evening sky...
Quantum Frontiers
Ten lessons I learned from John Preskill Last August, Toronto’s Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC) gave me 35 minutes...
2 months ago
45
2 months ago
Last August, Toronto’s Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC) gave me 35 minutes to make fun of John Preskill in public. CQIQC was hosting its biannual conference, also called CQIQC, in Toronto. The conference features the awarding of … Continue reading →
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
10 months ago
16
10 months ago
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
pcloadletter
Impact-based performance evaluation in big tech is terrible My theory is that some performance consultants got paid a lot of money one day for a single word:...
a year ago
31
a year ago
My theory is that some performance consultants got paid a lot of money one day for a single word: "impact." If you have worked in big tech, you're probably all too familiar with this word because your annual performance evaluations are based on your impact. As an employee,...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Quantum Year 2025 Children decide early in life to become scientists when they find that topics such as the...
7 months ago
12
7 months ago
Children decide early in life to become scientists when they find that topics such as the Pythagorean theorem and the hydrological cycle are more interesting and more important than knowing which state is noted for corn. My childhood was notable for witnessing the launch of the...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How do hospitals spend money? | Out-Of-Pocket it's time to look at a financial statement
9 months ago
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: A tale of two particles Not all radioactivity is risky or harmful
over a year ago
Math Is Still...
Magnetism May Have Given Life Its Molecular Asymmetry The preferred “handedness” of biomolecules could have emerged from biased interactions between...
a year ago
12
a year ago
The preferred “handedness” of biomolecules could have emerged from biased interactions between electrons and magnetic surfaces, new research suggests. The post Magnetism May Have Given Life Its Molecular Asymmetry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Intelligence Testing Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how much.
Cremieux Recueil
American Elections Are Unfair Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
4 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Havana Syndrome Revisited Last month I wrote about Havana Syndrome, the claim that a number of American and Canadian diplomats...
10 months ago
79
10 months ago
Last month I wrote about Havana Syndrome, the claim that a number of American and Canadian diplomats and military personnel were the targets of some sort of directed energy weapon attack causing symptoms of headache, disorientation, nausea, and sometimes associated with an...
The Works in...
How America Made Machines Make Machines A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Starship Explodes in Successful Launch A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The...
a year ago
33
a year ago
A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The irony comes from how we might define “success”. On April 20th SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of the fully assembled Starship, including a Starship rocket on top of a super heavy...
Math Is Still...
Two Students Shoot Down a Widely Believed Math Conjecture Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures known as Apollonian circles. But a summer project would lead to its downfall. The post Two Students Shoot Down a Widely Believed Math Conjecture first appeared on Quanta...
symmetry magazine
From inventor to entrepreneur Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for...
a year ago
71
a year ago
Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for physicists and engineers, but the help of experts can improve their chances.
Asterisk
Pew Problems A conversation about religion, fertility, and the American family.
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Musings on CVS, two-way negotiation, and venture studios | Out-Of-Pocket + we're hosting another dinner! and courses ending!
11 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Ways to give power to the patients | Out-Of-Pocket can software give us agency?
a year ago
Math Is Still...
She Tracks the DNA of Elusive Species That Hide in Harsh Places On Mount Everest and in the Peruvian Andes, Tracie Seimon uses DNA to study how species and...
a year ago
37
a year ago
On Mount Everest and in the Peruvian Andes, Tracie Seimon uses DNA to study how species and ecosystems respond to climate change, pathogens and other influences. The post She Tracks the DNA of Elusive Species That Hide in Harsh Places first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
How Genetic Surprises Complicate the Old Doctrine of DNA For over a century, biologists have had to contend with a complicated picture of genetics, which...
a year ago
12
a year ago
For over a century, biologists have had to contend with a complicated picture of genetics, which they’ve only recently begun to understand. The post How Genetic Surprises Complicate the Old Doctrine of DNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Nuclear Photon Rockets: Flashlights to the Stars In this post, we will have a look at the concept of using a nuclear photon rocket for interstellar...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
In this post, we will have a look at the concept of using a nuclear photon rocket for interstellar travel. They are an old concept that should theoretically be the ultimate form of relativistic propulsion. However, today they are unknown or unpopular. Why might that be the...
IEEE Spectrum
How Vannevar Bush Engineered the 20th Century In the summer of 1945, Robert J. Oppenheimer and other key members of the Manhattan Project gathered...
9 months ago
81
9 months ago
In the summer of 1945, Robert J. Oppenheimer and other key members of the Manhattan Project gathered in New Mexico to witness the first atomic bomb test. Among the observers was Vannevar Bush, who had overseen the Manhattan Project and served as the sole liaison to U.S. President...
IEEE Spectrum
The Battle for Better, Broader, More Inclusive AI AI’s inclusivity problem is no secret. According to the ACLU, AI systems can perpetuate housing...
a year ago
77
a year ago
AI’s inclusivity problem is no secret. According to the ACLU, AI systems can perpetuate housing discrimination and bias in the justice system, among other harms. Bias in the data an AI model relies on is reproduced in its results. Large Language Models (LLMs) share this problem;...
IEEE Spectrum
Granville T. Woods: Smartest Guy in the Room Any home baker will confirm that, even if you have all the right ingredients and follow the recipe,...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Any home baker will confirm that, even if you have all the right ingredients and follow the recipe, things don’t always turn out the way you envisioned. Such was the life of inventor extraordinaire Granville T. Woods. Who was Granville T. Woods? Woods was endowed with...
NeuroLogica Blog
Serial Dependence Bias As I have discussed numerous times on this blog, our brains did not evolve to be optimal precise...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
As I have discussed numerous times on this blog, our brains did not evolve to be optimal precise perceivers and processors of information. Here is an infographic showing 188 documents cognitive biases. These biases are not all bad – they are tradeoffs. Evolutionary forces care...
Quantum Frontiers
Astrobiology meets quantum computation? The origin of life appears to share little with quantum computation, apart from the difficulty of...
a year ago
60
a year ago
The origin of life appears to share little with quantum computation, apart from the difficulty of achieving it and its potential for clickbait. Yet similar notions of complexity have recently garnered attention in both fields. Each topic’s researchers expect only … Continue...
Math Is Still...
The Question of What’s Fair Illuminates the Question of What’s Hard Computational complexity theorists have discovered a surprising new way to understand what makes...
9 months ago
38
9 months ago
Computational complexity theorists have discovered a surprising new way to understand what makes certain problems hard. The post The Question of What’s Fair Illuminates the Question of What’s Hard first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are...
9 months ago
69
9 months ago
Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are rigorously defined. The post How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Good Meteor Shower This Week Wednesday evening and Thursday morning (Dec. 13-14) is the peak time for one of the best meteor...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Wednesday evening and Thursday morning (Dec. 13-14) is the peak time for one of the best meteor showers of the year – the Geminids.  The post Good Meteor Shower This Week appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Interaction Magic -...
Life beyond the screen Since early 2020, I've been teaching courses in Interaction Technologies and Prototyping. Switches,...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Since early 2020, I've been teaching courses in Interaction Technologies and Prototyping. Switches, light, gesture, motion, sound, haptics: this is all about exploring life beyond the screen.
Math Is Still...
What Are Sheaves? These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics. The post...
8 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
What It Takes To Let People Play With the Past Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet...
6 months ago
67
6 months ago
Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet functional, technology. Located on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, the MAL is where you can watch a magic lantern show, play Star Castle on a Vectrex games console, or check...
Asterisk
Why We Have Prison Gangs America’s prison gangs first emerged in the late 1950s. Why did they form? What keeps them going?...
4 months ago
9
4 months ago
America’s prison gangs first emerged in the late 1950s. Why did they form? What keeps them going? And how do they govern themselves?
Quantum Frontiers
May I have this dance? This July, I came upon a museum called the Haus der Musik in one of Vienna’s former palaces. The...
a year ago
32
a year ago
This July, I came upon a museum called the Haus der Musik in one of Vienna’s former palaces. The museum contains a room dedicated to Johann Strauss II, king of the waltz. The room, dimly lit, resembles a twilit gazebo. … Continue reading →
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Green Ammonia Ammonia is an important industrial chemical with an estimated worldwide production exceeding 150...
8 months ago
9
8 months ago
Ammonia is an important industrial chemical with an estimated worldwide production exceeding 150 million metric tons. About 70% of ammonia is used to make nitrate fertilizers. Unfortunately, the production of ammonia is energy and it's a major source of carbon dioxide emission. ...
Asterisk
How to Prevent the Next Pandemic Modern technology makes bioterrorism seem increasingly likely. If we can get our act together, there...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Modern technology makes bioterrorism seem increasingly likely. If we can get our act together, there are smart ways to prevent it.
Cremieux Recueil
Workers For Robots Want to give blue collar workers the sorts of jobs they can raise a family on and revive American...
5 months ago
21
5 months ago
Want to give blue collar workers the sorts of jobs they can raise a family on and revive American manufacturing? Then you should support automation
The Roots of...
2023 in review 2023 was another big year for me and The Roots of Progress. It was a year when ROP as an...
a year ago
39
a year ago
2023 was another big year for me and The Roots of Progress. It was a year when ROP as an organization really started to take off. Even though the org itself was formed in 2021, at first it was just a vehicle for my own intellectual work, plus a few side projects. Last year we...
Confessions of a...
Impacts of climate change on marine communities, seagrass dieback, and a trip to the Abrolhos... You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks.  No holiday for me though, here’s a...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks.  No holiday for me though, here’s a quick taste of some of the other stuff I’ve been up to! Impact of climate change on marine coastal ecosystems – A masterclass with Nuria Marbá I was lucky enough to be invited along...
Willem Pennings
Home Assistant-compatible air quality sensor I recently moved and our new home is equipped with a ventilation system that distributes fresh...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I recently moved and our new home is equipped with a ventilation system that distributes fresh (outside) air through the house and recoups heat from the air that is exhausted. There is a problem with this system, though. Sometimes, for example when a neighbour lights their wood...
Asterisk
Why Is Everyone Suddenly Furious About AI Regulation? Please tell us, because we're stumped.
10 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Race And Healthcare: Recognizing And Addressing the Issues Facing Black Patients | Out-Of-Pocket The systemic issues that plague black communities are extremely prevalent in healthcare, and we...
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge How hard is it to prove that problems are hard to solve? Meta-complexity theorists have been asking...
a year ago
36
a year ago
How hard is it to prove that problems are hard to solve? Meta-complexity theorists have been asking questions like this for decades. A string of recent results has started to deliver answers. The post Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge...
Math Is Still...
New Proof Finds the ‘Ultimate Instability’ in a Solar System Model For the first time, mathematicians have proved that planetary orbits in a solar system will always...
a year ago
76
a year ago
For the first time, mathematicians have proved that planetary orbits in a solar system will always be unstable. The post New Proof Finds the ‘Ultimate Instability’ in a Solar System Model first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
The Israel–Hamas Ceasefire Won’t Last Israel & Palestine, One Year Later
a month ago
wadertales
Will head-starting work for Curlew? 83 captive-reared Curlew were released successfully in 2019, over 130 in 2021 and a similar number...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
83 captive-reared Curlew were released successfully in 2019, over 130 in 2021 and a similar number in 2022 but this does not mean that head-starting is a solution to England’s Curlew problems. We don’t yet know the proportion of youngsters that survive the difficult ‘teenage...
Uncharted...
What’s at Stake in Germany’s Elections The future of Ukraine, of Europe, freedom of speech, and Germany’s economy
a month ago
Light from Space
The Rosette Nebula Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring astrophotographer. Located not too far from Orion in Monoceros, this large H II region has spectacular features, centered around a star cluster. Click or tap to...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Designed Drugs On a recent SGU live streaming discussion someone in the chat asked – aren’t frivolous AI...
11 months ago
41
11 months ago
On a recent SGU live streaming discussion someone in the chat asked – aren’t frivolous AI applications just toys without any useful output? The question was meant to downplay recent advances in generative AI. I pointed out that the question is a bit circular – aren’t frivolous...
Math Is Still...
The Physicist Who’s Challenging the Quantum Orthodoxy For decades, physicists have struggled to develop a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity —...
a year ago
68
a year ago
For decades, physicists have struggled to develop a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity — and space-time — are fundamentally classical? The post The Physicist Who’s Challenging the Quantum Orthodoxy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
What Is the Earth’s Carrying Capacity? Most "experts" don't understand technology or economics
4 months ago
Light from Space
The Space Lobster Not well known to observers in the Northern Hemisphere, the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357) in Cepheus...
over a year ago
41
over a year ago
Not well known to observers in the Northern Hemisphere, the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357) in Cepheus shows a complex pattern of Hydrogen alpha and Oxygen-III regions. It's quite far south in the sky at a declination of −34° 20′ and here in Tucson it barely
Casey Handmer's blog
It Is Time To Build The Monster Scope A shorter version of this post was published in Palladium on 10/18/24. This version incorporates...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
A shorter version of this post was published in Palladium on 10/18/24. This version incorporates helpful feedback from a number of knowledgeable readers.  With the recent SpaceX Starship orbital flight tests, it is time to commit to building the largest physically possible space...
NeuroLogica Blog
Being Trans Is Not A Mental Illness On the current episode of the SGU, because it is pride month, we expressed our general support for...
a year ago
69
a year ago
On the current episode of the SGU, because it is pride month, we expressed our general support for the LGBTQ community. I also opined about how important it is to respect individual liberty, the freedom to simply live your authentic life as you choose, and how ironic it is that...
symmetry magazine
Is dark matter the most powerful wave in the universe? Dark matter could consist of particles so ultralight, they behave more like waves.  ...
a year ago
39
a year ago
Dark matter could consist of particles so ultralight, they behave more like waves.  Although the motions of galaxies provide evidence that dark matter exists, scientists have yet to directly detect the invisible stuff, or figure out what it could be made...
Casey Handmer's blog
Powering the Mars base This post is part of the series on space topics. This post is not the last word on this topic. The...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
This post is part of the series on space topics. This post is not the last word on this topic. The usual caveats apply. I’m curious if you have strong opinions on different fuel mixes. A growing Mars base has a prodigious need for power. I’ve previously written two posts on...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Alzheimer’s Revolution Decades of complex research and persevering through repeated disappointment appears to be finally...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Decades of complex research and persevering through repeated disappointment appears to be finally paying off for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s  disease (AD). In 2021 Aduhelm was the first drug approved by the FDA (granted contingent accelerated approval) that is...
SubAnima
How A Single Metaphor Transformed Biology René Descartes kinda ruined biology
over a year ago
Cremieux Recueil
"You Couldn't Replicate Our Study Because You're Ugly" Attractiveness rating studies shouldn't be taken too seriously
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
More On Electric Vehicles I recently wrote about electric vehicles, which sparked a lively discussion in the comments. There...
a year ago
26
a year ago
I recently wrote about electric vehicles, which sparked a lively discussion in the comments. There was enough discussion that I wanted to pull my responses together into a new post. Before I get to the details, some general observations. The conversation, in my opinion, nicely...
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional wisdom, but I’m not so sure. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted that AI would “make paid work redundant.” I encountered the same opinion watching the latest season of...
IEEE Spectrum
The Incredible Story Behind the First Transistor Radio But that’s pretty much what Pat Haggerty, vice president of Texas Instruments, did in 1954. The...
5 months ago
61
5 months ago
But that’s pretty much what Pat Haggerty, vice president of Texas Instruments, did in 1954. The result was the Regency TR-1, the world’s first commercial transistor radio, which debuted 70 years ago this month. The engineers delivered on Haggerty’s audacious goal, and I...
Many Worlds
All Six Element Needed For Life as We Know It Have Now Been Found in The Watery Plumes of Enceladus The elements needed for life as we know it are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen sulfur and...
a year ago
15
a year ago
The elements needed for life as we know it are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen sulfur and phosphorus. Before today, planetary scientists could say that five of those crucial elements had been found in the watery spray that spurts out of the Saturn’s moon, Enceladus.  All that...
Beautiful Public...
Utah Highway LiDAR Scans Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces and area surrounding 15,000 miles of its roads.
IEEE Spectrum
The Man Who Coined The Word "Robot" Defends Himself You’re familiar with Karel Čapek, right? If not, you should be—he’s the guy who (along with his...
a year ago
41
a year ago
You’re familiar with Karel Čapek, right? If not, you should be—he’s the guy who (along with his brother Josef) invented the word “robot.” Čapek introduced robots to the world in 1921, when his play “R.U.R.” (subtitled “Rossum’s Universal Robots”) was first performed in Prague. It...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Curious Case of Professional Employer Organizations | Out-Of-Pocket A tale about complexity, risk skimming, and what counts as an “employee” or “company”
6 months ago
Blog - Practical...
How Do You Steer a Drill Below The Earth? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In December 2019, the City of...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In December 2019, the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida experienced a series of catastrophic ruptures in a critical wastewater transmission line, releasing raw sewage into local waterways and neighborhoods....
IEEE Spectrum
Sci-fi and Hi-fi Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire...
a year ago
46
a year ago
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire companies around an idea introduced in a story they read, as the founders of Second Life and Meta did, working from the metaverse as imagined by Neal Stephenson in his seminal 1992...
Chris Grossack's...
Externalizing Some Simple Topos Statements Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done math in any serious capacity for almost the past month. It’s been a lot of hard work trying to get fair contracts out of the UC, but I had a lot of travel plans this December to...
NeuroLogica Blog
Categorization and What’s In a Name Categorization is critical in science, but it is also very tricky, often deceptively so. We need to...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Categorization is critical in science, but it is also very tricky, often deceptively so. We need to categorize things to help us organize our knowledge, to understand how things work and relate to each other, and to communicate efficiently and precisely. But categorization can...
Quantum Frontiers
Eight highlights from publishing a science book for the general public What’s it like to publish a book? I’ve faced the question again and again this year, as my book...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
What’s it like to publish a book? I’ve faced the question again and again this year, as my book Quantum Steampunk hit bookshelves in April. Two responses suggest themselves. On the one hand, I channel the Beatles: It’s a hard … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
Have We Achieved General AI As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for...
3 months ago
57
3 months ago
As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for a long time before there is a consensus that we have. The latest round of this controversy comes from Vahid Kazemi from OpenAI. He posted on X: “In my opinion we have already...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
My investing theses | Out-Of-Pocket Hit up ya boi
a year ago
Asterisk
Rarely is the Question Asked: Is Our Children Learning? Across the world, more students than ever are in school. But it’s not clear that they're learning...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Across the world, more students than ever are in school. But it’s not clear that they're learning more while there — or if that’s even the goal.
Math Is Still...
A Plan to Address the World’s Challenges With Math Minhyong Kim is leading a new initiative called Mathematics for Humanity that encourages...
a year ago
82
a year ago
Minhyong Kim is leading a new initiative called Mathematics for Humanity that encourages mathematicians to apply their skills to solving social problems. The post A Plan to Address the World’s Challenges With Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
Highway Photologs Highway departments all around the country had "photolog" programs, some dating back as early as...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
Highway departments all around the country had "photolog" programs, some dating back as early as 1961. Each year, specially tricked out vans would drive each mile of state road snapping photos to document the status of roadways.
NeuroLogica Blog
UK Building More Nuclear The nuclear debate seems never-ending, which I guess is to be expected. Every large technology has...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
The nuclear debate seems never-ending, which I guess is to be expected. Every large technology has tradeoffs. But the need to transition our energy infrastructure to carbon neutral has shifted the equation, and it is now arguable that we cannot afford to ignore the option of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Ripples in Spacetime It’s always exciting when a scientific institution announces that they are going to make an...
a year ago
44
a year ago
It’s always exciting when a scientific institution announces that they are going to make an announcement. Earlier this week we were told that there was going to be a major announcement today (June 29th) regarding a gravitational wave discovery. The goal of the pre-announcement is...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Experience Machine Thought Experiment In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the...
12 months ago
41
12 months ago
In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the following thought experiment: If you could be plugged into an “experience machine” (what we would likely call today a virtual reality or “Matrix”) that could perfectly replicate real-life...
NeuroLogica Blog
Eating Methane Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce anthropogenic climate change, we talk about decarbonizing our electrical and transport sectors, and carbon removal. But methane is also a greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming,...
Math Is Still...
The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists...
a year ago
43
a year ago
Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists reimagined their whole field. The post The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Debugging Tech Journalism A huge proportion of tech journalism is characterized by scandals, sensationalism, and shoddy...
11 months ago
8
11 months ago
A huge proportion of tech journalism is characterized by scandals, sensationalism, and shoddy research. Can we fix it?
brr
Sunset Hunkering down for the winter!
a year ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Potentially undervalued companies I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies...
6 months ago
15
6 months ago
I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies developing them. 90% of the time, my answer is “I don’t know” but it continues to concern me that aspects of technical feasibility are evidently not legible to financial types (and...
brr
South Pole Signage Please close doors quietly!
a year ago
Drew Ex Machina
You Can’t Fail Unless You Try: NASA’s Pioneer P-3 Lunar Orbiter Space enthusiasts of a certain age, like myself, grew up learning about the trio of NASA’s unmanned...
4 months ago
54
4 months ago
Space enthusiasts of a certain age, like myself, grew up learning about the trio of NASA’s unmanned programs which provided scientists and engineers with vital information […]
The Roots of...
Why no Roman Industrial Revolution? Why didn’t the Roman Empire have an industrial revolution? Bret Devereaux has an essay addressing...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Why didn’t the Roman Empire have an industrial revolution? Bret Devereaux has an essay addressing that question, which multiple people have pointed me to at various times. In brief, Devereaux says that Britain industrialized through a very specific path, involving coal mines,...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: All the single people And how China will lose 51 million people in 10 years
3 months ago
Blog - Practical...
An Engineer’s Love Letter to Cable-Stayed Bridges [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I’m Grady, and this is...
a month ago
19
a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I’m Grady, and this is Practical Engineering. You know, every once in a while, all the science, technology, economic factors, and stylistic tastes converge into a singular, beautiful idea of absolute...
Apoorva Srinivasan
diffusion models for protein generation Introduction Proteins are nature's versatile nanomachines— they have evolved to perform virtually...
2 months ago
50
2 months ago
Introduction Proteins are nature's versatile nanomachines— they have evolved to perform virtually every important task in living systems. While nature has produced an incredible range of protein functions, these represent only a tiny fraction of what's possible in the protein...
symmetry magazine
Vera C. Rubin Observatory brings the universe to everyone The Rubin Observatory is making education and outreach a top priority.
a year ago
Asterisk
PEPFAR and the Costs of Cost-Benefit Analysis In the early aughts, economists said it was a bad use of money to send antiretroviral drugs to treat...
a year ago
8
a year ago
In the early aughts, economists said it was a bad use of money to send antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV in low-income countries. Twenty years later, we can ask why they got it wrong.
Math Is Still...
The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities New modeling work suggests why nature is more diverse than niche-based ecological theory predicts. ...
a year ago
30
a year ago
New modeling work suggests why nature is more diverse than niche-based ecological theory predicts. The post The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Flow Batteries – Now With Nanofluids Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable...
a year ago
43
a year ago
Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable incremental increase in energy density, charging time, stability, and lifecycle. We now have lithium-ion batteries with a specific energy of 296 Wh/kg – these are in use in existing...
The Roots of...
Links digest, 2023-10-12 I’ve been traveling for a while, so this is a long one, covering the last ~month. I tried to cut it...
a year ago
15
a year ago
I’ve been traveling for a while, so this is a long one, covering the last ~month. I tried to cut it down, but there have been so many amazing announcements, opportunities, etc.! Feel free to skim and jump around: From the Roots of Progress fellows Connor O’Brien and Adam Ozimek...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Sleep health is getting interesting | Out-Of-Pocket The consumer and clinical worlds of sleep are colliding
4 months ago
Math Is Still...
She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and neurochemistry in one of the country's epicenters of substance use disorder and addiction. The post She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain first appeared...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
9 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Copilots Are Coming I’m going to do something I rarely do and make a straight-up prediction – I think we are close to...
5 months ago
60
5 months ago
I’m going to do something I rarely do and make a straight-up prediction – I think we are close to having AI apps that will function as our all-purpose digital assistants. That’s not really a tough call, we already have digital assistants and they are progressing rapidly. So I am...
Asterisk
The Puzzle of Non-Proliferation Today, only nine countries have nuclear weapons. That outcome was hardly inevitable, and the story...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Today, only nine countries have nuclear weapons. That outcome was hardly inevitable, and the story of how we arrived there holds important lessons for AI.
The Roots of...
Why consumerism is good actually “Consumerism” came up in my recent interview with Elle Griffin of The Post. Here’s what I had to say...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
“Consumerism” came up in my recent interview with Elle Griffin of The Post. Here’s what I had to say (off the cuff): I have to admit, I’ve never 100% understood what “consumerism” is, or what it’s supposed to be. I have the general sense of what people are gesturing at, but it...
Wanderingspace
Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the rest are thought to be active volcanos on the Io surface. The moons are not a primary target of the Juno mission, but they do occasionally take a peek to try and monitor such...
Drew Ex Machina
The Promise of MIDAS: The First Experimental Early Warning Satellites Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile...
a year ago
37
a year ago
Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile launches anywhere on the planet and quickly determine whether it […]
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Agglomeration benefits are here to stay Building more homes in the most productive cities could massively boost productivity
over a year ago
Asterisk
Through a Glass Darkly Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Simple Equation Predicts the Shapes of Carbon-Capturing Wetlands To calculate the amount of carbon stored inside peatlands, researchers developed a unified theory of...
10 months ago
85
10 months ago
To calculate the amount of carbon stored inside peatlands, researchers developed a unified theory of “bog physics” applicable around the world. The post Simple Equation Predicts the Shapes of Carbon-Capturing Wetlands first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Colliding the familiar and the anti-familiar at CERN toise me at CERN was a box of chocolates. CERN is a multinational particle-physics collaboration....
a year ago
82
a year ago
toise me at CERN was a box of chocolates. CERN is a multinational particle-physics collaboration. Based in Geneva, CERN is famous for having “the world’s largest and most powerful accelerator,” according to its website. So a physicist will take for … Continue reading →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Turning Conversations Into Documentation Automagically 🪄 with Abridge | Out-Of-Pocket How to get more value out of the rich data of patient-provider conversations
a year ago
Melting Asphalt
2015 Meta Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I published a paltry six full essays this year. Don't get me wrong: I'm proud of them. But still, six. It would be… Read more ›
Math Is Still...
Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining...
a year ago
67
a year ago
Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining many online security protocols. Now a researcher has shown how to do it even faster. The post Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring first appeared on...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Scaling Organizations, Patient Payments, and Collections with Lora Rosenblum | Out-Of-Pocket Why am I getting bills 6 months later, Lora pls help
a year ago
The Works in...
The entrepreneurial state How state competition – through war – can drive institutional progress
a year ago
Interaction Magic -...
Designing bikes or bike lanes? Which impacts the cycling experience more: the design of the bike or the bike lanes? Interview and...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Which impacts the cycling experience more: the design of the bike or the bike lanes? Interview and podcast with city transport planners Catherine Osborn and David Wills.
NeuroLogica Blog
Harvesting Energy from Water Vapor I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about...
a year ago
70
a year ago
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about it. UMASS researchers have produced a device that generates electricity by harvesting charge from water vapor. They write: The common feature of these materials is that they are...
Uncharted...
The Latest on Healthcare Research Cancer research, AI in healthcare, aging research, and much more
5 months ago
Math Is Still...
The Quest to Decode the Mandelbrot Set, Math’s Famed Fractal For decades, a small group of mathematicians has patiently unraveled the mystery of what was once...
a year ago
36
a year ago
For decades, a small group of mathematicians has patiently unraveled the mystery of what was once math’s most popular picture. Their story shows how technology transforms even the most abstract mathematical landscapes. The post The Quest to Decode the Mandelbrot Set,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some Thoughts On Startups Overpromising | Out-Of-Pocket the role RFPs play, how it's difficult to define patient harm, and more
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Is AI Sentient Revisited On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s...
a year ago
40
a year ago
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s LaMDA may be sentient, based on his interactions with it. This was a fascinating discussion, and even though I think we did a pretty deep dive in the time we had, it also felt...
nanoscale views
End of the year thoughts - scientific philanthropy and impact As we head into 2025, and the prospects for increased (US) government investment in science,...
2 months ago
5
2 months ago
As we head into 2025, and the prospects for increased (US) government investment in science, engineering, and STEM education seem very limited, I wanted to revisit a topic that I wrote about over a decade ago (!!!), the role of philanthropy and foundations in these...
NeuroLogica Blog
Building A Robotic Hand Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of biological bodies in rubber, metal, and plastic. This is a difficult task because biological organisms are often wondrous machines. The human hand, in particular, is a feat of...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Eclipse of the Sun Coming in One Week Saturday Oct. 14 North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun. The post Eclipse of the Sun...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Saturday Oct. 14 North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun. The post Eclipse of the Sun Coming in One Week appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What's The Deal With Telemedicine? | Out-Of-Pocket we're in the weird in-between stage of adoption
a year ago
Confessions of a...
Reflections of a postgrad lecturer-in-training: Part 1 In a previous post, I mentioned that I was beginning a stint as postgraduate teaching intern at UWA,...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
In a previous post, I mentioned that I was beginning a stint as postgraduate teaching intern at UWA, and that part of the internship involved keeping a reflective journal.  So I’ve decided that instead of merely writing down my thoughts (and possibly becoming lazy about it as the...
symmetry magazine
Celebrating Dark Matter Day in Latin America Scientists, artists, communicators and physics fans find creative ways to mark the unofficial...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Scientists, artists, communicators and physics fans find creative ways to mark the unofficial holiday devoted to dark matter.
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunter-Gatherers and Childcare What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused...
a year ago
10
a year ago
What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused concept. Primarily this is because humans are adaptable – we adapt to our environment, our situation, and our culture. So it is “natural” for us not to have a natural state. But this...
Light from Space
The Helping Hand of LDN 1355 LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark dust obscuring the reflection nebula behind it. Total exposure time: 58h 50' (211,800s) Image resolution: 5,216 × 3,909px (1.924″/px) Shot from my driveway
NeuroLogica Blog
T-rex Had Lips One of the challenges of paleontology is that we are trying to infer and entire animal just from the...
a year ago
68
a year ago
One of the challenges of paleontology is that we are trying to infer and entire animal just from the hard parts that fossilize, mostly bones and teeth (and sometimes just teeth). But if we look at animals today there are a lot of details we could not guess from their bones alone...
Math Is Still...
New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies? The post New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Can You Trust An AI Press Release? Of course not. Here’s how leading AI labs mislead consumers, journalists, and each other.
8 months ago
Uncharted...
The Moral Case for More People on Earth Today we’re going to cover four points that have emerged from the last few articles on growing our...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Today we’re going to cover four points that have emerged from the last few articles on growing our population, but which I haven’t covered yet:
IEEE Spectrum
In 1926, TV Was Mechanical John Logie Baird had a lot of ingenious ideas, not all of which caught on. His phonovision was an...
6 months ago
47
6 months ago
John Logie Baird had a lot of ingenious ideas, not all of which caught on. His phonovision was an early attempt at video recording, with the signals preserved on phonograph records. His noctovision used infrared light to see objects in the dark, which some experts claim was a...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Galaxy Without Dark Matter Dark matter is one of the greatest current scientific mysteries. It’s a fascinating story playing...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Dark matter is one of the greatest current scientific mysteries. It’s a fascinating story playing out in real time, although over years, so you have to be patient. Future generations might be able to binge the dark matter show, but not us. We have to wait for each episode to...
symmetry magazine
Muon g-2 doubles down with latest measurement, explores uncharted territory Fermilab's Muon g-2 experiment brings particle physics closer to a showdown between theory and...
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
My favorite rocket scientist Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is...
8 months ago
76
8 months ago
Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is a researcher at Princeton University, and she showed me her lab this June. When I first met Jamie, she was testing instruments to … Continue reading →
Drew Ex Machina
USAF Project Able-1: The First Attempt to Reach the Moon In the years leading up to the beginning of the Space Age, there were many studies made in the West...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
In the years leading up to the beginning of the Space Age, there were many studies made in the West about lunar missions which gripped the […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Rats! What killed off the dodo? Humans first arrived at Mauritius island in the late 1500s. They found on...
9 months ago
90
9 months ago
What killed off the dodo? Humans first arrived at Mauritius island in the late 1500s. They found on this island fat flightless birds who nested on the ground and were a convenient way to restock their ship’s food supply. Within 80 years the dodo went extinct. But hunting was not...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New (Experimental) Ways To Tackle The Mental Health Crisis | Out-Of-Pocket let's try some new stuff to scale mental health care
a year ago
Math Is Still...
What Is Machine Learning? Neural networks and other forms of machine learning ultimately learn by trial and error, one...
8 months ago
65
8 months ago
Neural networks and other forms of machine learning ultimately learn by trial and error, one improvement at a time. The post What Is Machine Learning? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Have Current AI Reached Their Limit? We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications,...
a year ago
111
a year ago
We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications, specifically the large language models and so-called “transformers” like Chat GPT. Transformers are a deep learning model that use self-attention to differentially weight the...
The Works in...
Gentrification as a housing problem The root cause of displacement is inflexible supply
8 months ago
ToughSF
Starship Lite: from rapid Interplanetary to Interstellar Elon Musk stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary boost vehicle...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
Elon Musk stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary boost vehicle able to push probes towards the farthest objects in our Solar System.  What other missions could the Starship ‘Lite’ do, and how quickly? Near SSTO Rockets performance scales...
Wanderingspace
ISS Looks Like a Toy These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are real. Each frame is taken with ground based amateur telescopes and then pieced together with common image software like Adobe Photoshop. It is incredible to me that there are people...
nanoscale views
Guide to faculty searches, 2024 edition As you can tell from my posting frequency lately, I have been unusually busy.  I hope to be writing...
5 months ago
3
5 months ago
As you can tell from my posting frequency lately, I have been unusually busy.  I hope to be writing about more condensed matter and nano science soon.   In the meantime, I realized that I have not re-posted or updated my primer on how tenure-track faculty searches work in physics...
The Works in...
The duplication crisis: the other replication crisis How bad publishing incentives hinder long-term thinking in computational biology research
6 months ago
Asterisk
The “TESCREAL” Bungle The TESCREAL “bundle of ideologies” is purportedly essential to understand the race to build...
9 months ago
9
9 months ago
The TESCREAL “bundle of ideologies” is purportedly essential to understand the race to build artificial intelligence, the ethical milieu of those building it, and the philosophical underpinnings behind Silicon Valley as a whole. But does the label actually tell us anything?
NeuroLogica Blog
Converting CO2 to Carbon Nanofibers One of the dreams of a green economy where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is stable, and not...
a year ago
28
a year ago
One of the dreams of a green economy where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is stable, and not slowly increasing, is the ability to draw CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it to a solid form. Often referred to as carbon capture, some form of this is going to be necessary...
Math Is Still...
How to Build an Origami Computer Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible...
a year ago
35
a year ago
Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible computation. The post How to Build an Origami Computer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
What Happens in the Brain to Cause Depression? Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now...
10 months ago
34
10 months ago
Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now the spotlight is turning to other aspects of brain chemistry. In this episode, the neuropharmacologist John Krystal shares findings that are overturning our understanding of...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How much is “too much” when it comes to overpromising as a startup? | Out-Of-Pocket navigating the gray area
a year ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Salton Sea statistics I wanted to gain better insights into the Salton Sea level, evaporation, inflows and outflows. Step...
2 months ago
40
2 months ago
I wanted to gain better insights into the Salton Sea level, evaporation, inflows and outflows. Step one was to gather publicly available data about its level, and collate it into a single graph. Here we see that despite the continual formation of Salton Sea advisory committees,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Regret After Transitioning In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was...
a year ago
35
a year ago
In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was enough to trigger very specific feedback, often making erroneous scientific claims. Each claim requires a deep dive and article-length discussion. Even though the discussion that...
wadertales
WaderTales blogs in 2022 Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped the blogs into sections; problems with trees, more research from Iceland, Curlews, news from the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, tracking and updates. As ever, I am grateful to...
Asterisk
Development Finance Done Right A veteran diplomat explains how to navigate the U.S. development ecosystem, master the interagency...
8 months ago
8
8 months ago
A veteran diplomat explains how to navigate the U.S. development ecosystem, master the interagency process, and bring electricity to 200 million people.
Math Is Still...
Does Nothingness Exist? Even empty space bubbles with energy, according to quantum mechanics — and that fact affects almost...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Even empty space bubbles with energy, according to quantum mechanics — and that fact affects almost every facet of physical reality. The theoretical physicist Isabel Garcia Garcia explains to Steven Strogatz why it’s so important in modern physics to understand what a true vacuum...
Math Is Still...
How Metabolism Can Shape Cells’ Destinies A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy...
5 days ago
4
5 days ago
A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy and building materials — plays a vital, overlooked role in the first steps of life. The post How Metabolism Can Shape Cells’ Destinies first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
How to put together an international physics experiment To build the DUNE neutrino experiment and its associated accelerator upgrade, experts invent...
over a year ago
42
over a year ago
To build the DUNE neutrino experiment and its associated accelerator upgrade, experts invent customized ways to transport fragile, expensive and highly specialized components. On a late-September day, in the high-bay building of Daresbury Laboratory in the...
Math Is Still...
The Largest Sofa You Can Move Around a Corner A new proof reveals the answer to the decades-old “moving sofa” problem. It highlights how even the...
a month ago
16
a month ago
A new proof reveals the answer to the decades-old “moving sofa” problem. It highlights how even the simplest optimization problems can have counterintuitive answers. The post The Largest Sofa You Can Move Around a Corner first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Possible Sign of Life on Exoplanet The James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopic analysis of K2-18b, an exoplanet 124 light years from...
a year ago
14
a year ago
The James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopic analysis of K2-18b, an exoplanet 124 light years from Earth, shows signs that the atmosphere may contain dimethyl sulphide (DMS). This finding is more impressive when you know that DMS on Earth is only produced by living organisms, not...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is AI Sentient – Revisited This happened sooner than I thought. Last June I wrote about Google employee, Blake Lemoine, who...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
This happened sooner than I thought. Last June I wrote about Google employee, Blake Lemoine, who claimed that the LaMDA  chatbot he was working on was probably sentient. I didn’t buy it then and I still don’t, but Lemoine is not backing away from his claims. In an interview on H3...
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. (We’ve previously given thanks for the...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory, the error bar, gauge symmetry, Landauer’s Principle, the...
Asterisk
Animal Welfare in the Anthropocene Wild animals outnumber farmed animals by orders of magnitude. Are we obligated to help them? And...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Wild animals outnumber farmed animals by orders of magnitude. Are we obligated to help them? And even if we wanted to, do we know how?
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some crypto x healthcare ideas | Out-Of-Pocket Decentralized EMRs, Insurance DAOs, and Drug Picking Models
a year ago
SubAnima
Could There Be Laws Of Biology? Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles or axioms for biology?
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Did The FDA Mess Up With Aduhelm? | Out-Of-Pocket Rethinking the approval, coverage, and reimbursement dynamic
a year ago
Math Is Still...
The Physicist Who Glues Together Universes Renate Loll has helped pioneer a radically new approach to quantum gravity. She assumes that the...
a year ago
50
a year ago
Renate Loll has helped pioneer a radically new approach to quantum gravity. She assumes that the fabric of space-time is a blend of all possible fabrics, and she has developed the computational tools needed to calculate the far-reaching implications of that assumption. ...
Math Is Still...
Cryptography Tricks Make a Hard Problem a Little Easier Researchers have shown how to find the simplest description of a data set faster than by simply ...
11 months ago
54
11 months ago
Researchers have shown how to find the simplest description of a data set faster than by simply checking every possibility. The post Cryptography Tricks Make a Hard Problem a Little Easier first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
IEEE Recognizes Itaipu Dam’s Engineering Achievements Technology should benefit humanity. One of the most remarkable examples of technology’s potential to...
6 days ago
5
6 days ago
Technology should benefit humanity. One of the most remarkable examples of technology’s potential to provide enduring benefits is the Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam, a massive binational energy project between Brazil and Paraguay. Built on the Paraná River, which forms part of the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Localizing Hidden Consciousness What’s going on in the minds of people who appear to be comatose? This has been an enduring...
a year ago
26
a year ago
What’s going on in the minds of people who appear to be comatose? This has been an enduring neurological question from the beginning of neurology as a discipline. Recent technological advances have completely changed the game in terms of evaluating comatose patients, and now a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Dog Soundboards I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have...
6 months ago
49
6 months ago
I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have been. They pick up on subtle body language and non-verbal cues, they seem to understand specific words, and they are capable of successfully communicating their wants and desires....
ToughSF
Particle Beams in Space Science fiction is missing a realistic and grounded look at particle beams. We plan to do just that...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
Science fiction is missing a realistic and grounded look at particle beams. We plan to do just that now.   After reading this, you might decide to give particle beams their rightful place alongside lasers as a means of transmitting power, propelling spacecraft or dealing damage...
NeuroLogica Blog
Do We Have Free Will? Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free will? This comes up not infrequently whenever I write here about neuroscience, most recently when I wrote about hunger circuitry, because the notion of the brain as a physical...
brr
Pressure Altitude Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
a year ago
Confessions of a...
My Teaching Philosophy As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern as part of the PTIS scheme.  Central to this portfolio is a personal teaching philosophy, detailing why teaching is important to me, what my objectives are as a teacher, what...
Asterisk
The Great Inflection? A Debate About AI and Explosive Growth A conversation about what happens to the economy when intelligence becomes too cheap to meter.
a year ago
brr
Last Flight Out Good-byes, and the beginning of winter isolation.
over a year ago
The Roots of...
What does it mean to “trust science”? And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me...
a year ago
18
a year ago
And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, science definitely exists—I’ve seen it. But not everything that calls itself science is science, and even good science sometimes gets wrong results. –Megan McArdle Should...
SubAnima
When Does Life Begin? What *actually* makes conception special?
over a year ago
Beautiful Public...
Photologging Vans These sequences are from New York and Connecticut’s state photolog archives, which I obtained...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
These sequences are from New York and Connecticut’s state photolog archives, which I obtained through public records requests. Almost every state’s highway departments had highway photolog programs, some dating back as early as 1961. These sequences were captured by specially...
Blog - Practical...
Why There's a Legal Price for a Human Life [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] One of the very first...
a year ago
78
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] One of the very first documented engineering disasters happened in 27 AD in the early days of the Roman Empire. A freed slave named Atilius built a wooden amphitheater in a town called Fidenae outside of Rome....
The Roots of...
The American Information Revolution in Global Perspective In “What if they gave an Industrial Revolution and nobody came?” I reviewed The British Industrial...
a year ago
56
a year ago
In “What if they gave an Industrial Revolution and nobody came?” I reviewed The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, by Robert Allen. In brief, Allen’s explanation for the Industrial Revolution is that Britain had high wages and cheap energy, which meant it was...
Stephen Wolfram...
Can AI Solve Science? Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for...
a year ago
50
a year ago
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for training the neural nets used here is also available (requires GPU). Won’t AI Eventually Be Able to Do Everything? Particularly given its recent surprise successes, there’s a somewhat...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Neuroscience of Constructed Languages Language is an interesting neurological function to study. No animal other than humans has such a...
5 days ago
6
5 days ago
Language is an interesting neurological function to study. No animal other than humans has such a highly developed dedicated language processing area, or languages as complex and nuanced as humans. Although, whale language is more complex than we previously thought, but still not...
Math Is Still...
Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count By making use of randomness, a team has created a simple algorithm for estimating large numbers of...
10 months ago
85
10 months ago
By making use of randomness, a team has created a simple algorithm for estimating large numbers of distinct objects in a stream of data. The post Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Confidently Wrong How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and...
5 months ago
46
5 months ago
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and do you have a process for determining what your confidence level should be or do you just follow your gut feelings? Thinking about confidence is a form of metacognition – thinking...
Math Is Still...
In a ‘Dark Dimension,’ Physicists Search for the Universe’s Missing Matter An idea derived from string theory suggests that dark matter is hiding in a (relatively) large extra...
a year ago
54
a year ago
An idea derived from string theory suggests that dark matter is hiding in a (relatively) large extra dimension. The theory makes testable predictions that physicists are investigating now. The post In a ‘Dark Dimension,’ Physicists Search for the Universe’s Missing...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 9: Tinamous In the Amazon To Rare Montane Monkeys (February 11, 2024) February 11, 2024 Our alarm went off at 4:30 AM and at 5:00 AM we began the long, windy drive in the...
9 months ago
4
9 months ago
February 11, 2024 Our alarm went off at 4:30 AM and at 5:00 AM we began the long, windy drive in the dark across the Andes. The reason for our early start is that we had a date with tinamous and wood-quails at a small family-run reserve called Arena Blanca. Our contact at the...
Math Is Still...
‘Magical’ Error Correction Scheme Proved Inherently Inefficient Locally correctable codes need barely any information to fix errors, but they’re extremely long. Now...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Locally correctable codes need barely any information to fix errors, but they’re extremely long. Now we know that the simplest versions can’t get any shorter. The post ‘Magical’ Error Correction Scheme Proved Inherently Inefficient first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Riding Sunbeams with Solar Sails Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the...
a year ago
5
a year ago
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the Solar System, as many times as you want, any time of the year. Solar sails can carry passengers and they have a nearly unlimited number of uses. You just have to... think...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Bit of Energy Pseudoscience Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age well. The basic plot is that Nazi chemists during WWII developed a formula for synthetic gasoline. A detective investigating a murder gets embroiled in a conspiracy to cover up the...
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Need Sensors (and other structures too) [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Almost immediately after I...
a year ago
80
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Almost immediately after I started making videos about engineering, people started asking me to play video games on the channel. Apparently there’s roughly a billion people who watch online gaming these days,...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: Satellite Cities How to build new cities near existing ones
2 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
Assistive Tech at the End of Sight Seeing his words on the printed page is a big deal to Andrew Leland—as it is to all writers. But the...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Seeing his words on the printed page is a big deal to Andrew Leland—as it is to all writers. But the sight of his thoughts in written form is much more precious to him than to most scribes. Leland is gradually losing his vision due to a congenital condition called retinitis...
Math Is Still...
Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Explain Value of Shock Therapy Electroconvulsive therapy is highly effective in treating major depressive disorder, but no one...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Electroconvulsive therapy is highly effective in treating major depressive disorder, but no one knows why it works. New research suggests it may restore balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain. The post Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Explain Value of...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Manukan Island And The Tempasuk Plain October 18, 2024 Following our adventure at Trus Madi, our remaining time in Borneo had dwindled to...
3 months ago
6
3 months ago
October 18, 2024 Following our adventure at Trus Madi, our remaining time in Borneo had dwindled to just three days. On October 19 we planned to visit a hide often attended by the Bornean Peacock-Pheasant.  This gave us October 18th as a free day.  After mulling over a few other...
Math Is Still...
Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to ‘Peak’ Fitness Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful adaptations. But a new study of “fitness landscapes” and antibiotic resistance in bacteria shows that life still finds a way. The post Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to...
Blog - Practical...
Connecting Solar to the Grid is Harder Than You Think [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On June 4, 2022, a small piece...
11 months ago
84
11 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On June 4, 2022, a small piece of equipment (called a lightning arrestor) at a power plant in Odessa, Texas failed, causing part of the plant to trip offline. It was a fairly typical fault that happens from...
Blog - Practical...
What Happens When a Reservoir Goes Dry? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In June of 2022, the level in...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In June of 2022, the level in Lake Mead, the largest water reservoir in the United States formed by the Hoover Dam, reached yet another all-time low of 175 feet or 53 meters below full, a level that hasn’t been...
NeuroLogica Blog
Panspermia Again Recently I was asked what I thought about this video, which suggests it is possible that life formed...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Recently I was asked what I thought about this video, which suggests it is possible that life formed in the early universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Although no mentioned specifically in the video, the ideas presents are essentially panspermia – the idea that life formed in...
Asterisk
Why You’ve Never Been In A Plane Crash The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when...
a year ago
12
a year ago
The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when accidents do happen.
Math Is Still...
The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made...
6 months ago
52
6 months ago
Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made the world ring. Finding its cause took 68 scientists and an assist by the Danish military. The post The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight first...
NeuroLogica Blog
How Were the Pyramids Built? The Egyptian pyramids, and especially the Pyramids at Giza, have fascinated people probably since...
10 months ago
60
10 months ago
The Egyptian pyramids, and especially the Pyramids at Giza, have fascinated people probably since their construction between 4700 and 3700 years ago. They are massive structures, and it boggles the mind that an ancient culture, without the benefit of any industrial technology,...
Marine Madness
Book Club: ‘The Island of Sea Women’ by Lisa See Little is known about Jeju- a Korean island- occupied by brutal Japanese troops in the 1930s and...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
Little is known about Jeju- a Korean island- occupied by brutal Japanese troops in the 1930s and ’40s, later liberated by US forces and turned over to the even more barbarous Korean regime whose wrongdoings were overlooked by both American and U.N. occupiers. Lisa See travels...
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A...
6 months ago
63
6 months ago
Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A surprisingly simple construction has given them an answer. The post Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem first appeared on Quanta...
Math Is Still...
Physicists Discover ‘Unobservable’ Phase Transition in Quantum Entanglement Measurement and entanglement both have a “spooky” nonlocal flavor to them. Now physicists are...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Measurement and entanglement both have a “spooky” nonlocal flavor to them. Now physicists are harnessing that nonlocality to probe the spread of quantum information and control it. The post Physicists Discover ‘Unobservable’ Phase Transition in Quantum Entanglement...
Quantum Frontiers
Memories of things past My best friend—who’s held the title of best friend since kindergarten—calls me the keeper of her...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
My best friend—who’s held the title of best friend since kindergarten—calls me the keeper of her childhood memories. I recall which toys we played with, the first time I visited her house,1 and which beverages our classmates drank during snack … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
Washington Post on Past Lives Generally speaking the mainstream media does a terrible job of reporting anything in the realm of...
10 months ago
81
10 months ago
Generally speaking the mainstream media does a terrible job of reporting anything in the realm of pseudoscience or the paranormal. The Washington Post’s recent article on children who apparently remember their past lives is no exception. Journalists generally don’t have the...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
US Independence Day Tikalon is on a short holiday in celebration of US Independence Day, July 4, 2024. Our next article...
8 months ago
8
8 months ago
Tikalon is on a short holiday in celebration of US Independence Day, July 4, 2024. Our next article will be posted on Monday, July 15, 2024. View my version of the iconic image of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River in which he encounters some unusually large...
NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Diamond Boom The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us...
a year ago
41
a year ago
The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us something about a post-scarcity world. Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. However, it like to form with other elements and therefore it was very difficulty to...
Math Is Still...
AI Starts to Sift Through String Theory’s Near-Endless Possibilities Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra...
11 months ago
70
11 months ago
Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra dimensions translate into sets of elementary particles — though not yet those of our universe. The post AI Starts to Sift Through String Theory’s Near-Endless...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunger Circuitry One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature...
a year ago
26
a year ago
One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature of being alive – maintaining homeostatic equilibrium both internally and externally. Homeostatic systems usually involve multiple feedback loops that maintain some physiological...
Asterisk
Half A Million Kinksters Can’t Be Wrong The story of how one independent researcher conducted the largest-ever survey on fetishes, and what...
a year ago
10
a year ago
The story of how one independent researcher conducted the largest-ever survey on fetishes, and what it has to teach us about sex, pleasure, and social science methodology.
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: The Salton Sea Salton City and Bombay Beach could flourish with industry and tourism
2 months ago
Interaction Magic -...
Hacking the terrorist timepiece The hardest part of building hardware interfaces is not having the right tools to prototype, test...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
The hardest part of building hardware interfaces is not having the right tools to prototype, test and validate ideas. A behind the scenes look at my prototyping process, on a project to re-invent the famous Casio F-91W watch.
Asterisk
My Primal Scream of Rage: The Big Alcohol Study That Didn't Happen Five years ago, the National Institutes of Health cancelled the largest study on alcohol ever...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Five years ago, the National Institutes of Health cancelled the largest study on alcohol ever planned. Here’s why — and why you should be mad too.
Uncharted...
GeoHistory News | Q3 2024 Longshoremen strike, Mexico – Spain conflict, how Islam propelled Europe more than Protestantism,...
5 months ago
19
5 months ago
Longshoremen strike, Mexico – Spain conflict, how Islam propelled Europe more than Protestantism, and more
The Works in...
Degrowth and the monkey's paw Fifteen years ago, when I worked in the “social innovation” field, there was a world-view that was...
a year ago
107
a year ago
Fifteen years ago, when I worked in the “social innovation” field, there was a world-view that was very popular among my colleagues about what was wrong with society and how to fix it. The idea was that people and governments needed to stop seeing economic growth as a good thing,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Unifying Cognitive Biases Are you familiar with the “lumper vs splitter” debate? This refers to any situation in which there...
over a year ago
76
over a year ago
Are you familiar with the “lumper vs splitter” debate? This refers to any situation in which there is some controversy over exactly how to categorize complex phenomena, specifically whether or not to favor the fewest categories based on similarities, or the greatest number of...
Wanderingspace
URANUS FROM THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE This is not natural light, nothing is from Webb. The infrared image combines data from two filters...
a year ago
19
a year ago
This is not natural light, nothing is from Webb. The infrared image combines data from two filters which are shown in blue and orange,. The planet displays a blue hue in the resulting representative-color image which is similar to the planet’s actual color. But in reality Uranus...
Uncharted...
10 Interesting Facts on Relationships & Sex Q1 2025
23 hours ago
NeuroLogica Blog
How Much Do Couples Share Traits? Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms,...
a year ago
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a year ago
Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms, which means that they are commonly offered as generally accepted truths, but also that they may by wrong. People like pithy phrases, so they spread prolifically, but that does not mean...
NeuroLogica Blog
Concrete Battery I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about...
9 months ago
75
9 months ago
I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about concrete, or potential version of concrete that is able to function as a battery. If we can get the technology to work this could an extremely useful item for a future of green...
Math Is Still...
How the Ancient Art of Eclipse Prediction Became an Exact Science The timing of the total eclipse on April 8, 2024, will be known to within a second, thousands of...
11 months ago
50
11 months ago
The timing of the total eclipse on April 8, 2024, will be known to within a second, thousands of years after fearful humans first started trying to anticipate these cosmic events. The post How the Ancient Art of Eclipse Prediction Became an Exact Science first...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Breakfast with g IQ, lived experience, and my boyfriend’s underpants
over a year ago
Math Is Still...
Invisible ‘Demon’ Discovered in Odd Superconductor Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all but invisible. Now physicists have spotted these “demon modes.” The post Invisible ‘Demon’ Discovered in Odd Superconductor first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Read This, Not That: The Hidden Cost of Nutrition Misinformation Our daily lives are inundated with misleading claims about nutrition. That’s not just distracting —...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Our daily lives are inundated with misleading claims about nutrition. That’s not just distracting — it’s also harming our health.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Cool Ideas For Dentistry + Medicine With Nisarg Patel | Out-Of-Pocket plus what actually happens in the operating room?
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Rails Shaped Like That? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Maybe more than any other type...
a year ago
33
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Maybe more than any other type of infrastructure, railways have a contingent of devoted enthusiasts. “Railfans” as they call themselves; Or should say “ourselves”? Maybe it's the nostalgia of an earlier era or...
Asterisk
The Making of Community Notes The team that built X’s Community Notes talks about their design process and the philosophy behind...
4 months ago
12
4 months ago
The team that built X’s Community Notes talks about their design process and the philosophy behind their approach to combatting false information on the platform.
Cremieux Recueil
Woke Madness Why do more left-wing individuals tend to be more mentally ill?
6 months ago
Interaction Magic -...
Plastic archeology The history, science and engineering of Lego bricks, on the cusp between trash and treasure.
a year ago
Math Is Still...
How a NASA Probe Solved a Scorching Solar Mystery The outer layers of the sun’s atmosphere are a blistering million degrees hotter than its surface....
11 months ago
72
11 months ago
The outer layers of the sun’s atmosphere are a blistering million degrees hotter than its surface. The hidden culprit? Magnetic activity. The post How a NASA Probe Solved a Scorching Solar Mystery first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Multipurpose Superconducting Highway When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very...
a year ago
39
a year ago
When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very bottom of the pyramid is pure speculation, just throwing out “what if” ideas to feed the conceptual pipeline. A subset of these ideas will pass the sniff test enough to justify...
Asterisk
Why Worry?
a year ago
wadertales
UK waders: “Into the Red” If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most conservation concern in the UK, they would probably not include Dunlin. Curlew may well be top of their lists, even though the most recent population estimate is 58,500 breeding pairs, but...
NeuroLogica Blog
Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Ready for Testing It was six years ago that I first wrote about NASA’s X-59 QueSST project, contracted to Lockheed...
a year ago
38
a year ago
It was six years ago that I first wrote about NASA’s X-59 QueSST project, contracted to Lockheed Martin. Now the plane has finally been built and is ready for testing. At the time it was reported that NASA “had a design” for a quiet supersonic jet, one that would not create a...
Math Is Still...
How Many Microbes Does It Take to Make You Sick? Exposure to a virus isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. The concept of “infectious dose” suggests...
a year ago
28
a year ago
Exposure to a virus isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. The concept of “infectious dose” suggests ways to keep ourselves safer from harm. The post How Many Microbes Does It Take to Make You Sick? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Secret Research Techniques | Out-Of-Pocket A magician always reveals his tricks for the purposes of engagement
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on Self-Driving Cars The story has become a classic of failed futurism – driverless or self-driving cars were supposed...
a year ago
11
a year ago
The story has become a classic of failed futurism – driverless or self-driving cars were supposed start taking over the roads as early as 2020. But that didn’t happen – it turned that the last 5% of capability was about as difficult to develop as the first 95%. Around 2015 I...
Math Is Still...
The Tiny Physics Behind Immense Cosmic Eruptions A new theory describes how particle interactions fuel fast magnetic reconnection, the process behind...
a year ago
50
a year ago
A new theory describes how particle interactions fuel fast magnetic reconnection, the process behind solar flares and other astrophysical jets. The post The Tiny Physics Behind Immense Cosmic Eruptions first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Pharmacies Inside-and-Out With John Capecelatro | Out-Of-Pocket How does a pharmacy actually work?
a year ago
The Works in...
Special Issue 01: Lost in Stagnation Dude, where is my flying car?
over a year ago
symmetry magazine
What the Higgs boson tells us about the universe The Higgs boson is the only fundamental particle known to be scalar, meaning it has no quantum spin....
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
The Higgs boson is the only fundamental particle known to be scalar, meaning it has no quantum spin. This fact answers questions about our universe, but it also raises new ones. When it was first discovered in 2012, the Higgs boson captured the popular...
Math Is Still...
Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive Ten years ago, researchers proved that adding full memory can theoretically aid computation. They’re...
a month ago
28
a month ago
Ten years ago, researchers proved that adding full memory can theoretically aid computation. They’re just now beginning to understand the implications. The post Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 13: Quebrada El Limón And The Last Of The Northwest (February 16-18,... February 16, 2024 The town of Olmos isn't the most picturesque in Peru. Situated in the coastal...
a month ago
7
a month ago
February 16, 2024 The town of Olmos isn't the most picturesque in Peru. Situated in the coastal desert, the streets are dusty, the wind is always present and the roads are potholed. It is certainly not a town that caters to tourists, and I doubt many stop here. But an advantage...
Wanderingspace
Eclipse 2024 from Space https://twitter.com/ThePlanetaryGuy
11 months ago
Math Is Still...
The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps...
3 weeks ago
16
3 weeks ago
Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps collectively construct a variety of coral shapes. The post The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
How Engineers Straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Long ago, maybe upwards of 1-2...
a year ago
85
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Long ago, maybe upwards of 1-2 million years ago, a river in the central part of what’s now Italy, emptied into what’s now the Ligurian Sea. It still does, by the way, but it did back then too. As the sea rose...
IEEE Spectrum
How Antivirus Software Has Changed With the Internet We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the...
2 months ago
37
2 months ago
We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the Internet itself: The first version of what would become McAfee antivirus came out in 1987—just four years after the Internet booted up. For many of us, antivirus software is an...