Blog - Practical...
Why Rivers Move
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is a map of the...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is a map of the Mississippi River drafted by legendary geologist Harold Fisk. It’s part of a fairly unassuming geological report that he wrote in 1944 for Army Corps of Engineers, but the maps he produced...
Beautiful Public...
Mapping Volcano Eruptions With Drones
Drones have become an essential tool to map, measure and observe the extremely dangerous...
a year ago
Drones have become an essential tool to map, measure and observe the extremely dangerous environments surrounding volcanic eruptions.
Asterisk
The Highway to NIMBYism
San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up...
7 months ago
San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up by highways. Today, that same legacy prevents the city from building what it desperately needs: more housing.
Inverted Passion
How to be a messy thinker
I love thinking about thinking. Give me a research paper on rationality, cognitive biases or mental...
7 months ago
I love thinking about thinking. Give me a research paper on rationality, cognitive biases or mental models, and I’ll gobble it up. Given the amount of knowledge I’ve ingested on these topics, I had always assumed that I’m a clear thinker. Recently, though, it hit me like a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Finding Small Primordial Black Holes
Astrophysicists come up with a lot of whacky ideas, some of which actually turn out to be possibly...
2 weeks ago
Astrophysicists come up with a lot of whacky ideas, some of which actually turn out to be possibly true (like the Big Bang, black holes, accelerating cosmic expansion, dark matter). Of course, all of these conclusions are provisional, but some are now backed by compelling...
NeuroLogica Blog
More On Electric Vehicles
I recently wrote about electric vehicles, which sparked a lively discussion in the comments. There...
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...
Blog - Practical...
Why Railroads Don't Need Expansion Joints
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
One of the most common...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
One of the most common attributes folks imagine when they think of trains is the clickety-clack sound they make as they roll down the tracks. The thing is, most trains don’t make that sound anymore. Or really,...
pcloadletter
Somewhere along the way we forgot about software craftsmanship
"Ship it!"
"We're agile now, baby. Move fast and break things!""
"We measure our engineers by the...
10 months ago
"Ship it!"
"We're agile now, baby. Move fast and break things!""
"We measure our engineers by the impact they have!"
Somewhere along the way, in the midst of the agilification of software, or the software engineer salary gold rush, we forgot about craftsmanship.
I have been in...
Math Is Still...
In Our Cellular Clocks, She’s Found a Lifetime of Discoveries
For decades, Carrie Partch has led pioneering structural research on the protein clockwork that...
a year ago
For decades, Carrie Partch has led pioneering structural research on the protein clockwork that keeps time for our circadian rhythm. Is time still on her side?
The post In Our Cellular Clocks, She’s Found a Lifetime of Discoveries first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Damn Interesting
The Rube’s Dilemma
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly...
over a year ago
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly colored ribbon tied around the crown. Originally popularized by gondoliers in Venice, this jaunty accessory had reached the height of American couture by the turn of the 20th century....
Asterisk
Behind Closed Doors
In 2020, we worried that COVID lockdowns might lead to an increase in domestic violence. Instead,...
a year ago
In 2020, we worried that COVID lockdowns might lead to an increase in domestic violence. Instead, the opposite occurred. Why did this happen — and why was it so hard to figure out?
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printed Rocket Launches
This is one of those technology news stories where the implications of the technology is greater...
a year ago
This is one of those technology news stories where the implications of the technology is greater than the thing itself. Relativity Space, a rocket company based in California, launched their first Terran-1 rocket. The launch ultimately failed when the second stage failed to...
NeuroLogica Blog
Indigenous Knowledge
I recently received the following question to the SGU e-mail: “I have had several conversations with...
8 months ago
I recently received the following question to the SGU e-mail: “I have had several conversations with friends/colleagues lately regarding indigenous beliefs/stories. They assert that not believing these based on oral histories alone is morally wrong and ignoring a different...
The Roots of...
Who regulates the regulators?
IRBs
Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review...
a year ago
IRBs
Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review the ethics of medical trials: From Oversight to Overkill, by Dr. Simon Whitney. From the title alone, you can see where this is going.
IRBs are supposed to (among other things)...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Asteroid Probably Won’t Hit Earth
NASA recently discovered a 50 meter wide asteroid whose orbit will come close to Earth. They...
a year ago
NASA recently discovered a 50 meter wide asteroid whose orbit will come close to Earth. They estimate a close approach in 2046, which will likely bring the asteroid within 1.1 million miles of the Earth, about four times the distance of the moon. However, there is always...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Too much money in digital health? | Out-Of-Pocket
trying a new format out
a year ago
The Works in...
The Maintenance Race was just the beginning
A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
a year ago
A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
The Roots of...
Neither EA nor e/acc is what we need to build the future
Over the last few years, effective altruism has gone through a rise-and-fall story arc worthy of any...
a year ago
Over the last few years, effective altruism has gone through a rise-and-fall story arc worthy of any dramatic tragedy.
The pandemic made them look prescient for warning about global catastrophic risks, including biosafety. A masterful book launch put them on the cover of TIME....
symmetry magazine
India’s gem at CERN: Archana Sharma
The first Indian scientist to join CERN was recently recognized with the highest honor of India for...
a year ago
The first Indian scientist to join CERN was recently recognized with the highest honor of India for overseas citizens.
nanoscale views
2024 version: Advice on choosing a graduate school
It's been four years since I posted the previous version of this, so it feels like the time is right...
10 months ago
It's been four years since I posted the previous version of this, so it feels like the time is right for an update.
This is written on the assumption that you have already decided, after careful consideration, that you want to get an advanced degree (in physics, though much of...
Math Is Still...
The Number 15 Describes the Secret Limit of an Infinite Grid
The “packing coloring” problem asks how many numbers are needed to fill an infinite grid so that...
a year ago
The “packing coloring” problem asks how many numbers are needed to fill an infinite grid so that identical numbers never get too close to one another. A new computer-assisted proof finds a surprisingly straightforward answer.
The post The Number 15 Describes the...
Cremieux Recueil
The Ottoman Origins of Modernity
Would we have the modern world without Islamic incursion into Southeastern Europe?
3 months ago
Would we have the modern world without Islamic incursion into Southeastern Europe?
NeuroLogica Blog
Flooding is Increasing
Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm...
3 months ago
Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm was intense enough to cause flash flooding, which washed out roads and bridges and shut down traffic in many areas. The epicenter of the rainfall was in Oxford, CT (where my...
Math Is Still...
The Researcher Who Explores Computation by Conjuring New Worlds
Russell Impagliazzo studies hard problems, the limits of cryptography, the nature of randomness and...
9 months ago
Russell Impagliazzo studies hard problems, the limits of cryptography, the nature of randomness and more.
The post The Researcher Who Explores Computation by Conjuring New Worlds first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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
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
[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....
Math Is Still...
With ‘Digital Twins,’ The Doctor Will See You Now
By creating digital twins of patients, Amanda Randles wants to bring unprecedented precision to...
4 months ago
By creating digital twins of patients, Amanda Randles wants to bring unprecedented precision to medical forecasts.
The post With ‘Digital Twins,’ The Doctor Will See You Now first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Pleasure or Pain? He Maps the Neural Circuits That Decide.
The work of the neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has opened up a world of insights into precisely...
8 months ago
The work of the neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has opened up a world of insights into precisely how much pleasure and pain animals experience during different forms of touch.
The post Pleasure or Pain? He Maps the Neural Circuits That Decide. first appeared on...
Blog - Practical...
What Is A Black Start Of The Power Grid?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
November 1965 saw one of the...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
November 1965 saw one of the most widespread power outages in North American history. On the freezing cold evening of the 9th, the grid was operating at maximum capacity as people tried to stay warm when a...
nanoscale views
Seeing through your head - diffuse imaging
From the medical diagnostic perspective (and for many other applications), you can understand why it...
2 weeks ago
From the medical diagnostic perspective (and for many other applications), you can understand why it might be very convenient to be able to perform some kind of optical imaging of the interior of what you'd ordinarily consider opaque objects. Even when a wavelength range is...
The Works in...
ARIA: Betting on science
An inside look at Britain's new DARPA
a year ago
An inside look at Britain's new DARPA
Math Is Still...
Meet the Eukaryote, the First Cell to Get Organized
All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a...
a month ago
All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a knack for compartmentalization. Recent discoveries are revealing how the first eukaryote got its start.
The post Meet the Eukaryote, the First Cell to Get Organized first...
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...
a week 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...
Math Is Still...
New Elliptic Curve Breaks 18-Year-Old Record
Two mathematicians have renewed a debate about the fundamental nature of some of math’s most...
a month ago
Two mathematicians have renewed a debate about the fundamental nature of some of math’s most important equations.
The post New Elliptic Curve Breaks 18-Year-Old Record 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...
7 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...
Probably...
Comparing Distributions
This is the second is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
a month ago
This is the second is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 8, which is about representing distribution using PMFs and CDFs. This section explains why I think CDFs are often better for plotting...
Math Is Still...
The Computing Pioneer Helping AI See
Alexei Efros has spent his career learning how machines see differently from humans. Now he’s...
a year ago
Alexei Efros has spent his career learning how machines see differently from humans. Now he’s helping to bridge the gap.
The post The Computing Pioneer Helping AI See first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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.
Asterisk
How Long Til We’re All on Ozempic?
Over 100 million Americans, and possibly many more, could benefit from GLP-1 drugs. When can they...
5 months ago
Over 100 million Americans, and possibly many more, could benefit from GLP-1 drugs. When can they expect to get them?
Asterisk
Through a Glass Darkly
Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
a year ago
Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
Cremieux Recueil
American Elections Are Unfair
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
a month ago
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
Cremieux Recueil
Eliminating Distractions in Longevity Research
Longevity maximizers should invest in biotechnology, not modifiable lifestyle factors
2 months ago
Longevity maximizers should invest in biotechnology, not modifiable lifestyle factors
NeuroLogica Blog
JET Fusion Experiment Sets New Record
Don’t get excited. It’s always nice to see incremental progress being made with the various fusion...
10 months ago
Don’t get excited. It’s always nice to see incremental progress being made with the various fusion experiments happening around the world, but we are still a long way off from commercial fusion power, and this experiment doesn’t really bring us any close, despite the headlines....
Math Is Still...
How Pools of Genetic Diversity Affect a Species’ Fate
A new, deeper understanding of how the breeding structure of species affects their genetic diversity...
a year ago
A new, deeper understanding of how the breeding structure of species affects their genetic diversity is giving conservationists better tools for saving animals.
The post How Pools of Genetic Diversity Affect a Species’ Fate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Last Flight Out
Good-byes, and the beginning of winter isolation.
a year ago
Good-byes, and the beginning of winter isolation.
IEEE Spectrum
Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story
In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the...
a year ago
In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the Apple II team, who had proposed that Apple Computer Inc. make a low-cost “appliance”-type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster. Mr. Raskin believed the computer he...
IEEE Spectrum
Chuck E. Cheese’s Animatronics Band Bows Out
That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that...
2 weeks ago
That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that the company was phasing out the animatronic bands from all but five locations by the end of this year, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. Much to my surprise, I was truly sad that the...
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Cooling Towers Shaped Like That?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is not smoke. And this...
a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is not smoke. And this isn’t a smoke stack (at least not the kind we normally think of). It serves a totally different purpose at a power plant than smoke stacks whose job is moving combustion products...
Uncharted...
Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps: Why Do People Live Where They Live in the...
Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps
2 days ago
Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps
The Works in...
Introducing Gentle Density
A new series from Works in Progress
a year ago
A new series from Works in Progress
Asterisk
It’s 2024 and Drought is Optional
In the early 20th century, the United States diverted and dammed nearly every major river that runs...
7 months ago
In the early 20th century, the United States diverted and dammed nearly every major river that runs through the West, ushering in an era of unparalleled dominion over water. Today, California once again struggles with water scarcity — but solar energy could change all that.
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...
5 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...
Math Is Still...
‘Embryo Models’ Challenge Legal, Ethical and Biological Concepts
With embryolike constructs built entirely from stem cells, researchers can revolutionize our...
a year ago
With embryolike constructs built entirely from stem cells, researchers can revolutionize our understanding of development. But how close to an embryo is too close?
The post ‘Embryo Models’ Challenge Legal, Ethical and Biological Concepts first appeared on Quanta...
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
Scientists, artists, communicators and physics fans find creative ways to mark the unofficial holiday devoted to dark matter.
Math Is Still...
How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles
In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler...
3 months ago
In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler explains that the origin of mass in the universe has a lot to do with music.
The post How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles first appeared on...
The Roots of...
The Commission for Stopping Further Improvements
On May 24, 1847, a bridge over the Dee River in Chester, England, collapsed. A passenger train...
a year ago
On May 24, 1847, a bridge over the Dee River in Chester, England, collapsed. A passenger train plunged into the river; five people were killed and nine seriously injured.
The subsequent investigation blamed the bridge’s cast iron girders. Cast iron, like concrete but unlike...
nanoscale views
Food and (broadly speaking) fluid mechanics - great paper!
This paper (author's website pdf here, arxiv version here) is just a spectacularly good review...
a year ago
This paper (author's website pdf here, arxiv version here) is just a spectacularly good review article about fluid mechanics (broadly defined to include a bit about foams and viscoelastic systems) and food/drink. The article is broadly structured like a menu (drinks & cocktails...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Ice Formation
In today's bigger is better world, you don't order a large coffee, you order a 20 fluid ounce Venti...
4 months ago
In today's bigger is better world, you don't order a large coffee, you order a 20 fluid ounce Venti coffee. From 1987 through 2004, McDonald's restaurants had a supersize option for larger than large portions of its French fries and soft drinks. The prefix, super, has been used...
Math Is Still...
Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine...
a year ago
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to mRNA vaccines, such as those that protect against COVID-19.
The post Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023 first appeared on...
Math Is Still...
How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction?
With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about...
a month ago
With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about all sorts of complex phenomena. Today, this practice is evolving to harness the power of machine learning and massive datasets. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with...
Marine Madness
Penguin Problems: Are human-induced food shortages driving population declines?
We all love penguins. Clumsy and awkward on land, stealthy and precise underwater- these charismatic...
over a year ago
We all love penguins. Clumsy and awkward on land, stealthy and precise underwater- these charismatic creatures have captured our hearts ever since the release of March of the Penguins. Unfortunately, penguin populations across the globe (especially in South Africa and Antarctica)...
IEEE Spectrum
Inside the Three-Way Race to Create the Most Widely Used Laser
The semiconductor laser, invented more than 60 years ago, is the foundation of many of today’s...
5 months ago
The semiconductor laser, invented more than 60 years ago, is the foundation of many of today’s technologies including barcode scanners, fiber-optic communications, medical imaging, and remote controls. The tiny, versatile device is now an IEEE Milestone.
The possibilities of...
Chris Grossack's...
Monoidal Monoidoidoids
So I was on the nlab the other day, and I saw a fantastic joke:
A 2-category is “just” a monoidal...
over a year ago
So I was on the nlab the other day, and I saw a fantastic joke:
A 2-category is “just” a monoidal monoidoidoid! Here’s a screenshot
in case the nlab page for 2-categories changes someday:
There’s a thing called the Category Theorist’s “Just”, which describes
the joy that many...
NeuroLogica Blog
Washington Post on Past Lives
Generally speaking the mainstream media does a terrible job of reporting anything in the realm of...
7 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...
Math Is Still...
Risky Giant Steps Can Solve Optimization Problems Faster
New results break with decades of conventional wisdom for the gradient descent algorithm. ...
a year ago
New results break with decades of conventional wisdom for the gradient descent algorithm.
The post Risky Giant Steps Can Solve Optimization Problems Faster first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Uncover a New Way to Count Prime Numbers
To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to...
a week ago
To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to an unlikely source.
The post Mathematicians Uncover a New Way to Count Prime Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It
New research finds that the memories useful for future generalizations are held in the brain...
a year ago
New research finds that the memories useful for future generalizations are held in the brain separately from those recording unusual events.
The post The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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...
The Works in...
The entrepreneurial state
How state competition – through war – can drive institutional progress
11 months ago
How state competition – through war – can drive institutional progress
The Works in...
Three Maintenance Philosophies Fought for Control of the Auto Industry
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Math Is Still...
Secret Messages Can Hide in AI-Generated Media
In steganography, an ordinary message masks the presence of a secret communication. Humans can never...
a year ago
In steganography, an ordinary message masks the presence of a secret communication. Humans can never do it perfectly, but a new study shows it’s possible for machines.
The post Secret Messages Can Hide in AI-Generated Media first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
Practice makes perfect (particle detectors)
Prototyping is an indispensable step in the development of particle physics experiments like DUNE...
a year ago
Prototyping is an indispensable step in the development of particle physics experiments like DUNE and projects like PIP-II.
When complete, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or DUNE, will be the world’s most comprehensive neutrino experiment—and...
The Works in...
The concept of sustainment
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Asterisk
When RAND Made Magic in Santa Monica
RAND’s halcyon days lasted two decades, during which the corporation produced some of the most...
6 months ago
RAND’s halcyon days lasted two decades, during which the corporation produced some of the most influential developments in science and American foreign policy. So how did it become just another think tank?
Marine Madness
Culture Club: Time to let the cetaceans in?
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent...
over a year ago
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent studies shine a light on the fact that non-human animals including Cetaceans (dolphins and whales), may also possess it. They live in tightly-knit social communities, exhibit...
Chris Grossack's...
Preprint -- The RAAG Functor as a Categorical Embedding
After almost a year of sitting on my hard drive, I finally had time in
August to finish revising my...
a year ago
After almost a year of sitting on my hard drive, I finally had time in
August to finish revising my new preprint on
Right Angled Artin Groups (Raags). And in September I had time to put
it on the arxiv for people to see! Within 24 hours I had an email from
somebody who had...
Wanderingspace
Colorized View of Perseverance Landing
An artificially colorized view of Jezero Crater, showing the bird’s eye view of Perseverance...
over a year ago
An artificially colorized view of Jezero Crater, showing the bird’s eye view of Perseverance screaming towards Mars’s surface. The above image was enhanced by Kevin Gill into full color, taking images captured by Perseverance’s Lander Vision System Camera just after the heat...
Math Is Still...
Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy...
10 months ago
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy clusters. If confirmed, the approach could be used to reveal where cosmic magnetic fields come from.
The post Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields...
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...
4 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...
IEEE Spectrum
Sci-fi and Hi-fi
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire...
9 months 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Potential of AI + CRISPR
In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors...
3 months ago
In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I discuss the incredible potential of information-based technologies. As we increasingly transition to digital technology, we can leverage the increasing power of computer...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Fitbits, Bundled Payments, and Rollercoasters | Out-Of-Pocket
some papers I think are cool
a year ago
some papers I think are cool
NeuroLogica Blog
New Generation of Electric Robots
Boston Dynamics (now owned by Hyundai) has revealed its electric version of its Atlas robot. These...
8 months ago
Boston Dynamics (now owned by Hyundai) has revealed its electric version of its Atlas robot. These robot videos always look impressive, but at the very least we know that we are seeing the best take. We don’t know how many times the robot failed to get the one great video. There...
Melting Asphalt
Crony Beliefs
[Note: if you prefer audio, you can listen to this essay narrated by Grognor on his excellent...
over a year ago
[Note: if you prefer audio, you can listen to this essay narrated by Grognor on his excellent podcast Second Enumerations. —Ed.] Credits up front: This essay draws heavily from Overcoming Bias, Less Wrong, Slate Star Codex, Robert Kurzban, Robert…
Read more ›
The Works in...
Should you infect yourself with Zika?
What life is like in a challenge trial
8 months ago
What life is like in a challenge trial
IEEE Spectrum
Why L. Ron Hubbard Patented His E-Meter
zombie mysteries, historical fiction, pirate adventure tales, and westerns.
science fiction. The...
8 months ago
zombie mysteries, historical fiction, pirate adventure tales, and westerns.
science fiction. The publishers of Astounding Science Fiction approached Hubbard to write stories that focused on people, rather than robots and machines. His first story, “The Dangerous Dimension,” was...
The Works in...
Escape to the country
What makes a successful New Town?
4 months ago
What makes a successful New Town?
Math Is Still...
Two Students Unravel a Widely Believed Math Conjecture
Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures...
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 Unravel a Widely Believed Math Conjecture first appeared on Quanta...
Asterisk
Why We Shut Down
In international development, it’s not enough to try to do good. We need the tools to tell if a...
5 months ago
In international development, it’s not enough to try to do good. We need the tools to tell if a project is really working — and the incentive to end it if it’s not.
Explorations of an...
A Tour Of The Western Galápagos Archipelago
The Galápagos archipelago is one of those must-visit destinations for anyone with an interest in...
a year ago
The Galápagos archipelago is one of those must-visit destinations for anyone with an interest in ecology, evolution, or biogeography. The islands are located in the eastern Pacific where a “hotspot” deep within the earth has been spewing magma for millions of years. The oldest...
NeuroLogica Blog
DNA Nanorobot Kill Switch for Cancer
How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in...
5 months ago
How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in question is: “A DNA robotic switch with regulated autonomous display of cytotoxic ligand nanopatterns.” The study is a proof of concept in an animal model, so we are still years away...
Probably...
Should divorce be more difficult?
“The Christian right is coming for divorce next,” according to this recent Vox article, and “Some...
6 months ago
“The Christian right is coming for divorce next,” according to this recent Vox article, and “Some conservatives want to make it a lot harder to dissolve a marriage.” As always when I read an article like this, I want to see data — and the General Social Survey has just the data I...
Quantum Frontiers
Mo’ heights mo’ challenges – Climbing mount grad school
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride,...
over a year ago
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride, Colorado. We spent ten days in Telluride, where I spoke at the Information Engines at the Frontiers of Nanoscale Thermodynamics workshop. Telluride is a gorgeous … Continue reading...
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...
2 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
SWORD Health And Virtual Musculoskeletal Care | Out-Of-Pocket
A first person account
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Nadir Crater – A Double Tap for Dinosaurs?
It is now generally accepted that 66 million years ago a large asteroid smacked into the Earth,...
2 months ago
It is now generally accepted that 66 million years ago a large asteroid smacked into the Earth, causing the large Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico. This was a catastrophic event, affecting the entire globe. Fire rained down causing forest fires across much of the globe,...
Asterisk
How Not To Predict The Future
Good forecasting thrives on a delicate balance of math, expertise, and…vibes.
9 months ago
Good forecasting thrives on a delicate balance of math, expertise, and…vibes.
Blog - Practical...
Is the World Really Running Out of Sand?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
If you have to know the answer...
2 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
If you have to know the answer right away, it’s no; or at least, my goal with this video is to convince you that the world is not running out of sand. But if it were that simple, I wouldn’t be here (right?) and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Science News in 2023
This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are...
a year ago
This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are what I consider to be the most impactful science news stories of 2023 (or at least the ones that caught by biased attention). This was a big year for medical breakthroughs. We are...
Drew Ex Machina
NASA’s Viking Mission & The Search for Life on Mars: The Experiments
For young space enthusiasts like myself growing up in the 1970s, NASA’s Viking mission to Mars was...
over a year ago
For young space enthusiasts like myself growing up in the 1970s, NASA’s Viking mission to Mars was one of the more exciting and memorable. The Viking […]
The Roots of...
Highlights from The Industrial Revolution, by T. S. Ashton
The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830, by Thomas S. Ashton, is classic in the field, published in...
a year ago
The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830, by Thomas S. Ashton, is classic in the field, published in 1948. Here are some of my highlights from it. (Emphasis in bold added by me.)
The role of chance
What was the role of chance in the inventions of the Industrial Revolution?
It is true...
The Works in...
Issue 14: A peasant surprise
Plus: Giving yourself the Zika virus, cut-and-cover railway tunnels, and more reasons to donate your...
10 months ago
Plus: Giving yourself the Zika virus, cut-and-cover railway tunnels, and more reasons to donate your organs.
Wanderingspace
Hope for Mars
Nothing really. Just a gorgeous image of Mars from the UAE Hope mission.
over a year ago
Nothing really. Just a gorgeous image of Mars from the UAE Hope mission.
ToughSF
Lasers, Mirrors and Star Pyramids
Lasers can hit targets at extreme ranges, at the fastest speed possible. They are ideal weapons for...
over a year ago
Lasers can hit targets at extreme ranges, at the fastest speed possible. They are ideal weapons for space warfare.
However, everyone knows that lasers bounce off mirrors... does this make lasers useless?
The post is inspired by the discussion that arose from the conclusions...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Companions – Good or Bad?
Often times the answer to a binary question is “yes”. Is artificial intelligence (AI) a powerful and...
5 months ago
Often times the answer to a binary question is “yes”. Is artificial intelligence (AI) a powerful and quickly advancing tool or is it overhyped? Yes. Are opiates useful medicines or dangerous drugs? Yes. Is Elon Musk a technological visionary or an eccentric opportunist? This is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Superconducting Kagome Metals
Superconductivity is an extremely interesting, and potentially extremely useful, physical...
3 months ago
Superconductivity is an extremely interesting, and potentially extremely useful, physical phenomenon. It refers to a state in which current flows through a material without resistance, and therefore without any loss of energy or waste heat. As our civilization is increasingly run...
Wanderingspace
Mars Express is Still Making Great Images 20 Years Later
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In...
3 months ago
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In one shot, you can see Mars as a half-lit disk, with Phobos, its tiny moon, hovering above. Right below Phobos is Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano, towering 22 km...
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
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...
ToughSF
Thermal Decomposition of CO2 with Nuclear Heat
A lot of
effort must and will be put into combating climate change. We can however
directly attack...
over a year ago
A lot of
effort must and will be put into combating climate change. We can however
directly attack the root cause of it by reducing the amount of CO2 that we have released
into the atmosphere.
We can enlist the help of
ultra-high-temperature nuclear reactors to do this rapidly...
Interaction Magic -...
Metaphors mold minds
Every good design is founded on a great metaphor. How to use metaphors to design more a inclusive...
over a year ago
Every good design is founded on a great metaphor. How to use metaphors to design more a inclusive future for our cities. My IXDA Interaction 22 conference talk.
NeuroLogica Blog
Virtual Reality for Mice
Scientists have developed virtual reality goggles for mice. Why would they do this? For research....
a year ago
Scientists have developed virtual reality goggles for mice. Why would they do this? For research. The fact that it’s also adorable is just a side effect. One type of neuroscience research is to expose mice in a laboratory setting to specific tasks or stimuli while recording their...
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Don't Sink
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
The essence of a bridge is not...
5 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
The essence of a bridge is not just that it goes over something, but that there’s clear space underneath for a river, railway, or road. Maybe this is already obvious to you, but bridges present a unique...
Quantum Frontiers
My experimental adventures in quantum thermodynamics
Imagine a billiard ball bouncing around on a pool table. High-school level physics enables us to...
9 months ago
Imagine a billiard ball bouncing around on a pool table. High-school level physics enables us to predict its motion until the end of time using simple equations for energy and momentum conservation, as long as you know the initial conditions … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part II
Yesterday’s post was the first in an exchange about the effects of climate change on public health....
a year ago
Yesterday’s post was the first in an exchange about the effects of climate change on public health. Today’s post is my response. Part II Climate change is a critically important topic for society today, and it’s important that the public have a working knowledge of the facts,...
Asterisk
Intelligence Testing
Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how...
a year ago
Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how much.
Explorations of an...
The Iberá Wetlands
The national and provincial parks of Iberá form the largest protected area in Argentina. These parks...
a year ago
The national and provincial parks of Iberá form the largest protected area in Argentina. These parks protect a portion of the Iberá Wetlands, which is the second largest wetland complex in South America after Brazil's Pantanal. The Iberá Wetlands is a vitally important area for...
Sean Carroll
The Zombie Argument for Physicalism (Contra Panpsychism)
The nature of consciousness remains a contentious subject out there. I’m a physicalist myself — as I...
over a year ago
The nature of consciousness remains a contentious subject out there. I’m a physicalist myself — as I explain in The Big Picture and elsewhere, I think consciousness is best understood as weakly-emergent from the ordinary physical behavior of matter, without requiring any special...
Asterisk
The Virtue of Wonder: Martha Nussbaum’s Justice for Animals
Martha Nussbaum’s latest book challenges us to change the way we think — and feel — about animals....
a year ago
Martha Nussbaum’s latest book challenges us to change the way we think — and feel — about animals. What role can wonder and awe play when pathos comes up short?
IEEE Spectrum
Lord Kelvin and His Analog Computer
William Thomson, mourning the death of his wife and flush with cash from various patents related to...
6 months ago
William Thomson, mourning the death of his wife and flush with cash from various patents related to the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, decided to buy a yacht. His schooner, the Lalla Rookh, became Thomson’s summer home and his base for hosting scientific...
Math Is Still...
Topologists Tackle the Trouble With Poll Placement
Mathematicians are using topological abstractions to find places where it’s hard to vote. ...
9 months ago
Mathematicians are using topological abstractions to find places where it’s hard to vote.
The post Topologists Tackle the Trouble With Poll Placement first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Apoorva Srinivasan
niceR code with functional programming
At the end of this blog post, you will be able to:
Describe functional programming concepts
Write...
over a year ago
At the end of this blog post, you will be able to:
Describe functional programming concepts
Write functional programming code using purrr package in R
If you are anything like me, you probably focused primarily on learning statistics, machine learning and programming on a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fossil Fuels – Reduce Demand or Supply?
This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a...
a year ago
This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a somewhat of a dilemma. Is the optimal path to reductions and eventual elimination of fossil fuel burning through reduced demand or supply? There are some interesting tradeoffs...
NeuroLogica Blog
Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers as Fuel
The press release for a recent study declares: “New catalyst could provide liquid hydrogen fuel of...
a year ago
The press release for a recent study declares: “New catalyst could provide liquid hydrogen fuel of the future.” But don’t get excited – the optimism is more than a bit gratuitous. I have written about hydrogen fuel before, and the reasons I am not optimistic about hydrogen as a...
nanoscale views
Getting light out of plasmonic tunnel junctions - the sequel
A couple of years ago I wrote about our work on "above threshold" light emission in planar metal...
over a year ago
A couple of years ago I wrote about our work on "above threshold" light emission in planar metal tunnel junctions. In that work, we showed that in a planar tunnel junction, you can apply a bias voltage \(V\) and get lots of photons out at energies quite a bit greater than...
Blog - Practical...
The Bizarre Paths of Groundwater Around Structures
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In 2015, an unusual incident...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In 2015, an unusual incident happened on the construction site for a sewage lift station in British Columbia, Canada. WorksafeBC, the provincial health and safety agency, posted a summary of the event on...
nanoscale views
What are "quantum oscillations"?
For the first time in a couple of decades, I was visiting the Aspen Center for Physics, which is...
a year ago
For the first time in a couple of decades, I was visiting the Aspen Center for Physics, which is always a fun, intellectually stimulating experience. (Side note: I sure hope that the rapidly escalating costs of everything in the Aspen area don't make this venue untenable in the...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Dental Insurance, Value-Based Dental, and Beam Benefits | Out-Of-Pocket
Why doesn’t dental have value-based care?
a year ago
Why doesn’t dental have value-based care?
Quantum Frontiers
Beyond NISQ: The Megaquop Machine
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a...
a week ago
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a transcript of my remarks. The slides I presented are here. NISQ and beyond I’m honored to be back at Q2B for … Continue reading →
wadertales
Learning lessons from Slender-billed Curlews
The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct,...
a week ago
The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct, tells a sad tale. We now know that, by the time that the Slender-billed Curlew Action Plan was published in 1996, it was already too late to save the species. Resources expended...
NeuroLogica Blog
Collapsars and Gravitational Waves
The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that...
4 months ago
The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that people like to spread around. Gravitational waves have opened up an entirely new type of astronomy, a way to explore the universe through very subtle ripples in spacetime produce by...
Math Is Still...
The Electron Is So Round That It’s Ruling Out Potential New Particles
If the electron’s charge wasn’t perfectly round, it could reveal the existence of hidden particles....
a year ago
If the electron’s charge wasn’t perfectly round, it could reveal the existence of hidden particles. A new measurement approaches perfection.
The post The Electron Is So Round That It’s Ruling Out Potential New Particles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Foams! (or, why my split pea side dish boils over every Thanksgiving)
Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.
Adapted from TOC figure of this...
3 weeks ago
Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.
Adapted from TOC figure of this paper
Consider my shaving cream. You might imagine that the (mostly water) material would just pool as a homogeneous liquid, since water molecules have a strong attraction for one...
Asterisk
Silicon Valley’s Gold Rush Roots
Silicon Valley, purveyor of disruptive technologies, likes to think of itself as sui generis. But...
8 months ago
Silicon Valley, purveyor of disruptive technologies, likes to think of itself as sui generis. But there’s a clear line from tech’s knowledge economy to the Bay Area’s first economy: gold mining.
Asterisk
The Illogic of Nuclear Escalation
How much is enough? It’s the most basic question in the nuclear arms race. For over sixty years, few...
over a year ago
How much is enough? It’s the most basic question in the nuclear arms race. For over sixty years, few have asked it, and even fewer have received an answer.
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...
a month 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...
Uncharted...
Should You Be Able to Experiment on Your Own Cancer?
A researcher in virology and immunotherapy got bad news: Her cancer was back with a vengeance; the...
2 months ago
A researcher in virology and immunotherapy got bad news: Her cancer was back with a vengeance; the treatments weren’t working. She decided to treat it herself.
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...
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...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: What are children for?
And how the UN’s birth rate forecasts keep getting it wrong
a month ago
And how the UN’s birth rate forecasts keep getting it wrong
nanoscale views
Items of interest
The time since the APS meeting has been very busy, hence the lack of posting. A few items of...
9 months ago
The time since the APS meeting has been very busy, hence the lack of posting. A few items of interest:
The present issue of Nature Physics has several articles about physics education that I really want to read.
This past week we hosted N. Peter Armitage for a really fun...
Math Is Still...
How Colorful Ribbon Diagrams Became the Face of Proteins
Proteins are often visualized as cascades of curled ribbons and twisted strings, which both reveal...
4 months ago
Proteins are often visualized as cascades of curled ribbons and twisted strings, which both reveal and conceal the mess of atoms that make up these impossibly complex molecules.
The post How Colorful Ribbon Diagrams Became the Face of Proteins first appeared on Quanta...
nanoscale views
The physics of squeaky shoes
In these unsettling and trying times, I wanted to write about the physics of a challenge I'm facing...
5 months ago
In these unsettling and trying times, I wanted to write about the physics of a challenge I'm facing in my professional life: super squeaky shoes. When I wear a particularly comfortable pair of shoes at work, when I walk in some hallways in my building (but not all), my shoes...
Willem Pennings
ClockSquared improvements
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply...
a year ago
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply called the “Birthday word clock”. I haven’t spent much time on the project in recent years, but I’ve upgraded the internals a while ago and finally felt like writing a post about it....
brr
Frost
Everyday objects, but cold.
a year ago
Everyday objects, but cold.
The Works in...
Whatever happened to the industrial R&D lab?
From the Works in Progress archives.
a year ago
From the Works in Progress archives.
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...
6 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...
Exoplanets Could Help Us Learn How Planets Make Magnetism
New observations of a faraway rocky world that might have its own magnetic field could help...
a year ago
New observations of a faraway rocky world that might have its own magnetic field could help astronomers understand the seemingly haphazard magnetic fields swaddling our solar system’s planets.
The post Exoplanets Could Help Us Learn How Planets Make Magnetism first...
Probably...
Think Python Goes to Production
Think Python has moved into production, on schedule for the official publication date in July — but...
9 months ago
Think Python has moved into production, on schedule for the official publication date in July — but maybe earlier if things go well. To celebrate, I have posted the next batch of chapters on the new site, up through Chapter 12, which is about Markov text analysis and generation,...
Asterisk
You’re Invited to a Colonoscopy!
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost...
a year ago
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost nowhere else. But do they work? We finally have a comprehensive trial, but it’s left gastroenterologists with more questions than answers.
Math Is Still...
How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better
Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new...
9 months ago
Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new languages faster and more easily.
The post How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept...
a year ago
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
The post Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal
Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to prove that all knots can be...
3 weeks ago
Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to prove that all knots can be found in a fractal called the Menger sponge.
The post Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
Encouraging a new community
Physicists advocate for getting community college students involved in research.
a year ago
Physicists advocate for getting community college students involved in research.
Damn Interesting
From Where the Sun Now Stands
An American Indian man on horseback stood outlined against a steely sky past midday on 05 October...
a year ago
An American Indian man on horseback stood outlined against a steely sky past midday on 05 October 1877. Winter was already settling into the prairies of what would soon become the state of Montana.
Five white men stood in the swaying grass on the other side of the field,...
Math Is Still...
Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy
Susan Clark is helping to unravel the mysterious workings of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, a...
5 months ago
Susan Clark is helping to unravel the mysterious workings of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, a critical missing piece of the galactic puzzle.
The post Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Many Worlds
The Moon Rush Is On. Are We on Earth Ready For That?
An Indian spacecraft landed on the moon this month and a pioneering Japanese lunar lander is...
a year ago
An Indian spacecraft landed on the moon this month and a pioneering Japanese lunar lander is awaiting an imminent launch. A Russian craft trying to land in the same area — the southern polar region — recently crashed, as did a private effort by a joint Japanese-United Arab...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Color View of the Earth & A Tropical Depression from Space – October 5, 1954
While today we are inundated with color images of the Earth, our earliest views from space were...
2 months ago
While today we are inundated with color images of the Earth, our earliest views from space were confined to monochromatic or black and white images (see […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Living Under the Sea
One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely...
a year ago
One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely under a vast alien ocean. You have the advantage of advanced technology, but even then you are under constant threat of running out of oxygen, or having your habitat implode because...
Asterisk
The Next Revolution in Animal Agriculture
The technologies of precision livestock farming could reshape animal agriculture. How will that go...
5 months ago
The technologies of precision livestock farming could reshape animal agriculture. How will that go for the animals?
Quantum Frontiers
Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem!
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a...
3 weeks ago
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a River. The Rat explains how the River permeates his life: “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
Magnetohydrodynamic Drive – Silent Water Propulsion
DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now working on developing a...
a year ago
DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now working on developing a magnet-driven silent water propulsion system – the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) drive. The primary reason is to develop silent military naval craft. Imagine a nuclear submarine with an MHD drive,...
Math Is Still...
Physicists Who Explored Tiny Glimpses of Time Win Nobel Prize
The development of attosecond pulses of light allowed researchers to explore the frame-by-frame...
a year ago
The development of attosecond pulses of light allowed researchers to explore the frame-by-frame movement of electrons.
The post Physicists Who Explored Tiny Glimpses of Time Win Nobel Prize first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Obstacles To Value-Based Care | Out-Of-Pocket
taking on risk is easier said than done
a year ago
taking on risk is easier said than done
NeuroLogica Blog
What Happened to the Atmosphere on Mars
Of every world known to humans outside the Earth, Mars is likely the most habitable. We have not...
2 months ago
Of every world known to humans outside the Earth, Mars is likely the most habitable. We have not found any genuinely Earth-like exoplanets. They are almost sure to exist, but we just haven’t found any yet. The closest so far is Kepler 452-b, which is a super Earth, specifically...
Math Is Still...
The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes
Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could...
7 months ago
Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size.
The post The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes first appeared on Quanta...
Math Is Still...
An Enormous Gravity ‘Hum’ Moves Through the Universe
Astronomers have found a background din of exceptionally long-wavelength gravitational waves...
a year ago
Astronomers have found a background din of exceptionally long-wavelength gravitational waves pervading the cosmos.
The post An Enormous Gravity ‘Hum’ Moves Through the Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Can patients be good healthcare shoppers? | Out-Of-Pocket
Should their be limits to patient agency?
4 months ago
Should their be limits to patient agency?
Quantum Frontiers
A (quantum) complex legacy: Part deux
I didn’t fancy the research suggestion emailed by my PhD advisor. A 2016 email from John Preskill...
a year ago
I didn’t fancy the research suggestion emailed by my PhD advisor. A 2016 email from John Preskill led to my publishing a paper about quantum complexity in 2022, as I explained in last month’s blog post. But I didn’t explain … Continue reading →
Math Is Still...
The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent...
6 months ago
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent parts. A new framework has researchers hopeful that a solution is near.
The post The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
CHIPS and Science - the reality vs the aspiration
I already wrote about this issue here back in August, but I wanted to highlight a policy statement...
2 months ago
I already wrote about this issue here back in August, but I wanted to highlight a policy statement that I wrote with colleagues as part of Rice's Baker Institute's Election 2024: Policy Playbook, which "delivers nonpartisan, expert insights into key issues at stake on the 2024...
Asterisk
Rebuilding After the Replication Crisis
Over a decade has passed since scientists realized many of their studies were failing to replicate....
over a year ago
Over a decade has passed since scientists realized many of their studies were failing to replicate. How well have their attempts to fix the problem actually worked?
Math Is Still...
What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly?
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet...
5 months ago
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet experiment, leaving open the possibility that the results point to a new fundamental particle.
The post What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Watch out for geese! My summer in Waterloo
It’s the beginning of another summer, and I’m looking forward to outdoor barbecues, swimming in...
6 months ago
It’s the beginning of another summer, and I’m looking forward to outdoor barbecues, swimming in lakes and pools, and sharing my home-made ice cream with friends and family. One thing that I won’t encounter this summer, but I did last … Continue reading →
Probably...
Which Standard Deviation?
It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
6 months ago
It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. standard_dev Which Standard Deviation¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. When do we use N and when N-1 for...
Beautiful Public...
Highway Photologs
Highway departments all around the country had "photolog" programs, some dating back as early as...
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
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
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...
Wanderingspace
Venus from Earth (with Stacking)
Image taken by @TheVastReaches. According to the photographer, “It takes just a few minutes to...
over a year ago
Image taken by @TheVastReaches. According to the photographer, “It takes just a few minutes to collect all the frames. This started as 6 video files, 45,000 frames total. Then they are stacked and combined.”
symmetry magazine
Creating the next 3D maps of the universe
Scientists have proposed new instruments that would use spectroscopy to decode dark matter, dark...
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...
Math Is Still...
Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold
In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more...
a week ago
In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications.
The post Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold first appeared on Quanta...
Math Is Still...
Quantum Complexity Shows How to Escape Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox
Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a...
a year ago
Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a group of young physicists think they have resolved the conflict by appealing to the central pillar of the new century — the physics of quantum information.
The post...
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
A conversation about what happens to the economy when intelligence becomes too cheap to meter.
Light from Space
Sharpless 119
Sharpless 119 (Sh2-119), sometimes referred to as “The Clamshell Nebula” is an emission nebula in...
over a year ago
Sharpless 119 (Sh2-119), sometimes referred to as “The Clamshell Nebula” is an emission nebula in Cygnus. It's rarely photographed as there's other, brighter nebulæ nearby, such as the North America Nebula.
Click or tap to enlarge/double-tap to zoom
Total exposure time: 23h
NeuroLogica Blog
Anxiety Biomarkers
Psychiatry, psychology, and all aspects of mental health are a challenging area because the clinical...
a year ago
Psychiatry, psychology, and all aspects of mental health are a challenging area because the clinical entities we are dealing with are complex and mostly subjective. Diagnoses are perhaps best understood as clinical constructs – a way of identifying and understanding a mental...
Uncharted...
100,000 Gifts
What happened in 2024 and what will happen in 2025
3 days ago
What happened in 2024 and what will happen in 2025
Andrew Fraknoi –...
A Movie about a Galaxy Far, Far Away & Long, Long Ago (from Webb Telescope)
Explains a new movie of distant galaxies and remote time from the Webb Telescope.
The post A Movie...
a year ago
Explains a new movie of distant galaxies and remote time from the Webb Telescope.
The post A Movie about a Galaxy Far, Far Away & Long, Long Ago (from Webb Telescope) appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Light from Space
The Cat's Paw
Located very close to the Lobster Nebula in the southern constellation of Scorpius, the Cat's Paw...
over a year ago
Located very close to the Lobster Nebula in the southern constellation of Scorpius, the Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC 6334) does indeed have a striking resemblance to a feline footprint.
It's quite low in the sky here from Tucson (at a maximum of about 22º above
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...
a month 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...
nanoscale views
Anyons, simulation, and "real" systems
Quanta magazine this week published an article about two very recent papers, in which different...
a year ago
Quanta magazine this week published an article about two very recent papers, in which different groups performed quantum simulations of anyons, objects that do not follow Bose-Einstein or Fermi-Dirac statistics when they are exchanged. For so-called Abelian anyons (which I wrote...
IEEE Spectrum
Edith Clarke: Architect of Modern Power Distribution
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career...
5 months ago
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career at General Electric in 1922, she was determined to develop stable, more reliable power grids.
During her first years at GE she invented what came to be known as the Clarke...
Math Is Still...
Vacuum of Space to Decay Sooner Than Expected (but Still Not Soon)
One of the quantum fields that fills the universe is special because its default value seems poised...
5 months ago
One of the quantum fields that fills the universe is special because its default value seems poised to eventually change, changing everything.
The post Vacuum of Space to Decay Sooner Than Expected (but Still Not Soon) 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
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...
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...
11 months 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Havana Syndrome Revisited
Last month I wrote about Havana Syndrome, the claim that a number of American and Canadian diplomats...
7 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...
IEEE Spectrum
How Tech Automated the January 6 Investigations
Josh Coker’s Facebook page doesn’t show any MAGA memes or Trump quotes. He wasn’t live-streaming on...
11 months ago
Josh Coker’s Facebook page doesn’t show any MAGA memes or Trump quotes. He wasn’t live-streaming on 6 January 2021, and no one has ever stepped forward to identify him as one of the mob that stormed the US Capitol that day.
Oregon, Ohio, with five counts connected to the failed...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Quest For The Bulwer's Pheasant
The Bulwer's Pheasant was one of the first birds to grab hold of my attention when I first flipped...
3 weeks ago
The Bulwer's Pheasant was one of the first birds to grab hold of my attention when I first flipped through the pages of my Borneo field guide many years ago. This pheasant of Bornean hill forest is nearly unbelievable-looking (the male, that is). He has a deep maroon chest and a...
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...
5 days 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using CRISPR To Treat HIV
CRISPR has been big scientific news since it was introduced in 2012. The science actually goes back...
9 months ago
CRISPR has been big scientific news since it was introduced in 2012. The science actually goes back to 1987, but the CRISPR/Cas9 system was patented in 2012, and the developers won the Noble Prize in Chemistry in 2020. The system gives researchers the ability to quickly and...
nanoscale views
Chemical potential and banana waffles
The concept of chemical potential is one that seems almost deliberately obscure to many. I’ve...
a year ago
The concept of chemical potential is one that seems almost deliberately obscure to many. I’ve written about this here, and referenced this article. What you may not realize is that the chemical potential, of water in particular, plays a crucial role in why my banana waffle...
Math Is Still...
What Is Entropy? A Measure of Just How Little We Really Know.
Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s...
a week ago
Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world than a reflection of our growing ignorance. Embracing that truth is leading to a...
Probably...
What does “strength” mean?
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
8 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. corr_trend What does “strength” mean?¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. I am currently doing a uni assignment...
Quantum Frontiers
Crossing the quantum chasm: From NISQ to fault tolerance
On December 6, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2023 Conference in Silicon Valley. Here is a...
a year ago
On December 6, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2023 Conference in Silicon Valley. Here is a transcript of my remarks. Toward quantum value The theme of this year’s Q2B meeting is “The Roadmap to Quantum Value.” I … Continue reading →
Math Is Still...
The Webb Telescope Further Deepens the Biggest Controversy in Cosmology
A long-awaited study of the cosmic expansion rate suggests that when it comes to the Hubble tension,...
4 months ago
A long-awaited study of the cosmic expansion rate suggests that when it comes to the Hubble tension, cosmologists are still missing something.
The post The Webb Telescope Further Deepens the Biggest Controversy in Cosmology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
How We Determine What to Believe as True
Psychologists have been studying a very basic cognitive function that appears to be of increasing...
a year ago
Psychologists have been studying a very basic cognitive function that appears to be of increasing importance – how do we choose what to believe as true or false? We live in a world awash in information, and access to essentially the world’s store of knowledge is now a trivial...
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....
7 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
Math Is Still...
Nobel Prize Honors Inventors of ‘Quantum Dot’ Nanoparticles
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to three researchers who harnessed the quantum...
a year ago
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to three researchers who harnessed the quantum behaviors of semiconductor nanocrystals.
The post Nobel Prize Honors Inventors of ‘Quantum Dot’ Nanoparticles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
Modern technology makes bioterrorism seem increasingly likely. If we can get our act together, there are smart ways to prevent it.
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
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...
The Surprisingly Simple Math Behind Puzzling Matchups
If Anna beats Benji in a game and Benji beats Carl, will Anna beat Carl?
The post The...
11 months ago
If Anna beats Benji in a game and Benji beats Carl, will Anna beat Carl?
The post The Surprisingly Simple Math Behind Puzzling Matchups first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
What Is Analog Computing?
You don’t need 0s and 1s to perform computations, and in some cases it’s better to avoid them. ...
4 months ago
You don’t need 0s and 1s to perform computations, and in some cases it’s better to avoid them.
The post What Is Analog Computing? 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
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...
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
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
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: The world that has never been
Introducing Speculative Technologies
a year ago
Introducing Speculative Technologies
The Works in...
From MANUALS to YOUTUBE
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
IEEE Spectrum
35 Years Ago, Researchers Used Brain Waves to Control a Robot
Using the brain to directly control an object was long the stuff of science fiction, and in 1988 the...
a year ago
Using the brain to directly control an object was long the stuff of science fiction, and in 1988 the vision became a reality.
IEEE Life Senior Member Stevo Bozinovski and Members Mihail Sestakov and Dr. Liljana Bozinovska used a student volunteer’s electroencephalogram (EEG)...
NeuroLogica Blog
Mach Effect Thrusters Fail
When thinking about potential future technology, one way to divide possible future tech is into...
9 months ago
When thinking about potential future technology, one way to divide possible future tech is into probable and speculative. Probable future technology involves extrapolating existing technology into the future, such as imaging what advanced computers might be like. This category...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Patient Messaging Conundrum pt. 2 | Out-Of-Pocket
Some thoughts from an academic, a behavioral scientist, a patient, and more
a year ago
Some thoughts from an academic, a behavioral scientist, a patient, and more
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
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...
brr
Cape Crozier
A nearby field camp, and my first helicopter flight!
over a year ago
A nearby field camp, and my first helicopter flight!
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
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...
Asterisk
What We Owe The Future
William MacAskill’s latest book presents itself as an introduction to the burgeoning longtermist...
over a year ago
William MacAskill’s latest book presents itself as an introduction to the burgeoning longtermist movement. But his views are eccentric – even within the movement he founded.
IEEE Spectrum
The Cold War Arms Race Over Prosthetic Arms
In 1961, Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, broke his hip and wound up in Massachusetts...
a year ago
In 1961, Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, broke his hip and wound up in Massachusetts General Hospital. Wiener’s bad luck turned into fruitful conversations with his orthopedic surgeon, Melvin Glimcher. Those talks in turn led to a collaboration and an invention: the...
Asterisk
Prediction Markets Have an Elections Problem
Weeks after it was clear that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, you could still make pennies on...
10 months ago
Weeks after it was clear that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, you could still make pennies on the dollar betting Joe Biden would win. Why doesn’t smart money drive out dumb money in election markets?
Cremieux Recueil
High-Frequency Trading Is Good
Sichuan Mala has written a guest post on one of the most unfairly maligned parts of the financial...
3 months ago
Sichuan Mala has written a guest post on one of the most unfairly maligned parts of the financial industry
Stephen Wolfram...
Foundations of Biological Evolution: More Results & More Surprises
This is a follow-on to Why Does Biological Evolution Work? A Minimal Model for Biological Evolution...
2 weeks ago
This is a follow-on to Why Does Biological Evolution Work? A Minimal Model for Biological Evolution and Other Adaptive Processes [May 3, 2024]. Even More from an Extremely Simple Model A few months ago I introduced an extremely simple “adaptive cellular automaton” model that...
Explorations of an...
Borneo, October 2022
Borneo, the third largest island in the world behind Greenland and New Guinea, is home to some of...
a year ago
Borneo, the third largest island in the world behind Greenland and New Guinea, is home to some of the planet’s oldest rainforests, containing a stunning array of biodiversity. The conditions in Borneo forests have stimulated the evolution of many different organisms that are...
Damn Interesting
A Trail Gone Cold
Iceland is known to the rest of the world as the land of Vikings and volcanos, an island caught...
9 months ago
Iceland is known to the rest of the world as the land of Vikings and volcanos, an island caught between continents at the extremities of the map. Remote and comparatively inhospitable, it was settled only as long ago as the 9th century, and has seen little additional in-migration...
NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Robotic Muscles
By now we have all seen the impressive robot videos, such as the ones from Boston Dynamics, in which...
3 months ago
By now we have all seen the impressive robot videos, such as the ones from Boston Dynamics, in which robots show incredible flexibility and agility. These are amazing, but I understand they are a bit like trick-shot videos – we are being shown the ones that worked, which may 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
let's try some new stuff to scale mental health care
NeuroLogica Blog
Let’s Talk About Cement
Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production...
6 months ago
Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production (25%) and transportation (28%). We talk a lot about transportation and energy, but industrial carbon is a harder nut to crack. Also, the 23% is direct carbon release from industrial...
The Works in...
How Israel turned homeowners into YIMBYs
A housing success story
8 months ago
Math Is Still...
What Is Distributed Computing?
Our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines.
The...
3 weeks ago
Our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines.
The post What Is Distributed Computing? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Inverted Passion
Not everything is physics
The first book I ever read was The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I liked it so much that...
3 months ago
The first book I ever read was The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I liked it so much that I re-read it 8 times. As a young boy, the book had made a lasting impression on me, making me fall in love with ideas such as the arrow of time, black holes, entropy,…
Read...
Wanderingspace
Ganymede from Juno
Some incredibly sharp images from the Juno mission of Ganymede. The first new views of this...
over a year ago
Some incredibly sharp images from the Juno mission of Ganymede. The first new views of this beautiful moon since Galileo. See more from kevinmgill on flickr. Also see the thread building up to these full composites in unmannedspaceflight.com.
Many Worlds
After Seven Years Away Exploring an Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx is Landing Soon with Precious Samples
Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the...
a year ago
Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft should be landing in the Utah desert later this month. The delivery will be a first for NASA — its first sample return from an asteroid and one of a very...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Did The FDA Mess Up With Aduhelm? | Out-Of-Pocket
Rethinking the approval, coverage, and reimbursement dynamic
a year ago
Rethinking the approval, coverage, and reimbursement dynamic
Explorations of an...
Potrero de Yala - Dippers, Red-faced Guans And More
Laura and I were up early to make the most of our morning at Potrero de Yala. As dawn broke, we...
a year ago
Laura and I were up early to make the most of our morning at Potrero de Yala. As dawn broke, we slowly drove in along the entrance road, keeping an eye out for guans.
We found quite a few guans on and around the road but none were our hoped-for Red-faced Guans; they were all...
Wanderingspace
Goodbye Ingenuity
Mission completed. Ingenuity is left alone on Mars after damage to one of its blades renders it...
10 months ago
Mission completed. Ingenuity is left alone on Mars after damage to one of its blades renders it inoperable..
Beautiful Public...
Mapping the Sea Floor
USGS research vessels equipped with cameras, sonar and scanners created a map of 125 square miles of...
a year ago
USGS research vessels equipped with cameras, sonar and scanners created a map of 125 square miles of the sea floor off Cape Ann, MA.
NeuroLogica Blog
GMOs – Ask a Farmer
The topic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a great target for science communication...
4 months ago
The topic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a great target for science communication because public attitudes have largely been shaped by deliberate misinformation, and the research suggests that those attitudes can change in response to more accurate information. It is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Virtual Walking
When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have...
9 months ago
When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have my avatar walk while I am not walking. I general play standing up which means I can move around the space in my office mapped by my VR software – so I am physically walking to...
Math Is Still...
Game Theory Can Make AI More Correct and Efficient
Researchers are drawing on ideas from game theory to improve large language models and make them...
7 months ago
Researchers are drawing on ideas from game theory to improve large language models and make them more consistent.
The post Game Theory Can Make AI More Correct and Efficient first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Moving Past Environmental Proceduralism
The foundations of modern environmental legislation were laid in the early ‘70s. Some of these laws...
8 months ago
The foundations of modern environmental legislation were laid in the early ‘70s. Some of these laws helped fix the ozone layer, clean up DDT, and fight lead pollution — while others are delaying the necessary transition to green energy. If the activists of fifty years ago had...
Math Is Still...
In the Milky Way’s Stars, a History of Violence
Our galaxy's stars keep a record of its past. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning...
a year ago
Our galaxy's stars keep a record of its past. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning more about how the Milky Way came to be — and about the galaxy we live in today.
The post In the Milky Way’s Stars, a History of Violence first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
What Can Cave Life Tell Us About Alien Ecosystems?
Extremophiles, or microbes that live in the most seemingly hostile environments, are the darlings of...
2 months ago
Extremophiles, or microbes that live in the most seemingly hostile environments, are the darlings of astrobiologists, who study the potential for life beyond Earth. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with astrobiologist and cave explorer Penelope Boston about how life...
Probably...
Happy Launch Day!
Today is the official publication date of Probably Overthinking It! You can get a 30% discount if...
a year ago
Today is the official publication date of Probably Overthinking It! You can get a 30% discount if you order from the publisher and use the code UCPNEW. You can also order from Amazon or, if you want to support independent bookstores, from Bookshop.org. I celebrated launch day by...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Yet Another Teladongo Take | Out-Of-Pocket
You haven't read enough of them
a year ago
You haven't read enough of them
Math Is Still...
How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection
Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to...
3 months ago
Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of mind such as mood, pleasure and fear.
The post How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection first appeared on...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Circular CO2 Economy
Big picture time – as I have discussed before, we have just passed 8 billion people on this planet...
a year ago
Big picture time – as I have discussed before, we have just passed 8 billion people on this planet and will likely top 10 billion before populations stabilize (which is quite possible, but that’s another story). What this means is that anything we collectively do is big. It...
Explorations of an...
Day Four At Río Bigal - Birding The Interior Trails
November 5, 2023
Sunday began overcast, but unlike the previous day there did not seem to be the...
a year ago
November 5, 2023
Sunday began overcast, but unlike the previous day there did not seem to be the same threat of rain looming over everything. Therefore, yesterday's plan shifted to today. Natalia made me a packed lunch and I prepared for a day on my own on the long PNS trail. I...
IEEE Spectrum
The Saga of AD-X2, the Battery Additive That Roiled the NBS
Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the director of the National Bureau of...
4 months ago
Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the director of the National Bureau of Standards, and his reinstatement after more than 400 scientists threatened to resign. Who knew a little box of salt could stir up such drama?
What was AD-X2?
It all started in 1947 when...
Math Is Still...
He’s Gleaning the Design Rules of Life to Re-Create It
Yizhi “Patrick” Cai is coordinating a global effort to write a complete synthetic yeast genome. If...
a month ago
Yizhi “Patrick” Cai is coordinating a global effort to write a complete synthetic yeast genome. If he succeeds, the resulting cell will be the artificial life most closely related to humans to date.
The post He’s Gleaning the Design Rules of Life to Re-Create It first...
Asterisk
From Warp Speed to 100 Days
During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is...
a year ago
During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is testing that they work. To get even faster, we need innovations in clinical trial design.
NeuroLogica Blog
New Type of Black Hole Discovered
ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not...
a year ago
ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not surprising, as that is Gaia’s mission – to precisely map the three-dimensional position of two billion objects in our galaxy, using three separate instruments. The process is called...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Christian Health Insurance | Out-Of-Pocket
Love thy neighbor, pay for thy neighbor
a year ago
Love thy neighbor, pay for thy neighbor
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird issues in value-based care | Out-Of-Pocket
Thoughts on value-based care from people actually building in it
2 months ago
Thoughts on value-based care from people actually building in it
IEEE Spectrum
The Do-or-Die Moments That Determined the Fate of the Internet
CES) and the Game Developers Conference have become regular features of the digital world.
ARPANET...
a year ago
CES) and the Game Developers Conference have become regular features of the digital world.
ARPANET in 1972, or the mid-1980s conferences now known as Interop, alerted experts to new technologies, and, in some cases, altered the balance between competing approaches.
Packet...
Beautiful Public...
1,000 Photos of Dolphin Fins
Scars, scratches and wounds abound in these photos as encounters with unknown creatures and boat...
a year ago
Scars, scratches and wounds abound in these photos as encounters with unknown creatures and boat propellers leave their marks, imprinting a story of close escapes and cheating death.
brr
Snowdrifts
4 days of blown snow into a doorway.
a year ago
4 days of blown snow into a doorway.
nanoscale views
Large magnetic fields as a scientific tool
When I was at Berkeley at the beginning of the week to give a seminar, I was fortunate enough to...
10 months ago
When I was at Berkeley at the beginning of the week to give a seminar, I was fortunate enough to overlap with their departmental physics colloquium by Greg Boebinger, an accomplished scientist who is also an extremely engaging and funny speaker. Since 2004 he has been the...
Probably...
Small percentiles and missing data
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
8 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. low_percentile Bootstrapping percentiles¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. I’m trying to figure out how to...
Explorations of an...
Los Amigos Biological Station: Part 2
September 21, 2022
Laura and I had arranged with the cook to have a packed breakfast this morning....
a year ago
September 21, 2022
Laura and I had arranged with the cook to have a packed breakfast this morning. This turned out to be a great idea. The day was another scorcher, reaching a high of 36 degrees Celsius, and we appreciated having the freedom to explore the trails early in the...
Chris Grossack's...
$\mathsf{B}\text{Diff}(\Sigma)$ Classifies $\Sigma$-bundles
I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the
cobordism hypothesis,...
yesterday
I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the
cobordism hypothesis, and how to use $(\infty,n)$-categories. This is all
in service of some stuff I’m doing with skein algebras (which are part of a
“$3+1$ TQFT” often named after Crane–Yetter, but...
Damn Interesting
The Kingpin of Shanghai
Respectable heads of state rarely admit to keeping company with gangsters. But in April 1927, about...
over a year ago
Respectable heads of state rarely admit to keeping company with gangsters. But in April 1927, about 15 years after the collapse of the last imperial dynasty, Chiang Kai-shek and China were at a crossroads. Chiang had followed a murky path to leadership of the Chinese Nationalist...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Actually good 2024 healthcare predictions | Out-Of-Pocket
I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
Inverted Passion
A primer on dopamine
1/ I recently made notes on the book “Hooked” but wasn’t satisfied by the depth of explanation in...
11 months ago
1/ I recently made notes on the book “Hooked” but wasn’t satisfied by the depth of explanation in it. 2/ I wanted to get down into neuroscience of habit-forming products and that inevitably lead me to the (in)famous neurotransmitter dopamine. 3/ Before we dive into what dopamine...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: Did The FDA Mess Up With Aduhelm? | Out-Of-Pocket
what if it incentivizes actually good drugs?
a year ago
what if it incentivizes actually good drugs?
NeuroLogica Blog
Odysseus Lands on the Moon
December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 soft landed on the lunar surface, carrying astronauts Gene Cernan and...
10 months ago
December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 soft landed on the lunar surface, carrying astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. This was the last time anything American soft landed on the moon, over 50 years ago. It seems amazing that it’s been that long. On February 22, 2024, the Odysseus...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Green Ammonia
Ammonia is an important industrial chemical with an estimated worldwide production exceeding 150...
5 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. ...
Math Is Still...
Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference.
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by...
a year ago
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.”
The post Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
The Art of Asking Questions
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other...
3 weeks 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?
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, June 2023
A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find...
a year ago
A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find them in my links digests. In all quotes below, any emphasis in bold was added by me.
Books
Thomas S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution, 1760–1830 (1948). A classic in the field,...
Math Is Still...
The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories
Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer searches museum jars for genetic traces of flu, measles and other...
4 months ago
Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer searches museum jars for genetic traces of flu, measles and other viruses. Their evolutionary stories can help treat modern outbreaks and prepare for future ones.
The post The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories...
Asterisk
California vs. Big Soda
Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes work. But during the time it took to figure this out, enacting them...
6 months ago
Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes work. But during the time it took to figure this out, enacting them became much harder.
Blog - Practical...
The Hidden Engineering of Landfills
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Puente Hills...
3 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Puente Hills Landfill outside of Los Angeles, California. The first truckload of trash was dumped here in 1957, and the trucks just kept coming. For more than five decades, if you threw something...
NeuroLogica Blog
Eclipse 2024
I am currently in Dallas Texas waiting to see, hopefully, the 2024 total solar eclipse. This would...
8 months ago
I am currently in Dallas Texas waiting to see, hopefully, the 2024 total solar eclipse. This would be my first total eclipse, and everything I have heard indicates that it is an incredible experience. Unfortunately, the weather calls for some clouds, although forecasts have been...
Blog - Practical...
Why Engineers Can't Control Rivers
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Old River Control...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Old River Control Structure, a relatively innocuous complex of floodgates and levees off the Mississippi River in central Louisiana. It was built in the 1950s to solve a serious problem. Typically...
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
we're in the weird in-between stage of adoption
nanoscale views
APS March Meeting 2024, Day 1
There is no question that the meeting venue in Minneapolis is superior in multiple ways to last...
9 months ago
There is no question that the meeting venue in Minneapolis is superior in multiple ways to last year's meeting in Las Vegas. The convention center doesn't feel scarily confining, and it also doesn't smell like a combination of cigarettes and desperation.
Here are a few...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Coming Up: Einstein without Tears; Religion and Extraterrestrial Life
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The...
2 months ago
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State Presents: A non-technical, 6-week class with Professor Andrew Fraknoi Einstein without Tears Tuesdays from 12:30 to 2:30...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Food as medicine | Out-Of-Pocket
The most cost-effective intervention we have
a year ago
The most cost-effective intervention we have
nanoscale views
News items for the new year
After I was not chosen to be Speaker of the US House of Representatives, I think it’s time to...
a year ago
After I was not chosen to be Speaker of the US House of Representatives, I think it’s time to highlight some brief items:
Here is a great blog post by a Rice grad alum, Daniel Gonzales, about flow to approach faculty searches. I had written a fair bit on this a number of years...
NeuroLogica Blog
Problems with the Institute Of Noetic Sciences
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of...
a year ago
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Overall the article is very good, and author Maddie Bender was fair and reasonable in how I was quoted. I can’t always take that as a given. No matter how...
Uncharted...
Where Geniuses Hide Today
Where are today’s Michelangelos?
2 weeks ago
Where are today’s Michelangelos?
NeuroLogica Blog
The Superconductor Flap of 2023
If you are at all interested in science and technology news, you have probably heard that a team...
a year ago
If you are at all interested in science and technology news, you have probably heard that a team from South Korea claims to have developed a material that is a superconductor at room temperature and ambient pressure. Interestingly, if you are someone who does not follow such...
Math Is Still...
The Mathematician Who Finds the Poetry in Math and the Math in Poetry
The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now...
11 months ago
The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now turning a mathematical eye to literature.
The post The Mathematician Who Finds the Poetry in Math and the Math in Poetry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Doors of McMurdo
Doors, in a variety of shapes and styles.
over a year ago
Doors, in a variety of shapes and styles.
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
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...
Math Is Still...
The New Quest to Control Evolution
Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it. ...
a year ago
Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it.
The post The New Quest to Control Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
Marsh Birding In Ceibas And Otamendi
February 18, 2023
Laura and I left Parque Nacional El Palmar and continued south towards Buenos...
a year ago
February 18, 2023
Laura and I left Parque Nacional El Palmar and continued south towards Buenos Aires and beyond. We had just five days remaining in our Argentina trip, with ferry tickets purchased that would take us to Uruguay on February 23. At this point in the trip, potential...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: Some Thoughts about the Calendar
This year February will have an extra day -- we discuss why?
The post Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: ...
10 months ago
This year February will have an extra day -- we discuss why?
The post Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: Some Thoughts about the Calendar appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
The Works in...
Links in Progress: All the single people
And how China will lose 51 million people in 10 years
5 days ago
And how China will lose 51 million people in 10 years
Math Is Still...
The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community
Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on...
11 months ago
Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on their species but on the roles they play.
The post The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
The Best Neighborhoods for Starting a Life in the Galaxy
Some neighborhoods in the Milky Way may be better suited for making habitable planets than others. ...
11 months ago
Some neighborhoods in the Milky Way may be better suited for making habitable planets than others.
The post The Best Neighborhoods for Starting a Life in the Galaxy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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. ...
Drew Ex Machina
Star Way of Humanity: American Space Art
During the COVID-19 shutdown three years ago, I spent a lot of my time at home digging through my...
a year ago
During the COVID-19 shutdown three years ago, I spent a lot of my time at home digging through my archives discovering all sorts of items I […]
Uncharted...
The Players of the Syrian Chessboard
What will Israel, Russia, Turkey, the Kurds, Europe, and Lebanon do?
a week ago
What will Israel, Russia, Turkey, the Kurds, Europe, and Lebanon do?
IEEE Spectrum
Who Really Invented the Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery?
Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value....
a year ago
Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value. It’s used in billions of laptops, cellphones, power tools, and cars. Global sales top US $45 billion a year, on their way to more than $100 billion in the coming decade.
The first...
Explorations of an...
Final Argentina Post - Hudson's Canasteros, Shorebirds and Jaegers at Punta Rasa
February 20, 2023
As we traveled south from Buenos Aires, the landscape opened up. The small towns...
a year ago
February 20, 2023
As we traveled south from Buenos Aires, the landscape opened up. The small towns and communities became less frequent, giving way to vast expanses of pasture and agriculture with nary a tree in sight, other than the occasional hedgerow. Several hours later, and...
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
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...
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