Eukaryote Writes...
The rare, deadly virus lurking in the Southwest US, and the bigger picture
If you live in this one county in California, you might be more likely to die from Sin Nombre Virus...
14th Nov 2025
If you live in this one county in California, you might be more likely to die from Sin Nombre Virus than in a car crash.
Conservation...
News spotlight: Sea creatures could harbor the next generation of medications, but are they at risk?
2nd Apr 2025
Conservation...
On island nation, ‘ancestral bond’ to crocodiles is tested
1st Jun 2026
Long Now
Adrian Hon: A History of the Future in 100 Objects
### Future artifacts
Speaking from 02082, Hon described 5 (of 100) objects and events from this...
17th Jul 2014
### Future artifacts
Speaking from 02082, Hon described 5 (of 100) objects and events from this century’s history he felt most strongly evoked the astonishing trends that have transformed humanity in the past 8 decades.
Not all developments proved to be positive. One such was...
Peder M. Isager
What to Replicate?
Justifications of study choice from 85 replication studies.
9th Jun 2018
Justifications of study choice from 85 replication studies.
IEEE Spectrum
Tiny Exploding Houses Promoted 18th-Century Lightning Rods
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological...
1st Apr 2023
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological concept to the general public. Done right, tech literacy might soar! A compelling visual example can really help people understand the applications and implications of new...
Quanta Magazine
In a ‘Dark Dimension,’ Physicists Search for the Universe’s Missing Matter
An idea derived from string theory suggests that dark matter is hiding in a (relatively) large extra...
1st Feb 2024
An idea derived from string theory suggests that dark matter is hiding in a (relatively) large extra dimension. The theory makes testable predictions that physicists are investigating now.
The post In a ‘Dark Dimension,’ Physicists Search for the Universe’s Missing...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, September 2023
A quasi-monthly feature. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them...
6th Sep 2023
A quasi-monthly feature. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in my links digests. I’ve been busy helping to choose the first cohort of our blogging fellowship, so my reading has been relatively light. All emphasis in bold in the quotes...
Long Now
Martin Rees: Life's Future in the Cosmos
### Cosmic Life
The pace of astronomic discovery, said the Astronomer Royal, keeps increasing with...
3rd Aug 2010
### Cosmic Life
The pace of astronomic discovery, said the Astronomer Royal, keeps increasing with the constant improvement in our sensing technology. The recent discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe (dark energy) revolutionized cosmology, and with the launch...
The Quanta Podcast
In Game Theory, No Clear Path to Equilibrium
John Nash’s notion of equilibrium is ubiquitous in economic theory, but a new study shows that it is...
12th Oct 2017
John Nash’s notion of equilibrium is ubiquitous in economic theory, but a new study shows that it is often impossible to reach efficiently.
The post In Game Theory, No Clear Path to Equilibrium first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Stewart Brand: Rethinking Green
### Globalizing Green
Brand built his case for rethinking environmental goals and methods on two...
10th Oct 2009
### Globalizing Green
Brand built his case for rethinking environmental goals and methods on two major changes going on in the world. The one that most people still don't take into consideration is that power is shifting to the developing world, where 5 out of 6 people live,...
nanoscale views
Vortices everywhere
The 2026 APS Oliver E. Buckley Prize in condensed matter physics was announced this week, and it's a...
8th Nov 2025
The 2026 APS Oliver E. Buckley Prize in condensed matter physics was announced this week, and it's a really interesting combination of topics that, to a lay person, may seem to be completely unrelated.
Fig. 1 from this follow-up PRB.
On the one hand, John Reppy (at age 94!)...
Long Now
Steven Johnson: Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World
## Inventing toward delight
Humanity has been inventing toward delight for a long time. Johnson...
5th Jan 2017
## Inventing toward delight
Humanity has been inventing toward delight for a long time. Johnson began with a slide of shell beads found in Morocco that indicate human interest in personal adornment going back 80,000 years. He showed 50,000-year-old bone flutes found in modern...
The Quanta Podcast
Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge
The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient?...
9th Apr 2020
The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient? Quantum entanglement.
The post Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Chris D. Thomas: Are We Initiating The Great Anthropocene Speciation Event?
The bad news (not news to most): Many wild species are under severe duress.
The good news (total...
26th Jun 2018
The bad news (not news to most): Many wild species are under severe duress.
The good news (total news to most): “Nature is thriving in an age of extinction.”
Ecologist and evolutionary biologist Chris Thomas has examined a little-noticed phenomenon around the world, that as an...
The Quanta Podcast
How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently...
10th Sep 2020
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life.
The post How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Ten lessons I learned from John Preskill
Last August, Toronto’s Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC) gave me 35 minutes...
20th Jan 2025
Last August, Toronto’s Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC) gave me 35 minutes to make fun of John Preskill in public. CQIQC was hosting its biannual conference, also called CQIQC, in Toronto. The conference features the awarding of … Continue reading →
Inverted Passion
Why aren’t things changing faster?
Been wondering lately that given everyone has a consultant with all the world’s knowledge in their...
4th May 2026
Been wondering lately that given everyone has a consultant with all the world’s knowledge in their pockets, we should be seeing efficiency rise across the board everywhere. Literally everyone can now get personalised advise on how to serve their customers better, improve quality...
Works in Progress...
Who’s afraid of artificial flavors?
‘Artificial’ didn’t scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?
8th May 2026
‘Artificial’ didn’t scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?
brr
The Beer Can
Connecting old and new.
18th Mar 2023
Eukaryote Writes...
23 lessons you will learn living in a very snowy place
6. Snow is heavier than you think.
You might think physical strength is useful for lots of things,...
22nd Jan 2026
6. Snow is heavier than you think.
You might think physical strength is useful for lots of things, like overall health or familiar household tasks or picking up dudes (literally or metaphorically.) But actually, the main thing physical strength is useful for is letting you...
Long Now
Tim Flannery: Here on Earth
### Wallace beats Darwin
The great insight of natural selection was published simultaneously by...
4th May 2011
### Wallace beats Darwin
The great insight of natural selection was published simultaneously by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace in 1858, Flannery pointed out, but their interpretations of the insight then diverged. Darwin's harsh view of "survival of the fittest" led...
Stephen Wolfram...
What Is Ruliology?
Ruliology is taking off! And more and more people are talking about it. But what is ruliology? Since...
12th Jan 2026
Ruliology is taking off! And more and more people are talking about it. But what is ruliology? Since I invented the term, I decided I should write something to explain it. But then I realized: I actually already wrote something back in 2021 when I first invented the term. What I...
wadertales
Conservation beyond boundaries
When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be...
7th Apr 2023
When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be affected by a new airport, because relatively small flocks are counted during field surveys, is there an assumption that the birds encountered are always the same individuals? What if...
The Quanta Podcast
Mathematicians Set Numbers in Motion to Unlock Their Secrets
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines...
10th Jun 2021
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines insights from number theory and dynamical systems.
The post Mathematicians Set Numbers in Motion to Unlock Their Secrets first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
A New Twist Reveals Superconductivity’s Secrets
An unexpected superconductor was beginning to look like a fluke, but a new theory and a second...
8th Jul 2021
An unexpected superconductor was beginning to look like a fluke, but a new theory and a second discovery have revealed that emergent quasiparticles may be behind the effect.
The post A New Twist Reveals Superconductivity’s Secrets first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Alex Wright: Glut: Mastering Information Though the Ages
### A Series of Information Explosions
As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have swarmed in...
18th Aug 2007
### A Series of Information Explosions
As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have swarmed in intense networks for 3.5 billion years. Then a hierarchical form emerged with the first nucleated cells that were made up of an enclosed society of formerly independent...
Asterisk
The Illogic of Nuclear Escalation
How much is enough? It’s the most basic question in the nuclear arms race. For over sixty years, few...
1st Nov 2022
How much is enough? It’s the most basic question in the nuclear arms race. For over sixty years, few have asked it, and even fewer have received an answer.
NeuroLogica Blog
New Whale Fossil – Possibly Heaviest Animal Ever
The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale,...
3rd Aug 2023
The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale, which is extant today. The blue whale is larger than any dinosaur, even the giant sauropods. The average weight of a blue whale is 160 tons, with the largest specimen being 190 tons,...
Interaction Magic -...
Octopus, solar & e-paper energy dashboards
I built a custom energy dashboard for my house using this beautiful, 2-bit colour, e-paper display....
19th May 2025
I built a custom energy dashboard for my house using this beautiful, 2-bit colour, e-paper display. Hardware, software, data and design.
NeuroLogica Blog
Flexible School Start Time
A recent study shows pretty clearly that highschoolers benefit from a little extra sleep. We will...
2nd Mar 2026
A recent study shows pretty clearly that highschoolers benefit from a little extra sleep. We will get to the study in a bit, but first I want to note that this information is not new. Teenagers tend to stay up late, and yet we make them get up super early to be at class, often by...
Long Now
Frank Gavin: Five Ways to Use History Well
### History-savvy Policy
Why do policy makers and historians shun each other? Gavin observed that...
13th Jul 2010
### History-savvy Policy
Why do policy makers and historians shun each other? Gavin observed that policy people want actionable information, certainty, and simple explanations. Meanwhile historians revel in nuance, distrust simple explanations and also distrust power and those...
Eukaryote Writes...
A love letter to civilian OSINT
What is civilian OSINT, and could it be used altruistically?
10th Jul 2020
What is civilian OSINT, and could it be used altruistically?
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...
10th Jul 2024
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...
Beautiful Public...
Aerial Glacier Photographs
A collection of 100,000 striking high-resolution aerial photos of glaciers, photographed over 40...
18th Jun 2024
A collection of 100,000 striking high-resolution aerial photos of glaciers, photographed over 40 years with a 63-pound WW II surveillance camera.
Cremieux Recueil
The Great Permitting Downturn and Your Rent
Renting a home is more expensive because we stopped letting people build homes
2 weeks ago
Renting a home is more expensive because we stopped letting people build homes
Long Now
Lynn Rothschild: Nature’s Hardware Store
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been...
5th Nov 2025
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been invented by nature? In this forward-looking talk, evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist Dr. Lynn Rothschild explores how life’s patterns, materials, and mechanisms, refined over...
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....
28th Aug 2023
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...
lcamtuf’s thing
Meta: 7,000
Although I try to keep navel-gazing to a minimum, I’m happy to report that this publication has...
4th Aug 2026
Although I try to keep navel-gazing to a minimum, I’m happy to report that this publication has crossed 7,000 email subscribers (plus an unknown number of RSS weirdos).
Works in Progress...
Making energy too cheap to meter
The great slowdown began when we started rationing energy. Restarting progress means getting energy...
12th Oct 2022
The great slowdown began when we started rationing energy. Restarting progress means getting energy that is so abundant that it’s almost free.
IEEE Spectrum
How Tech Automated the January 6 Investigations
Josh Coker’s Facebook page doesn’t show any MAGA memes or Trump quotes. He wasn’t live-streaming on...
5th Jan 2024
Josh Coker’s Facebook page doesn’t show any MAGA memes or Trump quotes. He wasn’t live-streaming on 6 January 2021, and no one has ever stepped forward to identify him as one of the mob that stormed the US Capitol that day.
Oregon, Ohio, with five counts connected to the failed...
Drew Ex Machina
Memories of Project RAMOS (Russian American Observation Satellites) 1991 – 2004
During the course of my professional career, one of the more important projects I had the pleasure...
29th Sep 2023
During the course of my professional career, one of the more important projects I had the pleasure to work on was the joint US/Russian Federation (RF) […]
Wanderingspace
The First Ever Real-Time Video from Another Planet
When you watch this video, if you find yourself thinking of the Apollo moon landings— here is why:...
5th Mar 2021
When you watch this video, if you find yourself thinking of the Apollo moon landings— here is why: this is the first real-time video taken from another world since 1972, and this is the first ever taken on another planet.
Most “video” you see from other planetary missions are...
The Works in...
Heat waves
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
12th Jul 2024
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
Long Now
Blaise Agüera y Arcas: What is Intelligence?
Blaise Agüera y Arcas’s talk took us on a journey through What is Intelligence?, his groundbreaking...
9th Oct 2025
Blaise Agüera y Arcas’s talk took us on a journey through What is Intelligence?, his groundbreaking new work connecting the evolutionary dots between life, computation, and symbiogenesis.
He explores how, in our symbiotic world, things combine to make larger things all the...
Long Now
Martin Rees: Prospects for Humanity
To think usefully about humanity’s future, you have to bear everything in mind simultaneously....
22nd Jan 2019
To think usefully about humanity’s future, you have to bear everything in mind simultaneously. Nobody has managed that better than Martin Rees in his succinct summing-up book: _ON THE FUTURE: Prospects for Humanity_.
As the recent President of the Royal Society (and longtime...
Eukaryote Writes...
Speciesquest 2026
A multiplayer distributed game where you find as many species in a year as you can.
31st Dec 2025
A multiplayer distributed game where you find as many species in a year as you can.
The Quanta Podcast
The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound...
2nd Sep 2021
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics.
The post The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
EUV lithography - a couple of quick links
Welcome to the new year!
I've written previously (see here, item #3) about the extreme ultraviolet...
2nd Jan 2026
Welcome to the new year!
I've written previously (see here, item #3) about the extreme ultraviolet lithography tools used in modern computer chip fabrication. These machines are incredible, the size of a railway car, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars each. Veritasium...
The Quanta Podcast
Why Don’t Patients Get Sick in Sync? Modelers Find Statistical Clues.
The long, variable times that some diseases incubate after infection defies simple explanation. An...
8th Nov 2018
The long, variable times that some diseases incubate after infection defies simple explanation. An idealized model of tumor growth offers a statistical solution.
The post Why Don’t Patients Get Sick in Sync? Modelers Find Statistical Clues. first appeared on Quanta...
SubAnima
Could There Be Laws Of Biology?
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles...
10th Mar 2023
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles or axioms for biology?
Drew Ex Machina
The Dream: The First Probe to the Moon
The past decade or so has seen a marked increase in interest to reach the Moon for exploration as...
2nd Jan 2024
The past decade or so has seen a marked increase in interest to reach the Moon for exploration as well as the potential exploitation of its […]
Long Now
Peter Schwartz: The Art Of The Really Long View
### The art of the really long view
For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going...
13th Dec 2003
### The art of the really long view
For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going on in the Seminar Thursday night.
The topic was "The Art of the Really Long View." Peter Schwartz chatted through his slides for tonight's lecture, then the discussion waded in....
Long Now
Jenny Odell: Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock
Jenny Odell describes _Saving Time_, her second book and the inspiration for her first Long Now...
14th Apr 2023
Jenny Odell describes _Saving Time_, her second book and the inspiration for her first Long Now Talk, as a “panoramic assault on nihilism.”
The particular nihilism that Odell confronts is rooted in what she calls “Clock Time.” While the rigid, regular progression of clock time...
Long Now
Joline Blais & Jon Ippolito: At the Edge of Art
### Artibodies
Art, like the antibodies in our immune system, creates alien forces in service of...
15th Dec 2007
### Artibodies
Art, like the antibodies in our immune system, creates alien forces in service of the whole. It anticipates threats and models them. It is a diversity agent.
Two forms of that process were explained and shown by Ippolito and Blais: perversion, and execution.
One...
Casey Handmer's blog
Notes on the Fermi Paradox
I recently realized I hadn’t written much in this blog about the Fermi Paradox, though I do write...
3rd Mar 2026
I recently realized I hadn’t written much in this blog about the Fermi Paradox, though I do write about it elsewhere. So here is a quick note. The Fermi Paradox, sometimes paraphrased as “where are they?” is a question about the apparent lack of intelligent alien life in the...
The Quanta Podcast
Light-Triggered Genes Reveal the Hidden Workings of Memory
Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa’s lab is overturning old assumptions about how memories form, how...
7th Jun 2018
Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa’s lab is overturning old assumptions about how memories form, how recall works and whether lost memories might be restored from "silent engrams."
The post Light-Triggered Genes Reveal the Hidden Workings of Memory first appeared on...
Peder M. Isager
Proposing a theory committee at the Psychological Science Accelerator
(written in collaboration with Nicholas A. Coles)
The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) is a...
25th Aug 2019
(written in collaboration with Nicholas A. Coles)
The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) is a global network of psychological laboratories that organizes large-scale empirical research projects. The organization aims “to accelerate the accumulation of reliable and...
Long Now
Andrew McAfee: More From Less
Andrew McAfee draws on a wide range of evidence to show that the world is already on the right track...
2nd Dec 2019
Andrew McAfee draws on a wide range of evidence to show that the world is already on the right track toward long-term health when it combines 1) technological progress, 2) capitalism, 3) responsive government, and 4) public awareness. That blend demonstrably gets humanity “more...
wadertales
How are migration sites connected?
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
9th Jan 2025
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering locations linked? Forty-four authors have collaborated to bring together ringing, colour-ringing and GPS tracking data in a paper entitled Site-level connectivity identified from...
Long Now
Timothy Ferriss: Accelerated Learning in Accelerated Times
### Learning to learn fast
To acquire "the meta-skill of acquiring skills," Ferriss recommends...
15th Sep 2011
### Learning to learn fast
To acquire "the meta-skill of acquiring skills," Ferriss recommends approaching any subject with some contrarian analysis: "What if I try the opposite of best practices?" Some conventional wisdom---"children learn languages faster than adults" (no they...
lcamtuf’s thing
Why I refrain from infosec punditry
If you know about my professional background, the most puzzling aspect of this Substack must be that...
16th Apr 2026
If you know about my professional background, the most puzzling aspect of this Substack must be that I don’t use it to talk about my primary field of expertise: information security.
Probably...
Confidence In the Press
This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com...
4th Jan 2025
This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s based on Chapter 16, which is part of the political alignment case study. You can read the complete example here, or run the Jupyter notebook on...
The Quanta Podcast
Why Am I Left-Handed?
Why are only 10% of people left-handed? Geneticists, developmental biologists, neuroscientists, and...
4th Aug 2026
Why are only 10% of people left-handed? Geneticists, developmental biologists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists have all sought explanations, resulting in an astronomical amount of research into the mystery of handedness. No one has put all the pieces together yet,...
The Quanta Podcast
Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because...
4th Jun 2020
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes.
The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Apoorva Srinivasan
getting started with bayesian inference
In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the...
27th Jun 2020
In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the method that is commonly taught in STAT101 classes. But for many decades, some statisticians have argued for another approach to conduct statistical analysis based on bayes...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Quick Hinge Health S-1 Thoughts | Out-Of-Pocket
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
3rd Apr 2025
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: How Much Info Should A Patient Get? | Out-Of-Pocket
do we need our physicians to be interpreters?
9th Aug 2023
do we need our physicians to be interpreters?
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...
4th Sep 2024
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...
Long Now
Benjamin Bratton: A Philosophy of Planetary Computation
We find ourselves in a pre-paradigmatic moment in which our technology has outpaced our theories of...
20th Mar 2025
We find ourselves in a pre-paradigmatic moment in which our technology has outpaced our theories of what to do with it.
The task of philosophy today is to catch up.
In his Long Now Talk, Philosopher of Technology Benjamin Bratton took us on a whirlwind philosophical journey...
Uncharted...
What Asian Development Can Teach the World
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US...
7th Mar 2025
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US Tariffs, China’s Future, EU Protectionism, Japan’s Zombie Debt, Argentina’s Arrested Development, and more
Works in Progress...
The bad science behind expensive nuclear
How a dubious theory of radiation damage based on fruit flies and a secretive weapons testing...
27th May 2025
How a dubious theory of radiation damage based on fruit flies and a secretive weapons testing program came to be – and why its time may now be up.
NeuroLogica Blog
Was Jesus a Con Artist?
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots...
1st Aug 2024
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots of clarification. This was, however, the discussion here, while although poorly informed, does raise some interesting questions. This is a Tik Tok video of a popular podcast which...
Long Now
George Dyson, Freeman Dyson, & Esther Dyson: The Difficulty of Looking Far Ahead
### Finessing the future
Instead of one podium there were four chairs on the stage of Wednesday's...
6th Oct 2005
### Finessing the future
Instead of one podium there were four chairs on the stage of Wednesday's seminar. In three seats, three Dysons: Esther, George and Freeman. They were appearing together on stage for the first time. The fourth held Stewart Brand who led the three through...
The Quanta Podcast
Neutrinos Lead to Unexpected Discovery in Basic Math
Three physicists stumbled across an unexpected relationship between some of the most ubiquitous...
8th Oct 2020
Three physicists stumbled across an unexpected relationship between some of the most ubiquitous objects in math.
The post Neutrinos Lead to Unexpected Discovery in Basic Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Apoorva Srinivasan
an experiment in navigating the knowledge frontier beyond search
Lately, I've been experimenting with interfaces for large language models (LLMs) in my free time....
21st Nov 2023
Lately, I've been experimenting with interfaces for large language models (LLMs) in my free time. The fruit of this labor is something I'm calling "curie," an exploratory and sense-making tool designed to navigate complex topics.
0:00
...
The Quanta Podcast
A Secret Flexibility Found in Life’s Blueprints
A new study reveals that individual genes can create many different versions of the molecular...
5th May 2016
A new study reveals that individual genes can create many different versions of the molecular machinery that powers the cell.
The post A Secret Flexibility Found in Life’s Blueprints first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
It’s Just A Correlation
Did you know that the number of Google searches for cat memes correlates tightly (P-value < 0.01)...
5th Aug 2025
Did you know that the number of Google searches for cat memes correlates tightly (P-value < 0.01) with England’s performance in cricket World Cups? What’s going on here? Is interest in funny cat videos driven by the excitement created by cricket victories. Perhaps cat memes are...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3
The post Heads Up: Total...
25th Feb 2026
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3
The post Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
The Quanta Podcast
Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome 'Tectonics'
Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the...
14th Apr 2022
Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be.
The post Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome ‘Tectonics’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
SubAnima
Can Biology Be Reduced To Physics?
"Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
11th Nov 2022
"Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
Long Now
Jim Richardson: Heirlooms
### Save Agricultural Biodiversity
Humanity’s agricultural legacy is on a par with any of our great...
23rd Feb 2012
### Save Agricultural Biodiversity
Humanity’s agricultural legacy is on a par with any of our great cultural legacies, Richardson said, but preserving it is not just a matter of honoring the history and richness of our most fundamental civilization-enabling technology. For the...
Cremieux Recueil
Fast Fact Check: Does Hep B Vaccination Cause Autism?
Obviously not
5th Mar 2026
NeuroLogica Blog
AC vs DC and other Power Questions
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9...
4th Nov 2024
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9 hour seminar on scientific skepticism for the Dubai Future Foundation. That sounds like a lot of time, but it isn’t. It was a good reminder of the vast body of knowledge that is...
ToughSF
The Lofstrom Loop: A Bridge to Space
Imagine you could take a train ride to space. Tracks that slope up into the sky, higher and higher,...
9th Dec 2023
Imagine you could take a train ride to space. Tracks that slope up into the sky, higher and higher, until you reach a plateau above the planet where it’s a straight line up to orbital velocity.
That’s what’s possible with a Lofstrom Loop. But sending you into orbit is just one...
Long Now
Philip Tetlock: Superforecasting
### All it takes to improve forecasting is KEEP SCORE
Will Syria’s President Assad still be in...
24th Nov 2015
### All it takes to improve forecasting is KEEP SCORE
Will Syria’s President Assad still be in power at the end of next year? Will Russia and China hold joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean in the next six months? Will the Oil Volatility Index fall below 25 in 2016? Will...
Explorations of an...
Making The Most Of Winter
The winter of 2025-2026 is shaping up to be a proper one. Since basically the start of December we...
4th Feb 2026
The winter of 2025-2026 is shaping up to be a proper one. Since basically the start of December we have experienced below average temperatures and an abundance of snow. We haven't had much respite from the cold, other than a brief warm spell in January quickly followed by an...
Long Now
James Fallows: Civilization's Infrastructure
### Infrastructure investment tricks
All societies under-invest in their infrastructure—in the...
7th Oct 2015
### Infrastructure investment tricks
All societies under-invest in their infrastructure—in the systems that allow them to thrive. There is hardware infrastructure: clean water, paved roads, sewer systems, airports, broadband; and, Fallows suggested, software infrastructure:...
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum computing vs. Grubhub
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my...
3rd Apr 2023
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my eyebrows. I’d be participating in a panel discussion with Mike Evans, the founder of Grubhub? But I hadn’t created an app that’s a household name. I … Continue reading →
Chris Grossack's...
Finiteness in Sheaf Topoi
The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be
tricky for people new to...
19th Aug 2024
The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be
tricky for people new to the subject to understand. For a while now I’ve
wanted to figure out what’s going on with the different versions of “finite”
in a way that felt concrete and obvious (I mentioned...
Asterisk
We Can, Must, and Will Simulate Nematode Brains
Scientists have spent over 25 years trying — and failing — to build computer simulations of the...
5th Mar 2025
Scientists have spent over 25 years trying — and failing — to build computer simulations of the smallest brain we know. Today, we finally have the tools to pull it off.
Cremieux Recueil
Your Allergies Are Probably Fake
You might be avoiding medications that don't do anything to you
4th Feb 2026
You might be avoiding medications that don't do anything to you
Long Now
Kara Platoni: Transforming Perception, One Sense at a Time
Kara Platoni, author and journalism professor at UC-Berkeley, set out to find the sensory pioneers...
3rd Jul 2017
Kara Platoni, author and journalism professor at UC-Berkeley, set out to find the sensory pioneers who are changing the way we experience the world. Her boot-strapped and crowd-sourced quest led her to laboratories and workshops around the world. In her book _[We Have The...
Long Now
Daniel Janzen: Third World Conservation: It's ALL Gardening
### Mega gardening
Big as life and twice as opinionated, the renowned preservation biologist Daniel...
10th Apr 2004
### Mega gardening
Big as life and twice as opinionated, the renowned preservation biologist Daniel Janzen spoke for The Long Now on Friday, April 9, 2005. His perspective on preservation may be jarring to some: "It's ALL Gardening".
Dan Janzen is most widely known for his...
IEEE Spectrum
The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the...
2nd Apr 2024
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the end of the long tail.
if you look on 3M’s own website, you will see no mention of this legacy—it’s a firm that sells abrasive materials, adhesive tapes, filters, films, personal...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Mechanical Watch
In the world of modern portable devices, it may be hard to believe that merely a few decades ago the...
4th May 2022
In the world of modern portable devices, it may be hard to believe that merely a few decades ago the most convenient way to keep track of time was a mechanical watch. Unlike their quartz and smart siblings, mechanical watches can run without using any batteries or other...
The Quanta Podcast
Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’
Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for...
7th May 2020
Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for insights into how complex cells evolved.
The post Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
pcloadletter
Make your PR process resilient to AI slop
One concern I have heard from AI naysayers is that AI slop will make code reviews nearly impossible....
24th Dec 2025
One concern I have heard from AI naysayers is that AI slop will make code reviews nearly impossible. AI churns out so much code, documentation, etc. that it's just impossible for any reviewer to keep up with it... right?
Wrong!
If you have good PR review processes, then reviewing...
Chris Grossack's...
Talk -- What is Algebraic Geometry and Why Should You Care?
So an embarrassing amount of time ago (Feburary 17?) I gave a talk for the
undergraduate math club...
1st May 2023
So an embarrassing amount of time ago (Feburary 17?) I gave a talk for the
undergraduate math club titled
“What is Algebraic Geometry, and Why Should You Care?”. I think it went quite
well, and the audience seemed like they had a good time. I really wanted to
have the talk...
Works in Progress...
Machines for living in
Buildings are not just art – they are the places people live in, work in, and experience every day....
5th Dec 2024
Buildings are not just art – they are the places people live in, work in, and experience every day. True functionalism combines utility and beauty for the people who use it most.
Casey Handmer's blog
SLS is still a national disgrace
Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the...
2nd Oct 2024
Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the NASA SLS (Space Launch System), I wrote one. If you’re unfamiliar with the topic, you should read it first. It is hard to …
Long Now
Edward Burtynsky: The 10,000-year Gallery
### Stone Ink Gallery
Photographer Edward Burtynsky made a formal proposal for a permanent art...
24th Jul 2008
### Stone Ink Gallery
Photographer Edward Burtynsky made a formal proposal for a permanent art gallery in the chamber that encloses the 10,000-year Clock in its Nevada mountain. The gallery would consist of art in materials as durable as the alloy steel and jade of the Clock...
Uncharted...
Why Is Argentina Poor?
The root of its economic mismanagement
1st Nov 2025
The root of its economic mismanagement
Beautiful Public...
WWII Japanese Mass Incarceration collections
Haunting photos and documents document a shameful chapter of America’s history—the forced...
18th Mar 2025
Haunting photos and documents document a shameful chapter of America’s history—the forced displacement and incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Sunday is Both Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice
June 21 is not just father's day but the day of the summer solstice
The post Sunday is Both Father’s...
19th Jun 2026
June 21 is not just father's day but the day of the summer solstice
The post Sunday is Both Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Long Now
Steven Pinker: The Decline of Violence
### The Long Peace
“Nothing can be more gentle than man in his primitive state,” declared Rousseau...
9th Oct 2012
### The Long Peace
“Nothing can be more gentle than man in his primitive state,” declared Rousseau in the 18th century. A century earlier, Thomas Hobbes wrote, “In the state of nature the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The evidence shows that Rousseau...
Quanta Magazine
At 17, Hannah Cairo Solved a Major Math Mystery
After finding the homeschooling life confining, the teen petitioned her way into a graduate class at...
1st Aug 2025
After finding the homeschooling life confining, the teen petitioned her way into a graduate class at Berkeley, where she ended up disproving a 40-year-old conjecture.
The post At 17, Hannah Cairo Solved a Major Math Mystery first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
How do wader chicks respond to being handled?
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they...
5th Oct 2024
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they are studying. Given that most shorebird species are in trouble or causing concern, conservation science is a tricky balancing act between ‘need to understand’ and ‘disturbance’. In...
Blog - Practical...
Every US Electrical Outlet Explained
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
I love the periodic table of...
3 days ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
I love the periodic table of the elements. I love it because it reveals the deeper order of what seems like an otherwise wildly disparate collection of atoms with different physical forms, chemical properties,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What does Innovaccer actually do? A look under the hood | Out-Of-Pocket
A conversation about EHRs, who their customers actually are, and building apps
3rd Jun 2025
A conversation about EHRs, who their customers actually are, and building apps
Long Now
Beth Shapiro: How to Clone a Mammoth
## De-extinction science
When people hear about “ancient DNA” in fossils, Shapiro began, the first...
12th May 2015
## De-extinction science
When people hear about “ancient DNA” in fossils, Shapiro began, the first question always is “Can we clone a dinosaur?” Dinosaurs died out so many millions of years ago, their fossils are nothing but rock (and by the way, there’s no workaround with...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Adornment
"Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by...
2nd Sep 2024
"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...
Asterisk
The Art of Asking Questions
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other...
1st Dec 2024
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other inaccuracies. We all use them anyway. How can we ask them better?
Explorations of an...
Borneo 2024: Introduction And Pre-Tour Birding
About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for...
3rd Nov 2024
About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for Quest Nature Tours. I've always said that Borneo is one of my favourite tours that I run and even after three previous trips I was looking forward to returning. One of the main...
SubAnima
How NOT To Think About Cells
Are we all just running on molecular clockwork?
14th Oct 2022
Are we all just running on molecular clockwork?
The Roots of...
If you wish to make an apple pie, you must first become dictator of the universe
The word “robot” is derived from the Czech robota, which means “serfdom.” It was introduced over a...
5th Jul 2023
The word “robot” is derived from the Czech robota, which means “serfdom.” It was introduced over a century ago by the Czech play R.U.R., for “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” In the play, the smartest and best-educated of the robots leads a slave revolt that wipes out most of...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Earthrise from Apollo 8 – December 24, 1968
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by...
24th Dec 2023
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by the assassination of prominent public figures, violent protests […]
Asterisk
After Work, We’ll Have Each Other
Once you realize what that means, you’ll be giving two cheers for the American work ethic.
2 weeks ago
Once you realize what that means, you’ll be giving two cheers for the American work ethic.
Quantum Frontiers
Little ray of sunshine
A common saying goes, you should never meet your heroes, because they’ll disappoint you. But you...
28th Jul 2025
A common saying goes, you should never meet your heroes, because they’ll disappoint you. But you shouldn’t trust every common saying; some heroes impress you more, the better you know them. Ray Laflamme was such a hero. I first heard … Continue reading →
Casey Handmer's blog
Stuff you should have been taught in college but weren’t
As part of my job running Terraform Industries, I get to build an amazing team of super smart...
4th Feb 2025
As part of my job running Terraform Industries, I get to build an amazing team of super smart people, and that involves interviewing hundreds of people. Over time certain patterns have become obvious, but I remember when they weren’t obvious to me on the other side of the table!...
Long Now
Robert Fuller: Patient Revolution: Human Rights Past and Future
### The culminating human right
What does it take to change human habits of cruelty (such as...
13th Aug 2005
### The culminating human right
What does it take to change human habits of cruelty (such as slavery, genocide) and humiliation (racism, sexism)?
What do past and present efforts for human rights tell about their future?…
Robert Fuller is author of the ground-breaking...
Stephen Wolfram...
Ruliology of the “Forgotten” Code 10
My All-Time Favorite Science Discovery June 1, 1984—forty years ago today—is when it would be fair...
1st Jun 2024
My All-Time Favorite Science Discovery June 1, 1984—forty years ago today—is when it would be fair to say I made my all-time favorite science discovery. Like with basically all significant science discoveries (despite the way histories often present them) it didn’t happen without...
wadertales
Roads too! Another problem for Iceland’s waders
The lowlands of Iceland are changing. Low-intensity farming is becoming economically challenging and...
2nd Dec 2025
The lowlands of Iceland are changing. Low-intensity farming is becoming economically challenging and marginal grazing land is increasingly being used for forestry, to provide summer cottages for city-dwelling Icelanders, for electricity generation and to expand tourist...
Long Now
Lawrence Lessig: How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It
### Public Funding for Public Elections
Larry Lessig gave a rousing performance for the 100th...
18th Jan 2012
### Public Funding for Public Elections
Larry Lessig gave a rousing performance for the 100th Seminar About Long-Term Thinking. In a lawyerly fashion he laid out evidence of a new type of corruption that is disrupting the American republic, and he offered a remedy for that...
Works in Progress...
Liberté, égalité, radioactivité
France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow...
4th Sep 2025
France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow their lead today.
brr
South Pole Signage
Please close doors quietly!
23rd Jul 2023
Please close doors quietly!
nanoscale views
What is the Aharonov-Bohm effect?
After seeing this latest extremely good video from Veritasium, and looking back through my posts, I...
1st Feb 2026
After seeing this latest extremely good video from Veritasium, and looking back through my posts, I realized that while I've referenced it indirectly, I've never explicitly talked about the Aharonov-Bohm effect. The video is excellent, and that wikipedia page is pretty good, but...
Long Now
Larry Brilliant, Richard Rockefeller, & Katherine Fulton: The Deeper News About the New...
### Philanthropic stamina
10,000 families in the US, Katherine Fulton reported, have assets of $100...
4th Nov 2006
### Philanthropic stamina
10,000 families in the US, Katherine Fulton reported, have assets of $100 million or more. That's up from 7,000 just a couple years ago. Most of that money is "on the sidelines." The poor and the middle class are far more generous in their philanthropy,...
Beautiful Public...
The USGS Cooperative National Geologic Map
A new, colorful map from the USGS synthesizes decades of state and federal geologic surveys to...
1st Dec 2025
A new, colorful map from the USGS synthesizes decades of state and federal geologic surveys to create the most detailed visualization of the geology of the contiguous United States to date.
Works in Progress...
The decline and fall of the British economy
When America’s economy overtook Britain’s a century ago, it remade the world order. How it happened...
21st Jul 2022
When America’s economy overtook Britain’s a century ago, it remade the world order. How it happened is still debated.
Long Now
Becky Chambers & Annalee Newitz: Resisting Dystopia
One of our guiding principles at Long Now is that in order to get to a future that we want to live...
15th Jun 2023
One of our guiding principles at Long Now is that in order to get to a future that we want to live in, we must first be able to imagine it.
For many, it is much easier to imagine a dystopia than a thriving civilization. Our cultural visions of the future are increasingly...
The Quanta Podcast
Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation
After an interstellar asteroid shot past the sun, scientists realized that there’s probably a lot of...
2nd Jul 2020
After an interstellar asteroid shot past the sun, scientists realized that there’s probably a lot of itinerant rocks out there.
The post Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Mike Kuniavsky: Our Future in Algorithm Farming
Everything will be connected to the network, even things that shouldn’t be. From automobiles to egg...
1st Mar 2018
Everything will be connected to the network, even things that shouldn’t be. From automobiles to egg timers, Kuniavsky explains all these devices will try to get our attention and prove their value. They’ll also attempt to predict the future—at least the immediate future of our...
Inverted Passion
Do you know what GDP is?
I thought I knew! But the more I introspected, the hazy my understanding got. Is GDP amount of stuff...
1st May 2025
I thought I knew! But the more I introspected, the hazy my understanding got. Is GDP amount of stuff produced or consumed? Does it include imports or exports? What does it have to do with well being? Why does it keep increasing? So, I fired up Claude and started understanding...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird issues in value-based care | Out-Of-Pocket
Thoughts on value-based care from people actually building in it
1st Oct 2024
Thoughts on value-based care from people actually building in it
Chris Grossack's...
Internal Group Actions as Enriched Functors
Earlier today this month on the Category Theory Zulip, Bernd Losert asked an
extremely natural...
18th Feb 2024
Earlier today this month on the Category Theory Zulip, Bernd Losert asked an
extremely natural question about how we might study topological group
actions via the functorial approach beloved by category theorists.
The usual story is to treat a group $G$ as a one-object...
The Quanta Podcast
Brain Chemical Helps Signal to Neurons When to Start a Movement
Dopamine, a neurochemical often associated with reward behavior, also seems to help organize...
6th Jul 2022
Dopamine, a neurochemical often associated with reward behavior, also seems to help organize precisely when the brain initiates movements. It’s the latest revelation about the power of neuromodulators. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Future Tech Possibilities
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see...
1st Feb 2024
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see what happens when you try out a new technology in the real world with actual people. Many technologies that look good on paper run into logistical problems, difficulty scaling, fall...
Long Now
Orville Schell: China Thinks Long-term, But Can It Relearn to Act Long-term?
### Giant contradictions
“China is the most unresolved nation of consequence in the world,” Orville...
23rd Sep 2006
### Giant contradictions
“China is the most unresolved nation of consequence in the world,” Orville Schell began. It is defined by its massive contradictions. And by its massiveness— China’s population is estimated to be 1.25 to 1.3 billion; the margin of error in the estimate...
IEEE Spectrum
Esoteric Languages Challenge Coders to Think Way Outside the Box
Have you ever tried programming with a language that uses musical notation? What about a language...
4th Sep 2025
Have you ever tried programming with a language that uses musical notation? What about a language that never runs programs the same way? What about a language where you write code with photographs?
All exist, among many others, in the world of esoteric programming languages, and...
Wanderingspace
OSIRIS-REX Leaves Bennu
The OSIRIS-REX mission in on a two year trajectory back to Earth after capturing fragments of the...
12th May 2021
The OSIRIS-REX mission in on a two year trajectory back to Earth after capturing fragments of the near Earth asteroid Bennu after successfully executing a sample touchdown last fall. [LINK]
The sampling of of the asteroid’s surface is shown above.
lcamtuf’s thing
How much of HN is AI?
TL;DR: As of June 2026, ~50% of daily top stories are about AI or generated by AI.
12th Mar 2026
TL;DR: As of June 2026, ~50% of daily top stories are about AI or generated by AI.
brr
Engineering for Slow Internet
How to minimize user frustration in Antarctica.
31st May 2024
How to minimize user frustration in Antarctica.
Uncharted...
The Top 50 US Cities: Why Are They Where They Are?
The geographic and historical reasons that have made some spots in the country the most populated...
8th Jan 2025
The geographic and historical reasons that have made some spots in the country the most populated ones
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How Value-Based Care Contracting Works with Accorded | Out-Of-Pocket
With calculators and contracts you can see yourself
19th Sep 2023
With calculators and contracts you can see yourself
brr
Pressure Altitude
Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
6th Aug 2023
Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
Works in Progress...
The housing theory of everything
Western housing shortages do not just prevent many from ever affording their own home. They also...
14th Sep 2021
Western housing shortages do not just prevent many from ever affording their own home. They also drive inequality, climate change, low productivity growth, obesity, and even falling fertility rates.
The Works in...
Readers from Canada, Australia and the EU can now subscribe to Works in Progress
Our first print edition ships in two weeks.
4th Nov 2025
Our first print edition ships in two weeks.
The Works in...
Fixing retail with land value capture
How to create beautiful shopping streets everywhere
5th Jun 2024
How to create beautiful shopping streets everywhere
The Quanta Podcast
Will We Ever Be Able To Forecast Volcanic Eruptions Like Weather?
Volcano forecasting can save countless lives. But most of the time warnings are more like educated...
7th Jul 2026
Volcano forecasting can save countless lives. But most of the time warnings are more like educated guesses. How close are we to forecasting volcano behavior the way we forecast the weather? On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Hannah Waters speaks with writer and volcano...
Works in Progress...
Watt lies beneath
The earth’s core is hot. So hot, that if we drilled deep enough, we could power the world millions...
15th Nov 2023
The earth’s core is hot. So hot, that if we drilled deep enough, we could power the world millions of times over with cheap, clean energy, supporting renewables when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. But getting there is tough.
IEEE Spectrum
Lord Kelvin and His Analog Computer
William Thomson, mourning the death of his wife and flush with cash from various patents related to...
2nd Jun 2024
William Thomson, mourning the death of his wife and flush with cash from various patents related to the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, decided to buy a yacht. His schooner, the Lalla Rookh, became Thomson’s summer home and his base for hosting scientific...
Long Now
Jennifer Granick: Modern Surveillance: Why You Should Care and What You Can Do
The future of privacy begins with the current state of surveillance. The 21st century practices of...
4th May 2020
The future of privacy begins with the current state of surveillance. The 21st century practices of US intelligence agencies push the technological, legal and political limits of lawful surveillance. Jennifer Granick is a civil liberties and privacy law expert with the American...
The Quanta Podcast
To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget
Researchers find evidence that neural systems actively remove memories, suggesting that forgetting...
6th Jun 2019
Researchers find evidence that neural systems actively remove memories, suggesting that forgetting may be the default mode of the brain.
The post To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Chris Grossack's...
A Quick Application of Model Categories
Almost exactly a year ago (time flies!) I was thinking really hard about
model categories in...
22nd Mar 2023
Almost exactly a year ago (time flies!) I was thinking really hard about
model categories in preparation for the HoTTEST summer school. I learned
a TON doing this, but I’ve just today seen a really nice (and somewhat concrete)
reason to care about the whole endeavor! I’d love...
Works in Progress...
Local warming
Gas heating is bad for the environment. But home-built heat pumps aren’t perfect either.
21st Apr 2022
Gas heating is bad for the environment. But home-built heat pumps aren’t perfect either.
Yale E360
A Home Battery Revolution Is Reshaping the Power Grid
As residential batteries have become more energy dense, cheaper, and smaller, more households are...
1st Jul 2026
As residential batteries have become more energy dense, cheaper, and smaller, more households are storing their excess solar power. Now, utilities and energy companies in dozens of countries are buying up those electrons, bundling them together, and using them to balance the...
SubAnima
Have We Already Found Life On Mars?
Definitions are a funny thing..
4th May 2022
Definitions are a funny thing..
Quantum Frontiers
The physicists of Florence
A scientist in Florence can’t avoid bumping into colleagues. When visiting the Renaissance’s...
29th Jun 2026
A scientist in Florence can’t avoid bumping into colleagues. When visiting the Renaissance’s birthplace last summer, I ran into a fellow physicist even on a Saturday morning. I was wandering around the Uffizi Gallery, a museum blessed with some of … Continue reading →
IEEE Spectrum
How This Record Company Engineer Invented the CT Scanner
The inspiration for computed tomography (CT) came from a chance conversation that research engineer...
12th Jan 2023
The inspiration for computed tomography (CT) came from a chance conversation that research engineer Godfrey Hounsfield had with a doctor while on vacation in the 1960s. The physician complained that X-ray images of the brain were too grainy and only two-dimensional.
Hounsfield...
Cremieux Recueil
Fertility Policy For Rich Countries
A brief proposal to fix Social Security and grow the population
1st Apr 2025
A brief proposal to fix Social Security and grow the population
Works in Progress...
The bad science behind expensive nuclear
How a dubious theory of radiation damage based on fruit flies and a secretive weapons testing...
27th May 2025
How a dubious theory of radiation damage based on fruit flies and a secretive weapons testing program came to be – and why its time may now be up.
The Works in...
The end of lead
How a single taxi ride saved millions of lives
3rd Jul 2025
How a single taxi ride saved millions of lives
Conservation...
New atlas charts a path for a landscape in crisis
6th May 2026
Long Now
Jason Scott: The Web In An Eye Blink
Jason Scott is an activist archiver who preserves artifacts of digital culture for the future. Users...
1st Nov 2017
Jason Scott is an activist archiver who preserves artifacts of digital culture for the future. Users today have many ways to create content online, but they often lack the skills, tools or guidance to preserve the media they make. As startups fail, platforms disappear, and...
Works in Progress...
The ultra-selfish gene
We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with...
3rd Sep 2024
We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with brute force. Doing this to malaria-carrying mosquitoes could allow us to wipe out humanity’s most deadly killer.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How do we increase competition for hospitals? | Out-Of-Pocket
Otherwise prices will keep going up?
5th Feb 2026
Otherwise prices will keep going up?
ToughSF
Hypervelocity Macron Accelerators
We
look at the various ways of accelerating micro-scale projectiles up to hypervelocity
(10-10,000...
27th Nov 2019
We
look at the various ways of accelerating micro-scale projectiles up to hypervelocity
(10-10,000 km/s) and their use in space.
Going
small to go fast
Macrons
or macroscopic particles are tiny projectiles that sit on the border between
the complex structures we see under a...
Long Now
Neil Gaiman: How Stories Last
## How stories last
Stories are alive. The ones that last, Gaiman said, outcompete other stories by...
10th Jun 2015
## How stories last
Stories are alive. The ones that last, Gaiman said, outcompete other stories by changing over time. They make it from medium to medium—from oral to written to film and beyond. They lose uninteresting elements but hold on to the most compelling bits or even...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
AI in healthcare - defensibility, capabilities, and cost reduction | Out-Of-Pocket
17th May 2024
Melting Asphalt
The Elephant in the Brain
It's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book,...
3rd Jan 2018
It's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book, coauthored with Robin Hanson — is now widely available. You can find the ebook version on Kindle, Google Play, and iBooks. It's also…
Read more ›
Interaction Magic -...
Interaction20 Round-up
Summary of all the amazing, curious and challenging ideas from last week's IXDA Interaction 20...
13th Feb 2020
Summary of all the amazing, curious and challenging ideas from last week's IXDA Interaction 20 conference.
Works in Progress...
Libraries of matter
Libraries contain books, yes. But they also contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, and graphene...
29th Aug 2024
Libraries contain books, yes. But they also contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, and graphene aerogel. And in some materials libraries you can cut, cast, drill, sand, scrape, and sculpt too.
SubAnima
Organisms Are Not Made Of Atoms
Individuality is a process.
12th Feb 2022
Individuality is a process.
Asterisk
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart AIs Are?
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the...
1st Jun 2023
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the same mistakes with AI?
Works in Progress...
Interview: Ted Nordhaus on ecomodernism
Are technology and the environment friends or foes? In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss...
20th May 2021
Are technology and the environment friends or foes? In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss climate policy, activism and ecomodernism with Ted Nordhaus.
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Airfoil
The dream of soaring in the sky like a bird has captivated the human mind for ages. Although many...
27th Feb 2024
The dream of soaring in the sky like a bird has captivated the human mind for ages. Although many failed, some eventually succeeded in achieving that goal. These days we take air transportation for granted, but the physics of flight can still be puzzling.
In this article we’ll...
Uncharted...
How AI Will Change Media
Work with me to make it happen
3rd Apr 2026
Work with me to make it happen
Asterisk
Rust in Numbers
Why do manure spreaders have life cycles?
6th May 2026
Why do manure spreaders have life cycles?
Quantum Frontiers
Watch out for geese! My summer in Waterloo
It’s the beginning of another summer, and I’m looking forward to outdoor barbecues, swimming in...
6th Jun 2024
It’s the beginning of another summer, and I’m looking forward to outdoor barbecues, swimming in lakes and pools, and sharing my home-made ice cream with friends and family. One thing that I won’t encounter this summer, but I did last … Continue reading →
brr
Redeployment Part One
Emerging from winter and preparing for our first flight!
10th Jan 2024
Emerging from winter and preparing for our first flight!
Long Now
David Eagleman: The Brain and The Now
### The Brain’s Now
Our perception of time raises all sorts of questions, Eagleman began. “Why does...
5th Oct 2016
### The Brain’s Now
Our perception of time raises all sorts of questions, Eagleman began. “Why does time seem to slow down when you’re scared? And why does it seem to speed up as you get older?”
With an onscreen demonstration, Eagleman showed that “Time is actively constructed...
The Works in...
Getting people to donate their organs
Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier?
2nd Apr 2024
Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier?
Chris Grossack's...
Building Objects with Category Theory
Typically category theory is useful for showing the uniqueness
of certain objects by checking that...
20th Feb 2023
Typically category theory is useful for showing the uniqueness
of certain objects by checking that they satisfy some
universal property. This makes them unique up to unique isomorphism.
However, category theory can also be used in order to show that objects
exist at all, usually...
Chris Grossack's...
Life in Johnstone's Topological Topos 1 -- Fundamentals
I’ve been thinking a lot about the internal logic of topoi again, and I
want to have more examples...
3rd Jul 2024
I’ve been thinking a lot about the internal logic of topoi again, and I
want to have more examples of topoi that I understand well enough to
externalize some statements. There’s more to life than just a localic
$\mathsf{Sh}(B)$, and since I’m starting to feel like I understand...
Long Now
Eric Debrah Otchere: Sonic Spaces
Eric Debrah Otchere's research revolves around the power of music in the context of work; covering...
10th Feb 2023
Eric Debrah Otchere's research revolves around the power of music in the context of work; covering an ambitious range from ethnographic research on Ghanaian indigenous fishing culture to personalized musical preferences via modern technology.
Throughout history, the power of...
Stephen Wolfram...
What Can We Learn about Engineering and Innovation from Half a Century of the Game of Life Cellular...
Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow...
18th Mar 2025
Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow there’s an arc of progress that’s formed. But are there what amount to “laws of innovation” that govern that arc of progress? There are some exponential and other laws that purport to...
IEEE Spectrum
Xerox Donates Legendary PARC Research Center
Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI...
2nd May 2023
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...
Inverted Passion
Life as a physical process
It’s always hard to define life. Everyone has their favorite definition – some describe it as a...
4th Jun 2025
It’s always hard to define life. Everyone has their favorite definition – some describe it as a struggle against entropy, while others describe it as an emergent property of chemicals. Countless books have been written on the topic, yet we’re far from a consensus. Against the...
Works in Progress...
The great reinforcer
Alongside all the successes of science in the Covid era, the pandemic has also sparked an outbreak...
8th Feb 2021
Alongside all the successes of science in the Covid era, the pandemic has also sparked an outbreak of viral misinformation and sloppy research, revealing the glaring flaws in our scientific system.
NeuroLogica Blog
2023 Hottest Year on Record
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we...
2nd Jan 2024
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we can also say that the last 10 years are the hottest decade on record. 2023 dethrones 2016 as the previous warmest year and bumps 2010 out of the top 10. Further, in the last half of...
The Quanta Podcast
How the Brain Compresses Our Noisy World
If you are well rested and full, your brain tells you that a bruised overripe apple is a piece of...
2 weeks ago
If you are well rested and full, your brain tells you that a bruised overripe apple is a piece of subpar fruit to be passed over. However, if you are exhausted and hungry, an overripe apple is categorized as much-needed food. But how is the brain able to categorize that same...
Interaction Magic -...
Hacking the terrorist timepiece
The hardest part of building hardware interfaces is not having the right tools to prototype, test...
15th Aug 2022
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.
The Quanta Podcast
Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay
Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that...
2nd Feb 2017
Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that the forces of nature were unified at the beginning of time.
The post Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Works in Progress...
Watch men
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the...
2nd Dec 2025
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
Long Now
: Cities & Time
### A world made of cities
Cities are the human organizations with the greatest longevity but also...
9th Apr 2005
### A world made of cities
Cities are the human organizations with the greatest longevity but also the fastest rate of change. Just now the world is going massively and unstoppably urban (governments everywhere are trying to stop it, with zero success). In a globalized world,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Do We Have Free Will?
Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free...
1st Dec 2023
Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free will? This comes up not infrequently whenever I write here about neuroscience, most recently when I wrote about hunger circuitry, because the notion of the brain as a physical...
Long Now
Jonathan Rose: The Well Tempered City
### Coherent cities
What holds a city together? Rose noted that the earliest cities were built...
21st Sep 2016
### Coherent cities
What holds a city together? Rose noted that the earliest cities were built around a temple and the spirituality it embodied. As the early communities became larger and more diverse and complex, their economic activity intensified. To be effective in trade...
nanoscale views
NAS "State of Science" 2026 address
I watched the webcast of the NAS State of Science address by outgoing NAS president Dr. Marcia...
2nd Jun 2026
I watched the webcast of the NAS State of Science address by outgoing NAS president Dr. Marcia McNutt. (I did not watch the panel discussion afterward, so sorry if I missed critical pieces.) A few thoughts on this:
The intro music was a very classy baroque string quartet. ...
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