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The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, November 2023 A ~monthly feature. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in...
a year ago
34
a year ago
A ~monthly feature. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in my links digests. All emphasis in bold in the quotes below was added by me. Books Finished Lynn White, Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962). Last time I talked about the...
Explorations of an...
Uruguay Part 2: The Saffron-cowled Blackbird Search February 26, 2023 Laura and I left the hacienda behind and and headed southeast towards the coast....
a year ago
23
a year ago
February 26, 2023 Laura and I left the hacienda behind and and headed southeast towards the coast. Our route was a meandering one and we took our time on the potholed roads. The countryside was birdy and we didn't mind the relaxed pace.  We had booked an AirBnB property in the...
The Works in...
The San Diego infinite housing glitch How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
2 months ago
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, May 2023 This is a monthly feature. As usual, I’ve omitted recent blog posts and such, which you can find in...
a year ago
43
a year ago
This is a monthly feature. As usual, I’ve omitted recent blog posts and such, which you can find in my links digests. John Gall, The Systems Bible (2012), aka Systemantics, 3rd ed. A concise, pithy collection of wisdom about “systems”, mostly human organizations, projects, and...
Beautiful Public...
14,000 Photos of Army Uniforms and Rations from the 70s and 80s An incredible archive of 14,000 photos of Army uniforms, military gear and rations from the 70s and...
a month ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Musings on CVS, two-way negotiation, and venture studios | Out-Of-Pocket + we're hosting another dinner! and courses ending!
8 months ago
Beautiful Public...
Special Database 18: 3,248 Mugshots Used for Training Image Recognition Systems The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos...
a year ago
26
a year ago
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos of 1,573 people for decades, including 175 minors, until we asked about them.
Quanta Magazine
Does AI Know What an Apple Is? She Aims to Find Out. The computer scientist Ellie Pavlick is translating philosophical concepts such as “meaning” into...
8 months ago
30
8 months ago
The computer scientist Ellie Pavlick is translating philosophical concepts such as “meaning” into concrete, testable ideas. The post Does AI Know What an Apple Is? She Aims to Find Out. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Bertrand’s Boxes An early draft of Probably Overthinking It included two chapters about probability. I still think...
7 months ago
77
7 months ago
An early draft of Probably Overthinking It included two chapters about probability. I still think they are interesting, but the other chapters are really about data, and the examples in these chapters are more like brain teasers — so I’ve saved them for another book. Here’s an...
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
56
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...
Quanta Magazine
Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and multiplication — and raises hopes for progress on the famous abc conjecture. The post Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making first appeared on...
Confessions of a...
My Teaching Philosophy As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern as part of the PTIS scheme.  Central to this portfolio is a personal teaching philosophy, detailing why teaching is important to me, what my objectives are as a teacher, what...
Quanta Magazine
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
60
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
IEEE Spectrum
The Invention That Let Fiber Optics Span the Globe Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten:...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten: New Coke, “We Are the World,” the rise of desktop publishing. But one at-the-time obscure invention from that year has long eclipsed the frothy headlines of its time, because it...
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
19
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...
The Works in...
The End of Combustion Vehicles The final section of Ch.2 of Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Asterisk
Shutting the California Prison System’s Revolving Door Between 2009 and 2014, California passed a series of laws to reduce the population in its prison...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
Between 2009 and 2014, California passed a series of laws to reduce the population in its prison system, which for years had operated over capacity. Determining whether those laws worked was not a straightforward task.
NeuroLogica Blog
Wood Vaulting for Carbon Sequestration I can’t resist a good science story involving technology that we can possibly use to stabilize our...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
I can’t resist a good science story involving technology that we can possibly use to stabilize our climate in the face of anthropogenic global warming. This one is a fun story and an interesting, and potentially useful, idea. As we map out potential carbon pathways into the...
The Roots of...
What is progress? In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another...
9 months ago
66
9 months ago
In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another sense, it contains an entire worldview. The most basic meaning of “progress” is simply advancement along a path, or more generally from one state to another that is considered more...
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2024, 1) Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras...
9 months ago
96
9 months ago
Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras used for good and evil, ant heaven now, and more.
ToughSF
Moto-Orion: Mechanized Nuclear Pulse Propulsion The Orion nuclear pulse propulsion concept has been around for over six decades now. It is powerful...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
The Orion nuclear pulse propulsion concept has been around for over six decades now. It is powerful and robust, but lacks the flexibility and features we expect from many more modern designs. Can we give it those additional capabilities? That cutaway is one of Matthew Paul...
IEEE Spectrum
A Brief History of the Office Cubicle Robert Propst, a designer at the Herman Miller furniture company. Four years earlier, he had...
a year ago
51
a year ago
Robert Propst, a designer at the Herman Miller furniture company. Four years earlier, he had proposed a radical alternative to the office bullpen: the Action Office. He envisioned it as a holistic and integrated system designed to increase worker efficiency while providing an...
Quanta Magazine
Selfish, Virus-Like DNA Can Carry Genes Between Species Genetic elements called Mavericks that have some viral features could be responsible for the...
a year ago
8
a year ago
Genetic elements called Mavericks that have some viral features could be responsible for the large-scale smuggling of DNA between species. The post Selfish, Virus-Like DNA Can Carry Genes Between Species first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
NASA’s Explorer 18: The First Interplanetary Monitoring Platform Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the characterization of Earth’s magnetic field and the discovery of what became […]
IEEE Spectrum
From Punch Cards to Python In today’s digital world, it’s easy for just about anyone to create a mobile app or write software,...
3 months ago
43
3 months ago
In today’s digital world, it’s easy for just about anyone to create a mobile app or write software, thanks to Java, JavaScript, Python, and other programming languages. But that wasn’t always the case. Because the primary language of computers is binary code, early programmers...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six (More) Healthcare Startup Ideas | Out-Of-Pocket In collaboration with The Generalist, one of the few newsletters I read end-to-end every time
a year ago
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
8
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...
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
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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...
Explorations of an...
Black-fronted Piping-Guans at Parque Provincial Urugua-í February 8, 2023 Laura and I left the environs of Iguazú Falls and worked our way south and then...
a year ago
15
a year ago
February 8, 2023 Laura and I left the environs of Iguazú Falls and worked our way south and then east, our destination being Parque Provincial Uragua-í. This park is a little bit off of the standard birding route and is not frequently visited by foreign birders. And, because...
Asterisk
Through a Glass Darkly Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
a year ago
Light from Space
Iris Nebula and the Ghost of Cepheus The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus. A popular target with amateur astronomers, the...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus. A popular target with amateur astronomers, the sourrounding flux nebulas are harder to photograph and require long integration times. Also visible in this wide-field image, near the bottom left, is the Ghost Nebula. Click or...
nanoscale views
The Nobels, physics and chemistry As you undoubtedly know, the 2023 Nobel in physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc...
a year ago
38
a year ago
As you undoubtedly know, the 2023 Nobel in physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L'Huillier, for the development of techniques associated with attosecond-scale optical pulses.  Here is the more popular write-up about this (including a good handwave...
Quanta Magazine
The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life When seawater gets cold, it gets viscous. This fact could explain how single-celled ocean creatures...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
When seawater gets cold, it gets viscous. This fact could explain how single-celled ocean creatures became multicellular when the planet was frozen during “Snowball Earth,” according to experiments. The post The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life...
Quantum Frontiers
Let gravity do its work One day, early this spring, I found myself in a hotel elevator with three other people. The cohort...
7 months ago
92
7 months ago
One day, early this spring, I found myself in a hotel elevator with three other people. The cohort consisted of two theoretical physicists, one computer scientist, and what appeared to be a normal person. I pressed the elevator’s 4 button, … Continue reading →
Quanta Magazine
Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a...
9 months ago
34
9 months ago
How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, first arose billions of years ago in bacteria with a primitive sociality. The post Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? first...
NeuroLogica Blog
About Those Lab Leak Documents It was recently revealed that the House subcommittee probing the origins of COVID-19 accidentally...
a year ago
18
a year ago
It was recently revealed that the House subcommittee probing the origins of COVID-19 accidentally released a “trove” of documents related to their investigations. The documents include e-mails and internal communications among the scientists and experts who put together the first...
Chris Grossack's...
Estimating a Difference of Products Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last quick analysis trick....
a year ago
5
a year ago
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last quick analysis trick. But I’ve been itching to write more blog posts lately, and I thought that something quick and easy like this would be a good way to get back into it without the kind of effort...
Quanta Magazine
Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking agreement with their standard theoretical model of how the universe evolves. The post Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts first appeared on Quanta...
Quanta Magazine
In a Fierce Desert, Microbe ‘Crusts’ Show How Life Tamed the Land Extreme microorganisms carpeting the Atacama Desert in Chile illuminate how life might have first...
a year ago
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a year ago
Extreme microorganisms carpeting the Atacama Desert in Chile illuminate how life might have first taken hold on Earth’s surface. The post In a Fierce Desert, Microbe ‘Crusts’ Show How Life Tamed the Land first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Light from Space
Andromeda: Our Galactic Neighbor Many things have been said about the Andromeda Galaxy, arguably the most majestic galaxy that...
2 months ago
37
2 months ago
Many things have been said about the Andromeda Galaxy, arguably the most majestic galaxy that amateur astronomers can image due to it's sheer size in the sky—many times larger than the Moon appears to us, but also many times dimmer. With the naked eye, even in
wadertales
Broad-billed Sandpiper: Now a Red-listed wader A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since 1993. One of the focal species of their fieldwork is the secretive Broad-billed Sandpiper, an unusual taiga wader which nests on low-lying tussocks embedded in floating mats of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Should You Get a Heat Pump? Starting around 1550 and lasting through the 1600s, England had an energy crisis. They were running...
a year ago
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a year ago
Starting around 1550 and lasting through the 1600s, England had an energy crisis. They were running out of wood, which was the main source of fuel for residential and commercial heating. England also needed a lot of wood for their massive navy – it took about 2,000 trees to build...
nanoscale views
Postdoctoral opportunities at Rice I will be sending some emails shortly, but I wanted to point out postdoctoral opportunities here at...
a year ago
7
a year ago
I will be sending some emails shortly, but I wanted to point out postdoctoral opportunities here at Rice University. The Smalley-Curl Institute is having a competition for two two-year postdoctoral fellow slots.  Click on the link for the details.  The requirements for a...
The Roots of...
Quote quiz: “drifting into dependence” Quote quiz: who said this? (No fair looking it up). I have modified the original quotation slightly,...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Quote quiz: who said this? (No fair looking it up). I have modified the original quotation slightly, by making a handful of word substitutions to bring it up to date: It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all power to AI. But we are...
Quanta Magazine
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
35
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. ...
Cremieux Recueil
Grading the World's Shortest Manifesto It gets an F and the student has earned the death penalty
a week ago
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Rails Shaped Like That? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Maybe more than any other type...
a year ago
21
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Maybe more than any other type of infrastructure, railways have a contingent of devoted enthusiasts. “Railfans” as they call themselves; Or should say “ourselves”? Maybe it's the nostalgia of an earlier era or...
Quanta Magazine
Physicists Create Elusive Particles That Remember Their Pasts In two landmark experiments, researchers used quantum processors to engineer exotic particles that...
a year ago
61
a year ago
In two landmark experiments, researchers used quantum processors to engineer exotic particles that have captivated physicists for decades. The work is a step toward crash-proof quantum computers. The post Physicists Create Elusive Particles That Remember Their Pasts...
Asterisk
The Highway to NIMBYism San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up...
7 months ago
2
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.
Probably...
Happy Launch Day! Today is the official publication date of Probably Overthinking It! You can get a 30% discount if...
a year ago
9
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...
Casey Handmer's blog
Solar and batteries for generic use cases A brief note on using solar and batteries as generic power sources. Over the last few years of work...
a month ago
4
a month ago
A brief note on using solar and batteries as generic power sources. Over the last few years of work at Terraform Industries, we’ve developed several useful heuristics to understand how rapid progress in solar and battery costs will change industry. This includes the bifurcation...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Breakfast with g IQ, lived experience, and my boyfriend’s underpants
over a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
The spirit of relativity One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a university I visited this month. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, by Natasha Pulley, features a budding scientist named Grace Carrow. Grace attends Oxford as … Continue reading →
Quanta Magazine
Overexposure Distorted the Science of Mirror Neurons After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and theory of mind are being refined and redefined. The post Overexposure Distorted the Science of Mirror Neurons first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Recent RT superconductivity claim - summary page In the interests of saving people from lots of googling or scrolling through 170+ comments, here is...
a year ago
52
a year ago
In the interests of saving people from lots of googling or scrolling through 170+ comments, here is a bulleted summary of links relevant to the recent claim of room temperature superconductivity in a nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride compound under pressure.   Dias's contributed...
Interaction Magic -...
Orientation Using Mahony & Madgwick to calibrate and process Arduino orientation data.
over a year ago
Asterisk
Democracy by Mistake Most political scientists see democracy as the natural consequence of economic development or the...
10 months ago
2
10 months ago
Most political scientists see democracy as the natural consequence of economic development or the result of strategic and rational choice. A detailed look through history suggests democracy emerges as often as not by another path: human error.
Drew Ex Machina
Accurate Characterization of 3D Winds Using Stereographic Observations from the Hurricane Hunter... The teams at Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA) and Canada Weather Analytics (CWA), where this author...
10 months ago
58
10 months ago
The teams at Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA) and Canada Weather Analytics (CWA), where this author is the Chief Scientist, had the honor of having our abstract […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Apologizing for Uri Geller A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed...
a year ago
27
a year ago
A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed spoon-bending magician, by simply telling a one-sided narrative. From my perspective as a skeptic, this was a terrible article that missed the real issue, glossed over glaring defects in...
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Need Sensors (and other structures too) [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Almost immediately after I...
a year ago
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a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Almost immediately after I started making videos about engineering, people started asking me to play video games on the channel. Apparently there’s roughly a billion people who watch online gaming these days,...
Quanta Magazine
How Is Flocking Like Computing? Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In...
8 months ago
22
8 months ago
Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz interviews the evolutionary ecologist Iain Couzin about how and why collective behaviors arise. The post How Is Flocking Like...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, March 2023 A new monthly feature, let me know what you think. Books Matt Ridley, How Innovation Works (2020)....
a year ago
33
a year ago
A new monthly feature, let me know what you think. Books Matt Ridley, How Innovation Works (2020). About halfway through, lots of interesting case studies, very readable. Vaclav Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century (2005). I read the first chapter; saving the rest of it for when...
Quanta Magazine
The Physical Process That Powers a New Type of Generative AI Some modern image generators rely on the principles of diffusion to create images. Alternatives...
a year ago
24
a year ago
Some modern image generators rely on the principles of diffusion to create images. Alternatives based on the process behind the distribution of charged particles may yield even better results. The post The Physical Process That Powers a New Type of Generative AI first...
Melting Asphalt
A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning I've never been plagued by the big existential questions. You know, like What's my purpose? or What...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
I've never been plagued by the big existential questions. You know, like What's my purpose? or What does it all mean? Growing up I was a very science-minded kid — still am — and from an early age I learned… Read more ›
Quantum Frontiers
Announcing the quantum-steampunk short-story contest! The year I started studying calculus, I took the helm of my high school’s literary magazine....
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
The year I started studying calculus, I took the helm of my high school’s literary magazine. Throughout the next two years, the editorial board flooded campus with poetry—and poetry contests. We papered the halls with flyers, built displays in the … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
Hybrid Biopolymer Transistors – Implications for Brain Machine Interface There are several technologies which seem likely to be transformative in the coming decades. Genetic...
a year ago
9
a year ago
There are several technologies which seem likely to be transformative in the coming decades. Genetic bioengineering gives us the ability to control the basic machinery of life, including ourselves. Artificial intelligence is a suite of active, learning, information tools....
Quanta Magazine
To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the...
a year ago
5
a year ago
Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the cost of forgetting the path they took. A new result suggests that the trade-off may be inevitable. The post To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past...
NeuroLogica Blog
Predicting Outcome in Severe Brain Injury One of the most difficult situations that a person can face is to have a loved-one in a critical...
7 months ago
78
7 months ago
One of the most difficult situations that a person can face is to have a loved-one in a critical medical condition and have to make life-or-death medical decisions for them. I have been in this situation many times as the consulting neurologist, and I have seen how weighty this...
NeuroLogica Blog
Building A Robotic Hand Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of...
a year ago
25
a year ago
Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of biological bodies in rubber, metal, and plastic. This is a difficult task because biological organisms are often wondrous machines. The human hand, in particular, is a feat of...
nanoscale views
APS March Meeting 2023, Day 2 I ended up spending more time catching up with people this afternoon than going to talks after my...
a year ago
24
a year ago
I ended up spending more time catching up with people this afternoon than going to talks after my session ended, but here are a couple of highlights: There was an invited session about the metal halide perovskites, and there were some interesting talks.  My faculty colleague...
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
52
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...
Blog - Practical...
Was Starship’s Stage Zero a Bad Pad? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On April 20, 2023, SpaceX...
a year ago
57
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On April 20, 2023, SpaceX launched it’s first orbital test flight of its Starship spacecraft from Boca Chica on the gulf coast of Texas. You probably saw this, if not live, at least in the stunning videos that...
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
18
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...
Confessions of a...
Impacts of climate change on marine communities, seagrass dieback, and a trip to the Abrolhos... You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks.  No holiday for me though, here’s a...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks.  No holiday for me though, here’s a quick taste of some of the other stuff I’ve been up to! Impact of climate change on marine coastal ecosystems – A masterclass with Nuria Marbá I was lucky enough to be invited along...
Light from Space
The Helping Hand of LDN 1355 LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark dust obscuring the reflection nebula behind it. Total exposure time: 58h 50' (211,800s) Image resolution: 5,216 × 3,909px (1.924″/px) Shot from my driveway
NeuroLogica Blog
Confidently Wrong How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and do you have a process for determining what your confidence level should be or do you just follow your gut feelings? Thinking about confidence is a form of metacognition – thinking...
Explorations of an...
Parque Provincial Caá Yarí Our swing through Misiones province of northeastern Argentina was coming to a close with just a...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Our swing through Misiones province of northeastern Argentina was coming to a close with just a couple of days remaining. When researching this part of Argentina, I kept noticing one particular area that had a number of interesting eBird reports, but very little information on...
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
29
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...
Sean Carroll
Energy Conservation and Non-Conservation in Quantum Mechanics Conservation of energy is a somewhat sacred principle in physics, though it can be tricky in certain...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Conservation of energy is a somewhat sacred principle in physics, though it can be tricky in certain circumstances, such as an expanding universe. Quantum mechanics is another context in which energy conservation is a subtle thing — so much so that it’s still worth writing papers...
Quanta Magazine
The Colorful Problem That Has Long Frustrated Mathematicians The four-color problem is simple to explain, but its complex proof continues to be both celebrated...
a year ago
28
a year ago
The four-color problem is simple to explain, but its complex proof continues to be both celebrated and despised. The post The Colorful Problem That Has Long Frustrated Mathematicians first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Many Worlds
The Familiar, Yet So Different, Hydrocarbon Rivers of Titan There are three planets or moons in our solar system known to now have, or once had, surface rivers,...
a year ago
5
a year ago
There are three planets or moons in our solar system known to now have, or once had, surface rivers, lakes, deltas and a hydrologic system.  There’s Earth, of course, Mars long ago when it was warmer and wetter, and the so different yet so similar rivers of hydrocarbons on...
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
2
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?
ToughSF
How to Live on Other Planets: Uranus The weirdest of the planets. A blue giant, resting on its side. Could we find a home in...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
The weirdest of the planets. A blue giant, resting on its side. Could we find a home in the Uranian system? Description Uranus is the fourth-largest planet and the first ‘ice giant’. It orbits between 18.3 and 20.1 AU from the Sun, making it four times more distant than...
Quanta Magazine
The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it...
11 months ago
13
11 months ago
The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it is, in fact, a hub of sensory and emotional processing in the brain. The post The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings first appeared on Quanta...
wadertales
WaderTales blogs in 2022 Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped the blogs into sections; problems with trees, more research from Iceland, Curlews, news from the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, tracking and updates. As ever, I am grateful to...
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
11
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...
Asterisk
A Field Guide to AI Safety AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a...
a year ago
1
a year ago
AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a decade still have strong disagreements.
Light from Space
The Dense & Dusty Orion Nebula Next to the Andromeda Galaxy, the Orion Nebula (also referred to as “Great Nebula in Orion” in older...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Next to the Andromeda Galaxy, the Orion Nebula (also referred to as “Great Nebula in Orion” in older texts) is likely the first target for any fledgling amateur astrophotographer in the Northern Hemisphere. It's so bright it actually appears to the naked eye essentially like a
Willem Pennings
Home Assistant-compatible air quality sensor I recently moved and our new home is equipped with a ventilation system that distributes fresh...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
I recently moved and our new home is equipped with a ventilation system that distributes fresh (outside) air through the house and recoups heat from the air that is exhausted. There is a problem with this system, though. Sometimes, for example when a neighbour lights their wood...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Out-Of-Pocket Game plan | Out-Of-Pocket How to build the on-boarding system for healthcare
a year ago
ToughSF
NTER: Nuclear Thermal-Electric Rocket There is a type of nuclear propulsion that can have most of the acceleration of a nuclear thermal...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
There is a type of nuclear propulsion that can have most of the acceleration of a nuclear thermal rocket but also the high Isp of an electric thruster.  Let’s have a look at nuclear ‘thermal-electric’ engines and their advantages. The title image is from 'dV: Rings of...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Too much money in digital health? | Out-Of-Pocket trying a new format out
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Out-Of-Pocket’s 2025 Predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I’m like 50% right every year, I just never know which 50%
6 days ago
Blog - Practical...
Which Is Easier To Pull? (Railcars vs. Road Cars) [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Imagine the room you’re in...
a year ago
26
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Imagine the room you’re in right now was filled to the top with gravel. (I promise I’m headed somewhere with this.) I don’t know the size of the room you’re in, but if it’s anywhere near an average-sized...
The Works in...
The duplication crisis: the other replication crisis How bad publishing incentives hinder long-term thinking in computational biology research
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
a year ago
22
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...
Probably...
The World Population Singularity One of the exercises in Modeling and Simulation in Python invites readers to download estimates of...
a year ago
5
a year ago
One of the exercises in Modeling and Simulation in Python invites readers to download estimates of world population from 10,000 BCE to the present, and to see if they are well modeled by any simple mathematical function. Here’s what the estimates look like (aggregated on...
The Works in...
Where inflation comes from How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences...
a month ago
19
a month ago
How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences in how well-off we think we are.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
"We Should Sell To Self-Insured Employers" | Out-Of-Pocket Six Stages Of Health Tech Grief Pt. 2
a year ago
Probably...
Have the Nones Leveled Off? Last month Ryan Burge published “The Nones Have Hit a Ceiling“, using data from the 2023 Cooperative...
5 months ago
61
5 months ago
Last month Ryan Burge published “The Nones Have Hit a Ceiling“, using data from the 2023 Cooperative Election Study to show that the increase in the number of Americans with no religious affiliation has hit a plateau. Comparing the number of Atheists, Agnostics, and “Nothing in...
Asterisk
The Transistor Cliff Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
a year ago
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. (We’ve previously given thanks for the...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory, the error bar, gauge symmetry, Landauer’s Principle, the...
Quanta Magazine
How Randomness Improves Algorithms Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems. The...
a year ago
42
a year ago
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems. The post How Randomness Improves Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
Xerox Donates Legendary PARC Research Center Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI International. The subsidiary’s pioneering research in the 1970s helped give birth to the era of personal computing. Xerox says the move will allow it to focus on its core business. The...
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
5
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
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
28
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Have We Achieved General AI As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for...
a week ago
18
a week ago
As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for a long time before there is a consensus that we have. The latest round of this controversy comes from Vahid Kazemi from OpenAI. He posted on X: “In my opinion we have already...
nanoscale views
Materials families: Halide perovskites Looking back, I realized that I haven't written much about halide perovskites, which is quite an...
6 months ago
63
6 months ago
Looking back, I realized that I haven't written much about halide perovskites, which is quite an oversight given how much research impact they're having.  I'm not an expert, and there are multiple extensive review articles out there (e.g. here, here, here, here, here), so this...
wadertales
When mates behave differently Iceland’s 40,000 Oystercatchers are an interesting mix of resident birds and migrants, providing an...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Iceland’s 40,000 Oystercatchers are an interesting mix of resident birds and migrants, providing an ideal system in which to study the costs and benefits of the two options, and to try to work out what influences whether an individual becomes a ‘resident’ or a ‘migrant’. I’ve...
Quanta Magazine
The Best Qubits for Quantum Computing Might Just Be Atoms In the search for the most scalable hardware to use for quantum computers, qubits made of individual...
9 months ago
37
9 months ago
In the search for the most scalable hardware to use for quantum computers, qubits made of individual atoms are having a breakout moment. The post The Best Qubits for Quantum Computing Might Just Be Atoms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Neural Networks Need Data to Learn. Even If It’s Fake. Real data can be hard to get, so researchers are turning to synthetic data to train their artificial...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Real data can be hard to get, so researchers are turning to synthetic data to train their artificial intelligence systems. The post Neural Networks Need Data to Learn. Even If It’s Fake. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The Clipper Europa Mission I wrote earlier this week about the latest successful test of Starship and the capture of the Super...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
I wrote earlier this week about the latest successful test of Starship and the capture of the Super Heavy booster by grabbing arms of the landing tower. This was quite a feat, but it should not eclipse what was perhaps even bigger space news this week – the launch of NASAs...
Eukaryote Writes...
Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11 This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at...
11 months ago
56
11 months ago
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at great effort and expense during the 1969 Apollo landing.
NeuroLogica Blog
A Lifecycle Analysis of Electric Vehicles This article is part of my informal series on EVs, sorting through the claims, reality, and...
a year ago
13
a year ago
This article is part of my informal series on EVs, sorting through the claims, reality, and propaganda. There are many complicated factors to sort through, but overall, in my opinion, most concerns about EVs are outdated or overblown. There are definitely locations and use...
symmetry magazine
Applications of quantum mechanics at the beach How does sunscreen work on the atomic level?
a year ago
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
37
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...
Damn Interesting
Journey to the Invisible Planet In the late 17th century, natural philosopher Isaac Newton was deeply uneasy with a new scientific...
a year ago
9
a year ago
In the late 17th century, natural philosopher Isaac Newton was deeply uneasy with a new scientific theory that was gaining currency in Europe: universal gravitation. In correspondence with a scientific contemporary, Newton complained that it was “an absurdity” to suppose that...
Beautiful Public...
Aerial Glacier Photographs A collection of 100,000 striking high-resolution aerial photos of glaciers, photographed over 40...
6 months ago
70
6 months ago
A collection of 100,000 striking high-resolution aerial photos of glaciers, photographed over 40 years with a 63-pound WW II surveillance camera.
nanoscale views
Some interesting recent papers - lots to ponder As we bid apparent farewell to LK99, it's important to note that several other pretty exciting...
a year ago
9
a year ago
As we bid apparent farewell to LK99, it's important to note that several other pretty exciting things have been happening in the condensed matter/nano world.  Here are a few papers that look intriguing (caveat emptor:  I have not had a chance to read these in any real depth, so...
NeuroLogica Blog
Moon Spacesuit Prototype Unveiled Good spacesuits are deceptively difficult to design, even with today’s technology. NASA is planning...
a year ago
59
a year ago
Good spacesuits are deceptively difficult to design, even with today’s technology. NASA is planning to return to the moon in 2025 (if all goes well) but the spacesuit the astronauts will wear is one piece to the puzzle they have not completed yet (the other being the lunar...
Quanta Magazine
How Genetic Surprises Complicate the Old Doctrine of DNA For over a century, biologists have had to contend with a complicated picture of genetics, which...
a year ago
4
a year ago
For over a century, biologists have had to contend with a complicated picture of genetics, which they’ve only recently begun to understand. The post How Genetic Surprises Complicate the Old Doctrine of DNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The (Often) Overlooked Experiment That Revealed the Quantum World A century ago, the Stern-Gerlach experiment established the truth of quantum mechanics. Now it’s...
a year ago
10
a year ago
A century ago, the Stern-Gerlach experiment established the truth of quantum mechanics. Now it’s being used to probe the clash of quantum theory and gravity. The post The (Often) Overlooked Experiment That Revealed the Quantum World first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
48
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...
Probably...
Bootstrapping a Proportion It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
2 months ago
35
2 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. Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. How do I use bootstrapping to generate confidence intervals for a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fake Fossils In 1931 a fossil lizard was recovered from the Italian Alps, believed to be a 280 million year old...
10 months ago
25
10 months ago
In 1931 a fossil lizard was recovered from the Italian Alps, believed to be a 280 million year old specimen. The fossil was also rare in that it appeared to have some preserved soft tissue. It was given the species designation Tridentinosaurus antiquus and was thought to be part...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Injecting Caution Into Media Reports of Northern Lights as far South as California Friday, May 10, there was a lot of discussion on the news, on social media, and on different web...
7 months ago
29
7 months ago
Friday, May 10, there was a lot of discussion on the news, on social media, and on different web sites about storms on the Sun that are unleashing great outbursts of radiation and particles, some of them toward Earth. The fact that we are seeing such “space weather” now certainly...
nanoscale views
Tour de force work: Bragg, diffraction, and diamond There are some examples of scientific progress that just seem so far above and beyond the norm, it's...
a year ago
29
a year ago
There are some examples of scientific progress that just seem so far above and beyond the norm, it's almost jaw dropping in terms of the mental leap needed for the insight.  One example that I always liked to point out to first-year undergrads learning about gravity is Johannes...
Quanta Magazine
A New Experiment Casts Doubt on the Leading Theory of the Nucleus By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force...
a year ago
55
a year ago
By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force that binds protons and neutrons. The post A New Experiment Casts Doubt on the Leading Theory of the Nucleus first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Is Wine Fake? Wine commands wealth, prestige, and attention from aficionados. How much of what they admire is in...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Wine commands wealth, prestige, and attention from aficionados. How much of what they admire is in their heads?
Quanta Magazine
‘Groups’ Underpin Modern Math. Here’s How They Work. What do the integers have in common with the symmetries of a triangle? In the 19th century,...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
What do the integers have in common with the symmetries of a triangle? In the 19th century, mathematicians invented groups as an answer to this question. The post ‘Groups’ Underpin Modern Math. Here’s How They Work. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
The rain in Portugal My husband taught me how to pronounce the name of the city where I’d be presenting a talk late last...
10 months ago
67
10 months ago
My husband taught me how to pronounce the name of the city where I’d be presenting a talk late last July: Aveiro, Portugal. Having studied Spanish, I pronounced the name as Ah-VEH-roh, with a v partway to a hard b. … Continue reading →
Probably...
Extremes, outliers, and GOATS The video from my PyData Global 2023 talk, Extremes, outliers, and GOATS, is available now: The...
10 months ago
19
10 months ago
The video from my PyData Global 2023 talk, Extremes, outliers, and GOATS, is available now: The slides are here. There are two Jupyter notebooks that contain the analysis I presented: Here’s the abstract: The fastest runners are much faster than we expect from a Gaussian...
The Roots of...
Cellular reprogramming, pneumatic launch systems, and terraforming Mars In December, I went to the Foresight Institute’s Vision Weekend 2023 in San Francisco. I had a lot...
11 months ago
9
11 months ago
In December, I went to the Foresight Institute’s Vision Weekend 2023 in San Francisco. I had a lot of fun talking to a bunch of weird and ambitious geeks about the glorious abundant technological future. Here are few things I learned about (with the caveat that this is mostly...
Beautiful Public...
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s...
a year ago
25
a year ago
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
Beautiful Public...
The Mirror Fusion Test Facility A decade-long effort to build a machine to unlock the promise of nuclear fusion fell victim to...
a year ago
56
a year ago
A decade-long effort to build a machine to unlock the promise of nuclear fusion fell victim to budget constraints and competing science, and was shut down the day it was dedicated. It was never turned on.
Quanta Magazine
How Does Math Keep Secrets? Cryptography is the thread that connects Julius Caesar, World War II and quantum computing, and it...
4 months ago
33
4 months ago
Cryptography is the thread that connects Julius Caesar, World War II and quantum computing, and it now lies under nearly every part of modern life. In this week’s episode, computer scientist Boaz Barak and co-host Janna Levin discuss the past and future of secrecy. ...
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
4
3 months ago
Sichuan Mala has written a guest post on one of the most unfairly maligned parts of the financial industry
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI for Neuroforecasting I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies...
a year ago
27
a year ago
I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies and concerns. I tend to fall on the side of – AI is a powerful tool, we should continue to develop it and use it responsibly. We don’t need to panic, and highly restrictive laws...
Quanta Magazine
Monumental Proof Settles Geometric Langlands Conjecture In work that has been 30 years in the making, mathematicians have proved a major part of a profound...
5 months ago
41
5 months ago
In work that has been 30 years in the making, mathematicians have proved a major part of a profound mathematical vision called the Langlands program. The post Monumental Proof Settles Geometric Langlands Conjecture first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
9
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...
brr
The Last Egg Five more months until freshies...
a year ago
Beautiful Public...
Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and...
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Will Better Superconductors Transform the World? Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient...
7 months ago
63
7 months ago
Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient conditions. In this episode, the physicist Siddharth Shanker Saxena tells co-host Janna Levin about what makes this hunt so difficult and consequential. The post Will...
The Works in...
The Power of the Earth On the future of geothermal energy
10 months ago
Light from Space
Lunar Eclipse Triptych A total lunar eclipse is (next to the much rarer solar eclipses) a spectacle to behold and one of...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
A total lunar eclipse is (next to the much rarer solar eclipses) a spectacle to behold and one of the few celestial events that happen in human timescales in the course of a few hours. In mid-May 2022 there was a beautiful eclipse visible from North America and I have
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote in Asterisk Magazine + New Patreon Per-post setup Eukaryote elsewhere I have an article in the latest issue of Asterisk Magazine. After you get really...
a year ago
55
a year ago
Eukaryote elsewhere I have an article in the latest issue of Asterisk Magazine. After you get really deep into the weeds of invertebrate sentience and fish welfare and the scale of factory farming, what do you do with that information vis-a-vis what you feel comfortable eating?...
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 2 This is the second episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
30
a year ago
This is the second episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
Quanta Magazine
A New Approach to Computation Reimagines Artificial Intelligence By imbuing enormous vectors with semantic meaning, we can get machines to reason more abstractly —...
a year ago
94
a year ago
By imbuing enormous vectors with semantic meaning, we can get machines to reason more abstractly — and efficiently — than before. The post A New Approach to Computation Reimagines Artificial Intelligence first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
24
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...
brr
McMurdo Postal Mail How to mail things to and from Antarctica!
over a year ago
nanoscale views
APS March Meeting 2024, Day 2 A decent part of today was spent in conversation with friends and colleagues, but here are some high...
9 months ago
28
9 months ago
A decent part of today was spent in conversation with friends and colleagues, but here are some high points of scientific talks: The DMP prize session was excellent.  The first talk was by Harold Hwang, this year's awardee of the McGroddy Prize.  He gave a very compelling...
Quanta Magazine
Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest otherwise. The post Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Unfolding the Mysteries of Polygonal Billiards The surprisingly subtle geometry of a familiar game shows how quickly math gets complicated. ...
10 months ago
32
10 months ago
The surprisingly subtle geometry of a familiar game shows how quickly math gets complicated. The post Unfolding the Mysteries of Polygonal Billiards first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Math That Connects Where We’re Going to Where We’ve Been Recursion builds bridges between ideas from across different math classes and illustrates the power...
9 months ago
38
9 months ago
Recursion builds bridges between ideas from across different math classes and illustrates the power of creative mathematical thinking. The post Math That Connects Where We’re Going to Where We’ve Been first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
When Was the Last Time We Built a New City? California Forever wants to build a new city in Solano county. On paper, it would be an affordable,...
8 months ago
2
8 months ago
California Forever wants to build a new city in Solano county. On paper, it would be an affordable, high-density urbanist wonderland — but can they actually pull it off?
Quanta Magazine
Tiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind A new analysis argues that ubiquitous eruptions in the sun’s corona explain the vast flow of charged...
a year ago
38
a year ago
A new analysis argues that ubiquitous eruptions in the sun’s corona explain the vast flow of charged particles seen streaming out through the solar system. The post Tiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
33
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 […]
symmetry magazine
Muon g-2 doubles down with latest measurement, explores uncharted territory Fermilab's Muon g-2 experiment brings particle physics closer to a showdown between theory and...
a year ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Potentially undervalued companies I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies...
3 months ago
4
3 months ago
I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies developing them. 90% of the time, my answer is “I don’t know” but it continues to concern me that aspects of technical feasibility are evidently not legible to financial types (and...
The Works in...
How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars: 1973, Israel Maintains A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
nanoscale views
Disorganized thoughts on "Oppenheimer" I saw "Oppenheimer" today.  Spoiler warning, I suppose, though I think we all know how this story...
a year ago
7
a year ago
I saw "Oppenheimer" today.  Spoiler warning, I suppose, though I think we all know how this story ends.  Just in case you were wondering, there is no post-credit scene to set up the sequel.  (For the humor-impaired: that was a joke.) The movie was an excellent piece of...
nanoscale views
The fusion story of the day There is a press conference going on right now announcing a breakthrough at the National Ignition...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
There is a press conference going on right now announcing a breakthrough at the National Ignition Facility at Livermore.   The NIF is an inertial confinement fusion facility that uses 192 laser beams to compress a fuel pellet containing deuterium and tritium.  The pellet is...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
"AI sucks", Quantifying EMR burden, and Loneliness | Out-Of-Pocket 3 interesting papers I like
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Math That Goes On Forever but Never Repeats Simple math can help explain the complexities of the newly discovered aperiodic monotile. ...
a year ago
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a year ago
Simple math can help explain the complexities of the newly discovered aperiodic monotile. The post Math That Goes On Forever but Never Repeats first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
UK waders: “Into the Red” If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most conservation concern in the UK, they would probably not include Dunlin. Curlew may well be top of their lists, even though the most recent population estimate is 58,500 breeding pairs, but...
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
7 months ago
2
7 months ago
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
Beautiful Public...
The Style Guide for America’s Highways: The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices Driving across America, you will encounter a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people and...
a year ago
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a year ago
Driving across America, you will encounter a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people and animals. But the one consistent thing that will stay the same from Maine to California are the signs you pass on the highway. That is because America’s roads and highways have a big, fat...
Quanta Magazine
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
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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
Asterisk
Want Growth? Kill Small Businesses The central question of development economics is simple: how can poor countries become rich? The...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
The central question of development economics is simple: how can poor countries become rich? The answer is neither small-scale, targeted interventions nor broad generalizations about growth. Instead, we should focus on firms.
NeuroLogica Blog
Energy Demand Increasing For the last two decades electricity demand in the US has been fairly flat. While it has been...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
For the last two decades electricity demand in the US has been fairly flat. While it has been increasing overall, the increase has been very low. This has been largely attributed to the fact that as the use of electrical devices has increased, the efficiency of those devices has...
Asterisk
You’re Invited to a Colonoscopy! Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost...
a year ago
2
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.
NeuroLogica Blog
Student Attitudes Toward AI in the Class Researchers recently published an extensive survey of almost 6,000 students across academic...
a year ago
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a year ago
Researchers recently published an extensive survey of almost 6,000 students across academic institution in Sweden. The results are not surprising, but they do give a snapshot of where we are with the recent introduction of large language model AIs. Most students, 56%, reported...
Blog - Practical...
How Railroad Crossings Work [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] If you’ve ever ridden a bike,...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] If you’ve ever ridden a bike, driven a car, or operated pretty much any other vehicle on earth, there’s a fact you’ve probably taken for granted: you can see farther than it takes to stop. Within the span...
nanoscale views
Bob Curl - it is possible to be successful and also a good person I went to a memorial service today at Rice for my late colleague Bob Curl, who died this past...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I went to a memorial service today at Rice for my late colleague Bob Curl, who died this past summer, and it was a really nice event.  I met Bob almost immediately upon my arrival at Rice back in 2000 (though I’d heard about him from my thesis advisor, who’d met him at the Nobel...
The Works in...
Gentrification as a housing problem The root cause of displacement is inflexible supply
5 months ago
Asterisk
Why You’ve Never Been In A Plane Crash The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when...
10 months ago
2
10 months ago
The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when accidents do happen.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
All of the main problems with US healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket let's get all of our problems out on the table
9 months ago
Quanta Magazine
New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal By eliminating a hidden inefficiency, computer scientists have come up with a new way to multiply...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
By eliminating a hidden inefficiency, computer scientists have come up with a new way to multiply large matrices that’s faster than ever. The post New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
The need for energy-efficient computing Computing is consuming a large and ever-growing fraction of the world's energy capacity. I've seen...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Computing is consuming a large and ever-growing fraction of the world's energy capacity. I've seen the essential data in this figure several times over the last few months, and it has convinced me that the need for energy-efficient computing hardware is genuinely pressing.  This...
Quanta Magazine
Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count By making use of randomness, a team has created a simple algorithm for estimating large numbers of...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
By making use of randomness, a team has created a simple algorithm for estimating large numbers of distinct objects in a stream of data. The post Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Evolution and Copy-Paste Errors Evolution deniers (I know there is a spectrum, but generally speaking) are terrible scientists and...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Evolution deniers (I know there is a spectrum, but generally speaking) are terrible scientists and logicians. The obvious reason is because they are committing the primary mortal sin of pseudoscience – working backwards from a desired conclusion rather than following evidence and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Gene Editing Chickens to Resist Bird Flu There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat....
a year ago
7
a year ago
There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat. They are a high efficiency source of high quality protein. It’s the kind of thing we need to do if we want to feed 8 billion people. Similarly we have planted 4.62 billion acres of...
symmetry magazine
Listening to the radio on the far side of the moon LuSEE-Night will demonstrate whether an experiment to search for ancient radio signals can survive...
a year ago
20
a year ago
LuSEE-Night will demonstrate whether an experiment to search for ancient radio signals can survive the moon’s unforgiving environment.
Explorations of an...
From Yungas Forest To Desert January 17, 2023 (continued) Today was a day of contrasts. We began the morning with a successful...
a year ago
15
a year ago
January 17, 2023 (continued) Today was a day of contrasts. We began the morning with a successful search for the Rufous-throated Dipper in humid yungas forest on the east slope of the Andes. We then worked our way northwest over the course of the day and watched the landscape...
Quanta Magazine
The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental. ...
2 months ago
15
2 months ago
These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental. The post The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Casey Handmer's blog
We can Terraform the American West Why is there almost nothing on the left hand side of the USA? Water scarcity! We’re missing 300...
a month ago
3
a month ago
Why is there almost nothing on the left hand side of the USA? Water scarcity! We’re missing 300 million Americans. We’re missing  30 global cities west of 100 degrees longitude. We should do something about it! The western US is a parched opportunity to create millions of acres...
Quanta Magazine
A Very Big Small Leap Forward in Graph Theory Four mathematicians have found a new upper limit to the “Ramsey number,” a crucial property...
a year ago
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a year ago
Four mathematicians have found a new upper limit to the “Ramsey number,” a crucial property describing unavoidable structure in graphs. The post A Very Big Small Leap Forward in Graph Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Roots of...
What does it mean to “trust science”? And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me...
a year ago
12
a year ago
And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, science definitely exists—I’ve seen it. But not everything that calls itself science is science, and even good science sometimes gets wrong results. –Megan McArdle Should...
IEEE Spectrum
A Brief History of the World’s First Planetarium In 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea:...
7 months ago
60
7 months ago
In 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea: Could you project an artificial starry sky onto a dome, as a way of demonstrating astronomical principles to the public? It was such a novel concept that when von Miller approached...
Interaction Magic -...
Hacking the terrorist timepiece The hardest part of building hardware interfaces is not having the right tools to prototype, test...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
The hardest part of building hardware interfaces is not having the right tools to prototype, test and validate ideas. A behind the scenes look at my prototyping process, on a project to re-invent the famous Casio F-91W watch.
NeuroLogica Blog
Science Communication About Controversial Issues The world of science communication has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and it’s...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
The world of science communication has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and it’s useful to think about those changes, both for people who generate and consume science communication. The big change, of course, is social media, which has disrupted journalism and...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Start your healthcare company outside of the US | Out-Of-Pocket Gotta start somewhere...else?
10 months ago
nanoscale views
Condensed matter’s rough start I’m teaching undergrad solid-state for the first time, and it has served as a reminder of how...
a year ago
24
a year ago
I’m teaching undergrad solid-state for the first time, and it has served as a reminder of how condensed matter physics got off the ground.  I suspect that one reason CM historically had not received a lot of respect in the early years (e.g. Pauli declaring that solid-state...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 3: Hunter Canyon to Portal September 2, 2024 We awoke to another beautiful sunrise in the Huachuca Mountains. I could get used...
2 months ago
13
2 months ago
September 2, 2024 We awoke to another beautiful sunrise in the Huachuca Mountains. I could get used to this view. View from Beatty's Guest Ranch - Miller Canyon, Cochise County, Arizona This was our final morning in this region; we had plans to make the long drive eastwards...
Damn Interesting
The Ancient Order of Bali In the 1970s, the Indonesian island of Bali went through a period of rapid change. Along the...
a year ago
7
a year ago
In the 1970s, the Indonesian island of Bali went through a period of rapid change. Along the stunning beaches on the southern side of the island, tourism boomed. Parking lots were put up, together with swinging hot spots and hotels of various colours. Hip young travellers from...
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
9
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.
Drew Ex Machina
Catching Up: Talking about the Weather After an unintended four-month hiatus publishing new work on the Drew Ex Machina website, I figured...
a year ago
37
a year ago
After an unintended four-month hiatus publishing new work on the Drew Ex Machina website, I figured it was time to catch up on what I’ve been […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Oldest Evidence of Humans In Americas Exactly when Homo sapiens came to the Americas has not been firmly established, and new evidence has...
a year ago
4
a year ago
Exactly when Homo sapiens came to the Americas has not been firmly established, and new evidence has just thrown another curve ball into the controversy. There is evidence of a large culture of humans throughout North America from 12-13,000 years ago, called the Clovis Culture....
Blog - Practical...
How Would a Nuclear EMP Affect the Power Grid? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Late in the morning of April...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Late in the morning of April 28, 1958, the USS Boxer aircraft carrier ship was about 70 miles off the coast of the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The crew of the Boxer was preparing to launch a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Carbon Fiber Structural Battery I have written previously about the concept of structural batteries, such as this recent post on a...
3 months ago
22
3 months ago
I have written previously about the concept of structural batteries, such as this recent post on a concrete battery. The basic idea is a battery made out of material that is strong enough that it can bare a load. Essentially we’re asking the material to do two things at once – be...
Explorations of an...
Chasing Endemics in Córdoba Córdoba is the second most populated city in Argentina, located in the Punilla Valley around 600 km...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Córdoba is the second most populated city in Argentina, located in the Punilla Valley around 600 km northwest of Buenos Aires. Laura and I spent one night in the city before our morning's birding. Our destination: the beautiful Sierras de Córdoba to the west of the city and...
brr
Sunset Hunkering down for the winter!
a year ago
The Works in...
What did Henry George think about cities? Solving the terrible urban conditions of the 1800s by abolishing cities
7 months ago
nanoscale views
Very brief end of the year round-up It's hard to believe that it's already the end of 2023.  It's been a busy year for condensed matter;...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
It's hard to believe that it's already the end of 2023.  It's been a busy year for condensed matter; it's unfortunate that two of the biggest stories (problems with high pressure superconductivity papers; the brief excitement about LK99, the not-actually-a-superconductor) were...
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence of Ancient Solar Flares From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or...
a year ago
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a year ago
From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or even coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In 1859 a large CME hit Earth (known as the Carrington Event), shorting out telegraphs, brightening the sky, and causing aurora deep into...
Light from Space
The Rosette Nebula Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring astrophotographer. Located not too far from Orion in Monoceros, this large H II region has spectacular features, centered around a star cluster. Click or tap to...
Drew Ex Machina
The Promise of MIDAS: The First Experimental Early Warning Satellites Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile launches anywhere on the planet and quickly determine whether it […]
Quanta Magazine
Perplexing the Web, One Probability Puzzle at a Time The mathematician Daniel Litt has driven social media users to distraction with a series of...
3 months ago
40
3 months ago
The mathematician Daniel Litt has driven social media users to distraction with a series of simple-seeming but counterintuitive probability puzzles. The post Perplexing the Web, One Probability Puzzle at a Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
What do we want in a conference venue? The APS March Meeting was in Las Vegas this year, and I have yet to talk to a single attendee who...
a year ago
25
a year ago
The APS March Meeting was in Las Vegas this year, and I have yet to talk to a single attendee who liked that decision in hindsight.  In brief, the conference venue seemed about 10% too small (severe crowding issues in hallways between sessions); while the APS deal on hotels was...
Eukaryote Writes...
Will the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not? If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected...
a year ago
54
a year ago
If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected meat, my default assumption would be “we're in danger.” But a prion isn’t a virus. Why does that matter?
Asterisk
Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich? The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed economists for decades. What makes it so hard to answer?
The Works in...
Links in Progress: All the single people And how China will lose 51 million people in 10 years
5 days ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Sleep health is getting interesting | Out-Of-Pocket The consumer and clinical worlds of sleep are colliding
a month ago
Drew Ex Machina
GOES Video of Solar Eclipse – October 14, 2023 Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14,...
a year ago
45
a year ago
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023 was no different. Unlike a total solar eclipse where the […]
The Roots of...
Accelerating science through evolvable institutions This is the written version of a talk presented to the Santa Fe Institute at a working group on...
a year ago
23
a year ago
This is the written version of a talk presented to the Santa Fe Institute at a working group on “Accelerating Science.” We’re here to discuss “accelerating science.” I like to start on topics like this by taking the historical view: When (if ever) has science accelerated in the...
Wanderingspace
Triton Image from Voyager Colored Nice update to an old Voyager image with colors added based on actual colors captured in other...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Nice update to an old Voyager image with colors added based on actual colors captured in other images. See original post here by Jason Major.
nanoscale views
Power and computing The Wall Street Journal last week had an article (sorry about the paywall) titled "There’s Not...
7 months ago
73
7 months ago
The Wall Street Journal last week had an article (sorry about the paywall) titled "There’s Not Enough Power for America’s High-Tech Ambitions", about how there is enormous demand for more data centers (think Amazon Web Services and the like), and electricity production can't...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Adornment "Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by...
3 months ago
4
3 months ago
"Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by its purpose or function. A quick perusal of any antique shop will show that this maxim is generally ignored. Humans (Homo sapiens) have been called "naked apes," but we and our...
NeuroLogica Blog
ChatGPT Performs At University Level We are still sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of the new crop of artificial intelligence...
a year ago
8
a year ago
We are still sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of the new crop of artificial intelligence (AI) applications, the poster-child of which is ChatGPT. This is a so-called large language model application using a “generative pre-trained transformer”. Essentially these types of...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More weird rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket 3 liters of blood, sequential billing, COBRA, and more
6 months ago
Quanta Magazine
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
7
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
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
NeuroLogica Blog
Controlling the Narrative with AI There is an ongoing battle in our society to control the narrative, to influence the flow of...
10 months ago
23
10 months ago
There is an ongoing battle in our society to control the narrative, to influence the flow of information, and thereby move the needle on what people think and how they behave. This is nothing new, but the mechanisms for controlling the narrative are evolving as our communication...
Quanta Magazine
Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the...
10 months ago
26
10 months ago
The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the subterranean magma are saving lives. The post Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
2
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.
symmetry magazine
SAGE Journey program ignites interest in STEM Three SAGE alumni talk about their experiences with a program meant to broaden gender diversity in...
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How to analyze public healthcare datasets (even if you're non-technical) | Out-Of-Pocket Plus: using ChatGPT to analyze datasets?
a year ago
Beautiful Public...
Wild Horses The Bureau of Land Management wants to pay you $1,000 to adopt a wild horse. But the program has...
a year ago
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a year ago
The Bureau of Land Management wants to pay you $1,000 to adopt a wild horse. But the program has been criticized by animal rights advocates and subject to scrutiny by Congress.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Amazon + One Medical Post | Out-Of-Pocket I guess I should say something?
9 months ago
Asterisk
Rat Traps Does the rationalist blogosphere need to update?
a month ago
Wanderingspace
Goodbye Ingenuity Mission completed. Ingenuity is left alone on Mars after damage to one of its blades renders it...
10 months ago
45
10 months ago
Mission completed. Ingenuity is left alone on Mars after damage to one of its blades renders it inoperable..
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Dec. 21 is Winter Solstice — Why We Have Seasons on Earth Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with...
3 days ago
7
3 days ago
Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with which we mark the beginning of the winter season in the Earth’s northern hemisphere.  It’s interesting to note that the planets Venus and Jupiter do not have seasons like the...
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 4 This is the fourth episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
30
a year ago
This is the fourth episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
NeuroLogica Blog
Is Mars the New Frontier? In the excellent sci fi show, The Expanse, which takes place a couple hundred years in the future,...
11 months ago
22
11 months ago
In the excellent sci fi show, The Expanse, which takes place a couple hundred years in the future, Mars has been settled and is an independent self-sustaining society. In fact, Mars is presented as the most scientifically and technologically advanced society of humans in the...
Quanta Magazine
Is Perpetual Motion Possible at the Quantum Level? A new phase of matter called a “time crystal” plays with our expectations of thermodynamics. The...
a year ago
27
a year ago
A new phase of matter called a “time crystal” plays with our expectations of thermodynamics. The physicist Vedika Khemani talks with Steven Strogatz about its surprising quantum behavior. The post Is Perpetual Motion Possible at the Quantum Level? first appeared on...
Quanta Magazine
When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness to deal with the unknown. The post When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 5 This is the fifth and final episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
47
a year ago
This is the fifth and final episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
Explorations of an...
El Valle Encantado (The Enchanted Valley), And A Bump In The Road January 19, 2023 It is not always easy to find trails worth exploring in the Andes, and the reason...
a year ago
14
a year ago
January 19, 2023 It is not always easy to find trails worth exploring in the Andes, and the reason for this is simple. The extreme topographical changes in the mountains, combined with frequent rainfall and thick vegetation do not lend themselves to the construction and regular...
NeuroLogica Blog
Flow Batteries – Now With Nanofluids Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable...
10 months ago
34
10 months ago
Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable incremental increase in energy density, charging time, stability, and lifecycle. We now have lithium-ion batteries with a specific energy of 296 Wh/kg – these are in use in existing...
Quanta Magazine
Computer Scientists Establish the Best Way to Traverse a Graph Dijkstra’s algorithm was long thought to be the most efficient way to find a graph’s best routes....
a month ago
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a month ago
Dijkstra’s algorithm was long thought to be the most efficient way to find a graph’s best routes. Researchers have now proved that it’s “universally optimal.” The post Computer Scientists Establish the Best Way to Traverse a Graph first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Special Edition: A Toilet And A Neural Network | Out-Of-Pocket You didn't know you needed this. And you probably don't.
a year ago
Interaction Magic -...
Light Engineering Exploring the physics and engineering of light pipes, where optics and mechanical design meet.
over a year ago
Cremieux Recueil
Why America’s Racial Poverty Statistics Are a Lesson for Researchers What if a single government employee could tell you an entire literature was wrong?
3 months ago
pcloadletter
RSS is still pretty great I think a lot about information and information consumption. The way the Internet made information...
10 months ago
17
10 months ago
I think a lot about information and information consumption. The way the Internet made information readily available is phenomenal. Sadly, the signal-to-noise ratio here is pretty low. For me, consuming RSS feeds[1] offers the best way to read the kind of high-quality information...
Quanta Magazine
Strangely Curved Shapes Break 50-Year-Old Geometry Conjecture Mathematicians have disproved a major conjecture about the relationship between curvature and shape....
7 months ago
80
7 months ago
Mathematicians have disproved a major conjecture about the relationship between curvature and shape. The post Strangely Curved Shapes Break 50-Year-Old Geometry Conjecture first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Clinic Buildouts | Out-Of-Pocket Has software changed what's necessary in the clinic?
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Ins and Outs of Fundraising Today | Out-Of-Pocket Some stuff I’ve learned doing a little healthcare startup investing
a year ago
nanoscale views
Brief items With the end of the semester approaching and various grant deadlines, it's been a very busy time. ...
a year ago
30
a year ago
With the end of the semester approaching and various grant deadlines, it's been a very busy time.  Here are some items I spotted this week (some new, some old): This article from Quanta about the "Einstein tile" is great - I particularly like the animated illustration.  This...
Quantum Frontiers
Film noir and quantum thermo In four months, I’ll embark on the adventure of a lifetime—fatherhood. To prepare, I’ve been honing...
7 months ago
75
7 months ago
In four months, I’ll embark on the adventure of a lifetime—fatherhood. To prepare, I’ve been honing a quintessential father skill—storytelling. If my son inherits even a fraction of my tastes, he’ll soon develop a passion for film noir detective stories. … Continue reading →
Quanta Magazine
A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene...
10 months ago
29
10 months ago
Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene regulation. The post A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
Curlew nest survival The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,...
a year ago
23
a year ago
The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,  largely due to a rapid decline in breeding numbers. In this context, the fact that there are a few pink squares (indicating increased numbers) on the map showing breeding...
Quanta Magazine
Scientists Find Optimal Balance of Data Storage and Time Seventy years after the invention of a data structure called a hash table, theoreticians have found...
10 months ago
33
10 months ago
Seventy years after the invention of a data structure called a hash table, theoreticians have found the most efficient possible configuration for it. The post Scientists Find Optimal Balance of Data Storage and Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Actually good 2024 healthcare predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
Damn Interesting
Breaking a Bit It’s been a busy summer, and the large shortfall in donations last month has been demoralizing, so...
a year ago
51
a year ago
It’s been a busy summer, and the large shortfall in donations last month has been demoralizing, so we’re taking a week off to rest and recuperate. The curated links section will be (mostly) silent, and behind the scenes we’ll be taking a brief break from our usual researching,...
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
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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.
Asterisk
Salt, Sugar, Water, Zinc: How Scientists Learned to Treat the 20th Century’s Biggest Killer of... Oral rehydration therapy is now the standard treatment for dehydration. It’s saved millions of...
a year ago
2
a year ago
Oral rehydration therapy is now the standard treatment for dehydration. It’s saved millions of lives, and can be prepared at home in minutes. So why did it take so long to discover?
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence and the Nanny State Part II In Part I of this post I outlined some basic considerations in deciding how much the state should...
a year ago
7
a year ago
In Part I of this post I outlined some basic considerations in deciding how much the state should impose regulations on people and institutions in order to engineer positive outcomes. In the end the best approach, it seems to me, is a balanced one, where we consider the burden of...
Quanta Magazine
How the Ancient Art of Eclipse Prediction Became an Exact Science The timing of the total eclipse on April 8, 2024, will be known to within a second, thousands of...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
The timing of the total eclipse on April 8, 2024, will be known to within a second, thousands of years after fearful humans first started trying to anticipate these cosmic events. The post How the Ancient Art of Eclipse Prediction Became an Exact Science first...
Damn Interesting
The Anticipated Future of the Moon When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day was approximately five hours long. During the intervening billions of years, the dragging effect of the moon’s gravity slowed the Earth’s spin to the 24-hour day we now observe....
NeuroLogica Blog
UK Building More Nuclear The nuclear debate seems never-ending, which I guess is to be expected. Every large technology has...
a year ago
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a year ago
The nuclear debate seems never-ending, which I guess is to be expected. Every large technology has tradeoffs. But the need to transition our energy infrastructure to carbon neutral has shifted the equation, and it is now arguable that we cannot afford to ignore the option of...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More 2022 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket A curation of your 2022 predictions
a year ago
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
36
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...
Quanta Magazine
The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made the world ring. Finding its cause took 68 scientists and an assist by the Danish military. The post The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight first...
Casey Handmer's blog
Why do we need a Department of Government Efficiency? President Trump’s recent sweeping electoral victory is a clear mandate for change. There is some...
2 weeks ago
4
2 weeks ago
President Trump’s recent sweeping electoral victory is a clear mandate for change. There is some urgency, and Trump has assembled the early stages of a team and coalition that can deliver it. It’s not exactly a mystery what Elon and Vivek plan for The Department of Government...
NeuroLogica Blog
Antarctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low For decades scientists were confused by Antarctic sea ice. Climate models predict that it should be...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
For decades scientists were confused by Antarctic sea ice. Climate models predict that it should be decreasing, and yet it has been steadily and slowly increasing. It also made for a great talking point for climate change deniers – superficially it seems like counter evidence to...
Drew Ex Machina
Failure to Launch: The First Moon Race 1958-60 While it has been a few months since I have published a new post on the Drew Ex Machina website,...
a year ago
25
a year ago
While it has been a few months since I have published a new post on the Drew Ex Machina website, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t […]
Quanta Magazine
Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well. The post Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Change Healthcare Debacle | Out-Of-Pocket what are clearinghouses and do we still need them?
9 months ago
Cremieux Recueil
Did Unions End Long Work Hours? Is it growth or organized labor that's more responsible for giving us shorter workdays?
3 months ago
Asterisk
What We Get Wrong About AI & China Everyone’s afraid of what China can and will do with AI. On the ground, the picture looks a lot more...
a year ago
2
a year ago
Everyone’s afraid of what China can and will do with AI. On the ground, the picture looks a lot more complicated.
IEEE Spectrum
Robert Kahn: The Great Interconnector In the mid-1960s, Robert Kahn began thinking about how computers with different operating systems...
8 months ago
67
8 months ago
In the mid-1960s, Robert Kahn began thinking about how computers with different operating systems could talk to each other across a network. He didn’t think much about what they would say to one another, though. He was a theoretical guy, on leave from the faculty of the...
Quanta Magazine
The New Quest to Control Evolution Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it. ...
a year ago
23
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
Drew Ex Machina
Drew Ex Machina 10th Anniversary: Top Ten Posts I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my...
9 months ago
64
9 months ago
I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my then-new website, Drew Ex Machina. […]
Blog - Practical...
How Long Would Society Last During a Total Grid Collapse? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February 2021, a winter...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February 2021, a winter storm that swept through Texas caused one of the most severe power crises in American history. The cold weather created shockingly high electricity demands as people tried to keep...
The Works in...
The Maintenance Race was just the beginning A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
a year ago
Drew Ex Machina
Apollo A-002: Testing the Limits of the Launch Escape System One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed...
2 weeks ago
16
2 weeks ago
One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed spacecraft have had launch abort options to cover […]
Blog - Practical...
East Palestine Train Derailment Explained [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On the evening of Friday,...
a year ago
24
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On the evening of Friday, February 3, 2023, 38 of 149 cars of a Norfolk Southern Railway freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Five of the derailed cars were carrying vinyl chloride, a hazardous...
Chris Grossack's...
Externalizing Some Simple Topos Statements Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done math in any serious capacity for almost the past month. It’s been a lot of hard work trying to get fair contracts out of the UC, but I had a lot of travel plans this December to...
Wanderingspace
Ganymede Sets Behind Jupiter as Seen by Hubble An image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reminds us of how powerful this aging scope really is....
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
An image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reminds us of how powerful this aging scope really is. Magnitudes sharper than the images originally sent by Pioneer as it passed by in the 1970s.
Probably...
Life in a Lognormal World At PyData Global 2023 I will present a talk, “Extremes, outliers, and GOATs: On life in a lognormal...
a year ago
5
a year ago
At PyData Global 2023 I will present a talk, “Extremes, outliers, and GOATs: On life in a lognormal world”. It is scheduled for Wednesday 6 December at 11 am Eastern Time. Here is the abstract: The fastest runners are much faster than we expect from a Gaussian distribution, and...
Quanta Magazine
In the Quantum World, Even Points of View Are Uncertain The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible...
a month ago
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a month ago
The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once — an insight with potentially major ramifications. The post In the Quantum World, Even Points of View Are Uncertain first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
What Can Jellyfish Teach Us About Fluid Dynamics? Jellyfish and other aquatic creatures embody solutions to diverse problems in engineering, medicine...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Jellyfish and other aquatic creatures embody solutions to diverse problems in engineering, medicine and mathematics. John Dabiri, a fluid dynamics expert, talks with Steven Strogatz about what jellyfish can teach us about going with the flow. The post What Can...
Apoorva Srinivasan
what's happened since the human genome project When the human genome project was deemed “complete” in 2003, it was met with incredible fanfare. The...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
When the human genome project was deemed “complete” in 2003, it was met with incredible fanfare. The entire project leading up to that moment had all the drama to keep its audience enthralled. Fierce rivalry between a public and private institution, multiple countries involved,...
ToughSF
Nuclear Photon Rockets: Flashlights to the Stars In this post, we will have a look at the concept of using a nuclear photon rocket for interstellar...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
In this post, we will have a look at the concept of using a nuclear photon rocket for interstellar travel. They are an old concept that should theoretically be the ultimate form of relativistic propulsion. However, today they are unknown or unpopular. Why might that be the...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Speed of Gravity I recently received an e-mail question from an SGU listener about the speed of gravity. They were...
a year ago
40
a year ago
I recently received an e-mail question from an SGU listener about the speed of gravity. They were questioning a statement they heard by Neil DeGrasse Tyson that if the sun were magically plucked from existence, the Earth would not feel the effects for 8 minutes and 20 seconds –...
NeuroLogica Blog
Should Japan Release Radioactive Water Into The Pacific? Japan is planning on releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Japan is planning on releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into the ocean. They claim this will be completely safe, but there are protests going on in both Japan and South Korea, and China has just placed a ban on seafood from Japan. In a perfect...
Quanta Magazine
Grad Students Find Inevitable Patterns in Big Sets of Numbers A new proof marks the first progress in decades on a problem about how order emerges from disorder. ...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
A new proof marks the first progress in decades on a problem about how order emerges from disorder. The post Grad Students Find Inevitable Patterns in Big Sets of Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
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
5
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Humor It’s been less than two years (November 2022) since ChatGPT launched. In some ways the new large...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
It’s been less than two years (November 2022) since ChatGPT launched. In some ways the new large language model (LLM) type of artificial intelligence (AI) applications have been on the steep part of the improvement curve. And yet, they are still LLMs with the same limitations. In...
Uncharted...
Interesting News & Game Theory of Sex | Q3 2024 Trans & bathrooms, the end of nation states, woke pendulum, trigger warnings, is breastfeeding...
2 months ago
4
2 months ago
Trans & bathrooms, the end of nation states, woke pendulum, trigger warnings, is breastfeeding actually good for IQ, are differences in household work justified, and more
IEEE Spectrum
Skylab: The Space Station That Fell on Australia end cap from one of Skylab’s oxygen tanks in the dirt. Cattle were drinking collected rainwater from...
a year ago
4
a year ago
end cap from one of Skylab’s oxygen tanks in the dirt. Cattle were drinking collected rainwater from the remains of a US $2.2 billion NASA investment. Skylab’s Failure and Recovery Skylab’s fate was sealed moments after lift-off when the sun shield and main solar panel were...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
First Dollar and the HSA wedge | Out-Of-Pocket Triple. Tax. Advantage.
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
A Greener Li-Ion Battery It is increasingly obvious that battery technology is one of the keys to transitioning our...
6 months ago
63
6 months ago
It is increasingly obvious that battery technology is one of the keys to transitioning our civilization away from burning fossil fuels. Batteries facilitate the use of cheap, green, but intermittent energy sources. They also allow for the electrification of technology sectors...
Quantum Frontiers
The Book of Mark Mark Srednicki doesn’t look like a high priest. He’s a professor of physics at the University of...
a year ago
24
a year ago
Mark Srednicki doesn’t look like a high priest. He’s a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB); and you’ll sooner find him in khakis than in sacred vestments. Humor suits his round face better than channeling … Continue reading →
nanoscale views
Rice University Academy of Fellows postdoc opportunity, 2023 As I have posted in previous years, Rice has a university-wide endowed honorific postdoctoral...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
As I have posted in previous years, Rice has a university-wide endowed honorific postdoctoral program called the Rice Academy of Fellows.   Like all such things, it's very competitive. The new application listing has gone live here with a deadline of January 4, 2023. ...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, April 2023 A monthly feature. Note that I generally don’t include very recent writing here, such as the latest...
a year ago
21
a year ago
A monthly feature. Note that I generally don’t include very recent writing here, such as the latest blog posts (for those, see my Twitter digests); this is for my deeper research. AI First, various historical perspectives on AI, many of which were quite prescient: Alan Turing,...
Quanta Magazine
Most Life on Earth is Dormant, After Pulling an ‘Emergency Brake’ Many microbes and cells are in deep sleep, waiting for the right moment to activate. Biologists...
6 months ago
44
6 months ago
Many microbes and cells are in deep sleep, waiting for the right moment to activate. Biologists discovered a widespread protein that abruptly shuts down a cell’s activity — and turns it back on just as fast. The post Most Life on Earth is Dormant, After Pulling an...
nanoscale views
Wind-up nanotechnology When I was a kid, I used to take allowance money and occasionally buy rubber-band-powered balsa wood...
7 months ago
73
7 months ago
When I was a kid, I used to take allowance money and occasionally buy rubber-band-powered balsa wood airplanes at a local store.  Maybe you've seen these.  You wind up the rubber band, which stretches the elastomer and stores energy in the elastic strain of the polymer, as in...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Research papers and the patient perspective | Out-Of-Pocket we can make improvements with some better studies
a year ago
Probably...
Why are you so slow? Recently a shoe store in France ran a promotion called “Rob It to Get It”, which invited customers...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Recently a shoe store in France ran a promotion called “Rob It to Get It”, which invited customers to try to steal something by grabbing it and running out of the store. But there was a catch — the “security guard” was a professional sprinter, Méba Mickael Zeze. As you would...