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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
1

Andrew McAfee: More From Less

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
In Mexico’s ‘Avocado Belt,’ Villagers Stand Up to Protect Their Lands A boom in avocado production in Mexico has led to illegal deforestation and an influx of drug...
2nd May 2025
4
2nd May 2025
A boom in avocado production in Mexico has led to illegal deforestation and an influx of drug cartels dominating the lucrative trade. But Indigenous communities have fought back against the gangs and turned to traditional practices to grow avocados and save their forests.  Read...
Advancing antivenom Snakebites kill between 80,000 and 140,000 people every year. Better antivenom should be a high...
8th Dec 2022
1

Advancing antivenom

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Dec 2022
Snakebites kill between 80,000 and 140,000 people every year. Better antivenom should be a high priority – thankfully new technology can help.
How mind bootstraps itself Daniel Dennett, who recently passed away, is an inspiration for people like me who love grand ideas...
1st Jun 2026
1

How mind bootstraps itself

from Inverted Passion [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jun 2026
Daniel Dennett, who recently passed away, is an inspiration for people like me who love grand ideas that connect many different fields at a deep level (and be rigorous about that; well as rigorous as grand theories can be). His thinking is difficult to categorize: part...
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...
22nd Aug 2019
1

How to Live on Other Planets: Uranus

from ToughSF [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Aug 2019
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...
Think Linear Algebra I have published the first five chapters of Think Linear Algebra! You can read them here or follow...
22nd Sep 2025
19

Think Linear Algebra

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Sep 2025
I have published the first five chapters of Think Linear Algebra! You can read them here or follow these links to run the notebooks on Colab. Here are the chapters I have so far: Chapter 1: The Power of Linear AlgebraIntroduces matrix multiplication and eigenvectors through a...
Eight basic rules for causal inference In this blog post I will describe eight basic rules that govern the relationship between causal...
13th Aug 2024
1

Eight basic rules for causal inference

from Peder M. Isager [alt+shift+b] in science

13th Aug 2024
In this blog post I will describe eight basic rules that govern the relationship between causal mechanisms in the real world and associations/correlations we can observe in data. To make each rule as easy as possible to understand, I will describe each rule both in words and in...
New Proofs Probe the Limits of Mathematical Truth By proving a broader version of Hilbert’s famous 10th problem, two groups of mathematicians have...
3rd Feb 2025
80

New Proofs Probe the Limits of Mathematical Truth

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Feb 2025
By proving a broader version of Hilbert’s famous 10th problem, two groups of mathematicians have expanded the realm of mathematical unknowability. The post New Proofs Probe the Limits of Mathematical Truth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
It took me seven months to get my baby an Australian passport I’m an Australian father of four, living in the US. Something of a corner case. Nevertheless,...
3 weeks ago
2

It took me seven months to get my baby an Australian passport

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

3 weeks ago
I’m an Australian father of four, living in the US. Something of a corner case. Nevertheless, getting my kids Australian citizenship by descent, and then Australian passports so we can fly home legally, has kicked off a carnival of errors with a very dark side. Australia is...
The story of Viktor Zhdanov Although Viktor Zhdanov’s name is little known today, he spearheaded one of the greatest projects in...
20th Aug 2020
1

The story of Viktor Zhdanov

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

20th Aug 2020
Although Viktor Zhdanov’s name is little known today, he spearheaded one of the greatest projects in history. Who was he and what did he do?
Analytic Combinatorics -- A Worked Example Another day, another blog post that starts with “I was on mse the other day…”. This time, someone...
8th Apr 2025
98

Analytic Combinatorics -- A Worked Example

from Chris Grossack's Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Apr 2025
Another day, another blog post that starts with “I was on mse the other day…”. This time, someone asked an interesting question amounting to “how many unordered rooted ternary trees with $n$ nodes are there, up to isomorphism?”. I’m a sucker for these kinds of combinatorial...
Juan Enriquez: Mapping the Frontier of Knowledge ### Mapping Life "All life is imperfectly transmitted code," Enriquez began, "and it is...
13th Oct 2007
1

Juan Enriquez: Mapping the Frontier of Knowledge

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

13th Oct 2007
### Mapping Life "All life is imperfectly transmitted code," Enriquez began, "and it is promiscuous." Thus discoveries like the one last month of an entire bacterial genome inside the DNA of a fruitfly is exploding the old tree-of-life models of evolution. The emerging map...
How are migration sites connected? Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
9th Jan 2025
158

How are migration sites connected?

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
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
1

Martin Rees: Life's Future in the Cosmos

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
Who cares about plagiarism? Plagiarism is unforgivable in academia but it’s not plagiarism itself that should trouble us. It’s...
21st Jan 2022
1

Who cares about plagiarism?

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

21st Jan 2022
Plagiarism is unforgivable in academia but it’s not plagiarism itself that should trouble us. It’s carelessness and a lack of originality.
Larry Harvey: Why The Man Keeps Burning ## The Hundred Year Burn "Burning Man is like one of those birthday candles you can’t blow out,”...
21st Oct 2014
1

Larry Harvey: Why The Man Keeps Burning

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

21st Oct 2014
## The Hundred Year Burn "Burning Man is like one of those birthday candles you can’t blow out,” observed Burning Man’s primary founder and Chief Philosophical Officer. Indeed, Burning Man has thrived in the face of Burners and skeptics alike declaring it dead after each of its...
The Marimba Virtuoso’s Desktop Planetarium The United States was at the time approaching “peak space.” The previous year, cosmonaut Yuri...
1st Oct 2023
33

The Marimba Virtuoso’s Desktop Planetarium

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Oct 2023
The United States was at the time approaching “peak space.” The previous year, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human to reach outer space, and on 12 September 1962 President Kennedy would announce the United States’ intention to put a man on the moon before the...
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a...
12th Apr 2018
1

A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Apr 2018
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors. The post A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries By digging out signals hidden within the brain’s electrical chatter, scientists are getting new...
13th May 2021
1

Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

13th May 2021
By digging out signals hidden within the brain’s electrical chatter, scientists are getting new insights into sleep, aging and more. The post Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
27th Mar 2024
111

Drew Ex Machina 10th Anniversary: Top Ten Posts

from Drew Ex Machina [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Mar 2024
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. […]
How to coach someone This essay is part of the series in which I talk about my learnings and insights building a habit...
5th Apr 2026
1

How to coach someone

from Inverted Passion [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Apr 2026
This essay is part of the series in which I talk about my learnings and insights building a habit coaching app (Nintee) in 2024. It didn’t ultimately work out because an app has marginal influence in a human’s life (v/s that of friends, family, culture and immediate environment)....
Pressure Altitude Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
6th Aug 2023
54

Pressure Altitude

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Aug 2023
Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
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
1

Make your PR process resilient to AI slop

from pcloadletter [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
A young Oystercatcher’s first adventure I find it amazing that, when they depart on autumn migration, juvenile waders can be faced with a...
3rd Sep 2026
1

A young Oystercatcher’s first adventure

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Sep 2026
I find it amazing that, when they depart on autumn migration, juvenile waders can be faced with a journey of hundreds or thousands of kilometres. In the latest phase of their Oystercatcher studies in Iceland, Verónica Méndez and colleagues have been tagging young birds, just at...
1,000 Photos of Dolphin Fins Scars, scratches and wounds abound in these photos as encounters with unknown creatures and boat...
10th Apr 2023
157

1,000 Photos of Dolphin Fins

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Apr 2023
Scars, scratches and wounds abound in these photos as encounters with unknown creatures and boat propellers leave their marks, imprinting a story of close escapes and cheating death.
Neal Stephenson: ANATHEM Book Launch Event ### _Anathem_ book launch Neal Stephenson's nearly thousand page tome...
9th Sep 2008
1

Neal Stephenson: ANATHEM Book Launch Event

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Sep 2008
### _Anathem_ book launch Neal Stephenson's nearly thousand page tome [_Anathem_](https://longnow.org/anathem/) was inspired in part by Long Now's [10,000 Year Clock](https://longnow.org/projects/clock/) project, and so a collaboration on the launch event was a natural fit. With...
Introducing Causion: A web app for playing with DAGs Causion is a free web app for building causal diagrams (DAGs) and then watching them behave—by...
21st Jan 2026
1

Introducing Causion: A web app for playing with DAGs

from Peder M. Isager [alt+shift+b] in science

21st Jan 2026
Causion is a free web app for building causal diagrams (DAGs) and then watching them behave—by simulating data and switching from observation to intervention with do(). Try it now: https://causion.pedermisager.org/ (it runs in your browser)
Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups The numbers count a variety of seemingly unrelated mathematical structures. The post...
1st Aug 2023
33

Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Aug 2023
The numbers count a variety of seemingly unrelated mathematical structures. The post Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups first appeared on Quanta Magazine
AI Weeks When Decades Happen How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
6th Feb 2025
54

AI Weeks When Decades Happen

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Feb 2025
How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
The Ruin of Mumbai Mumbai’s land use regulations are designed to keep population density low. Instead, they force...
1st Mar 2024
41

The Ruin of Mumbai

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Mar 2024
Mumbai’s land use regulations are designed to keep population density low. Instead, they force Mumbaikars into slums, while all of India pays the price.
How Herbicide Drift from Farms Is Harming Trees in Midwest Researchers are starting to pay closer attention to the widespread damage wrought by agricultural...
25th Apr 2025
5

How Herbicide Drift from Farms Is Harming Trees in Midwest

from Yale E360 [alt+shift+b] in science

25th Apr 2025
Researchers are starting to pay closer attention to the widespread damage wrought by agricultural herbicides. Drifting sprays may not kill trees, shrubs, and other nontarget plants outright, but experts believe they are making them vulnerable to insects, fungi, and disease. Read...
Have We Already Found Life On Mars? Definitions are a funny thing..
4th May 2022
22

Have We Already Found Life On Mars?

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

4th May 2022
Definitions are a funny thing..
A Fully Renewable Grid? My long-stated position (although certainly modifiable in the face of any new evidence,...
2nd Feb 2026
0

A Fully Renewable Grid?

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Feb 2026
My long-stated position (although certainly modifiable in the face of any new evidence, technological advance, or good arguments) is that the optimal pathway to most rapidly decarbonize our electrical infrastructure is to pursue all low-carbon options. I have not heard anything...
Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
2nd Aug 2022
44

Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Aug 2022
Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
Can Biology Be Reduced To Physics? "Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
11th Nov 2022
41

Can Biology Be Reduced To Physics?

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Nov 2022
"Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
Farewell, WordPress This blog has moved to https://blog.caseyhandmer.com/?moved. All the old posts are there, with...
4 days ago
1

Farewell, WordPress

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

4 days ago
This blog has moved to https://blog.caseyhandmer.com/?moved. All the old posts are there, with interactive versions of many of the charts. The RSS feed is now https://blog.caseyhandmer.com/feed.xml. This site stays up for old links but won’t get new posts.
A Blight on Soviet Science On a hazy afternoon in March 1927, a Russian scientist was walking through the dense forests of...
4th Mar 2021
33

A Blight on Soviet Science

from Damn Interesting [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Mar 2021
On a hazy afternoon in March 1927, a Russian scientist was walking through the dense forests of Abyssinia, ducking under low-hanging branches and stopping to inspect the wild coffee trees lining his path. Accompanied by a group of local guides, the young traveller had been hiking...
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
50

2023 Hottest Year on Record

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
OMB proposed rule changes - act now For non-US folks, feel free to skip.  For US folks:  The Office of Management and Budget, which for...
6th Jul 2026
1

OMB proposed rule changes - act now

from nanoscale views [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Jul 2026
For non-US folks, feel free to skip.  For US folks:  The Office of Management and Budget, which for much of its history has been a comparatively uncontroversial element of the executive branch, has set rules and guidelines for how many executive-branch agencies conduct business...
How to Beat Cancer with Viruses: An Interview with Beata Halassy How viruses kill cancers, which viruses to use, how many injections, at what stage of the cancer,...
1st Oct 2024
44

How to Beat Cancer with Viruses: An Interview with Beata Halassy

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Oct 2024
How viruses kill cancers, which viruses to use, how many injections, at what stage of the cancer, and much more
How Japan Redrew Asia Short article
1st Oct 2026
1

How Japan Redrew Asia

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Oct 2026
Short article
Danny Hillis & Brian Eno: The Long Now, now ### Make the next legal U-turn "Bitching Betty," they call the robotic voice of the car’s GPS...
22nd Jan 2014
1

Danny Hillis & Brian Eno: The Long Now, now

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Jan 2014
### Make the next legal U-turn "Bitching Betty," they call the robotic voice of the car’s GPS guidance system. Eno and Hillis, on their road trips, always become so engrossed in conversation that they get lost—one time, driving to Monterey they wound up in Sacramento, 200 miles...
The Army and Navy Style Guides These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed...
4th Oct 2023
168

The Army and Navy Style Guides

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Oct 2023
These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed forces.
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
41

How Tech Automated the January 6 Investigations

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
Why we didn’t get a malaria vaccine sooner Hundreds of thousands of people die from malaria each year, but it took 141 years to develop a...
7th Sep 2023
1

Why we didn’t get a malaria vaccine sooner

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

7th Sep 2023
Hundreds of thousands of people die from malaria each year, but it took 141 years to develop a vaccine for it. Advance market commitments could speed things up next time.
Things you can do with diodes Paying homage to the component we usually don't think about.
2nd Nov 2025
1

Things you can do with diodes

from lcamtuf’s thing [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Nov 2025
Paying homage to the component we usually don't think about.
A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly...
14th Mar 2019
1

A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Mar 2019
Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly discovered rocky body has added evidence to the circumstantial case for it. The post A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine first appeared on Quanta...
Susan Freinkel: Eternal Plastic ### Making plastic even better Plastic is so new, Freinkel began, that among all the objects...
23rd May 2012
1

Susan Freinkel: Eternal Plastic

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

23rd May 2012
### Making plastic even better Plastic is so new, Freinkel began, that among all the objects preserved in the sunken _Titanic_ , none are synthetic plastic, because there was hardly any available in 1912. Natural plastic, however, was a familiar material. Amber was popular....
The great reinforcer Alongside all the successes of science in the Covid era, the pandemic has also sparked an outbreak...
8th Feb 2021
1

The great reinforcer

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

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.
The Great Permitting Downturn and Your Rent Renting a home is more expensive because we stopped letting people build homes
1st Sep 2026
1

The Great Permitting Downturn and Your Rent

from Cremieux Recueil [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Sep 2026
Renting a home is more expensive because we stopped letting people build homes
1st Nov 2024
A nicer voltmeter clock Sometimes, electronic circuit design is mostly about wood
16th May 2026
1

A nicer voltmeter clock

from lcamtuf’s thing [alt+shift+b] in science

16th May 2026
Sometimes, electronic circuit design is mostly about wood
Cory Doctorow: The Coming Century of War Against Your Computer ### Who governs digital trust? Doctorow framed the question this way: "Computers are everywhere....
1st Aug 2012
1

Cory Doctorow: The Coming Century of War Against Your Computer

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Aug 2012
### Who governs digital trust? Doctorow framed the question this way: "Computers are everywhere. They are now something we put our whole bodies into---airplanes, cars---and something we put into our bodies---pacemakers, cochlear implants. They HAVE to be trustworthy." Sometimes...
What Is an Electronic Sackbut? If you, like me, think of musical synthesizers as an artifact of 1970s rock and disco, then you,...
1st Feb 2024
105

What Is an Electronic Sackbut?

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Feb 2024
If you, like me, think of musical synthesizers as an artifact of 1970s rock and disco, then you, like me, will be surprised to learn that the first electronic synthesizer predates those genres by several decades In 1945, Hugh Le Caine, a physicist at Canada’s National Research...
Louis Hyman: The New Deal You Don't Know Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow:...
2nd Jan 2018
1

Louis Hyman: The New Deal You Don't Know

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Jan 2018
Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow: The American Way of Debt](https://www.amazon.com/Borrow-American-Debt-Vintage-Original/dp/0307741680/)_ , he examines in detail how the evolution of personal debt has not only...
Sara Seager: Other Earths. Other Life. ## To find living exoplanets Thanks to recent exoplanet research, Seager began, we now know that...
11th Aug 2015
1

Sara Seager: Other Earths. Other Life.

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Aug 2015
## To find living exoplanets Thanks to recent exoplanet research, Seager began, we now know that nearly all of our galaxy’s 300 billion stars are accompanied by planets, and a unexpectedly high number of them are rocky like Earth, and many of those orbit in a “habitable”...
Why horses have stopped becoming faster The limits of breeding for speed
6th Aug 2026
2

Why horses have stopped becoming faster

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Aug 2026
The limits of breeding for speed
When mates behave differently Iceland’s 40,000 Oystercatchers are an interesting mix of resident birds and migrants, providing an...
7th Aug 2022
65

When mates behave differently

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

7th Aug 2022
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...
Fertility Policy For Rich Countries A brief proposal to fix Social Security and grow the population
1st Apr 2025
57

Fertility Policy For Rich Countries

from Cremieux Recueil [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Apr 2025
A brief proposal to fix Social Security and grow the population
George P. Shultz: Perspective Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than...
2nd Aug 2018
1

George P. Shultz: Perspective

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Aug 2018
Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than George Shultz, now 97. (Henry Kissinger is only 95.) Secretary Shultz was a US Marine Captain in World War II. After becoming an economics professor at MIT and the University of...
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...
11th Jul 2016
35

A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning

from Melting Asphalt [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Jul 2016
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 ›
The Gambia, Part 1 of 2 In November I visited The Gambia along with ten travellers from Quest Nature Tours. Why The Gambia,...
19th Dec 2025
1

The Gambia, Part 1 of 2

from Explorations of an Ecologist [alt+shift+b] in science

19th Dec 2025
In November I visited The Gambia along with ten travellers from Quest Nature Tours. Why The Gambia, you may ask? This tiny country is not well-known to the international community, but it is an attractive ecotourism destination. The Gambia is a stable, English-speaking democracy...
A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild Near an Australian desert mining camp, wild dingoes are losing their fear of humans. Their genetic...
9th Aug 2018
1

A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Aug 2018
Near an Australian desert mining camp, wild dingoes are losing their fear of humans. Their genetic and behavioral changes may echo those from the domestication of dogs. The post A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Good posts from the Inkhaven blogging residency Cannot stress this enough: literally everyone at the writing residency was good at this. Maybe...
28th Feb 2026
1

Good posts from the Inkhaven blogging residency

from Eukaryote Writes Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

28th Feb 2026
Cannot stress this enough: literally everyone at the writing residency was good at this. Maybe you'll find a new favorite blog among these.
As Hurricanes Stir Up Coastal Waters, North Carolina Homes Collapse Into the Sea Five unoccupied homes on North Carolina's Outer Banks collapsed into the sea Tuesday as hurricanes...
1st Oct 2025
22
1st Oct 2025
Five unoccupied homes on North Carolina's Outer Banks collapsed into the sea Tuesday as hurricanes Humberto and Imelda coursed through the Atlantic, stirring up coastal waters. The Outer Banks have seen 17 seaside homes destroyed since 2020. Read more on E360 →
Why does correlation not equal causation? In this blog post I will explain why it makes sense to think about causal explanations when we see...
24th Nov 2023
1

Why does correlation not equal causation?

from Peder M. Isager [alt+shift+b] in science

24th Nov 2023
In this blog post I will explain why it makes sense to think about causal explanations when we see correlation, why correlation does not always imply causation, and which alternative causal models to consider when you are trying to figure out why two variables in your data are...
Robert Neuwirth: The 21st Century Medieval City ### World squatter reality Humanity is urbanizing at a world-changing pace and in a world-changing...
11th Jun 2005
1

Robert Neuwirth: The 21st Century Medieval City

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Jun 2005
### World squatter reality Humanity is urbanizing at a world-changing pace and in a world-changing way. A billion squatters are re-inventing their lives and their cities simultaneously. One of the few to experience the range of the phenomenon first hand is Robert Neuwirth,...
Learn to write well BEFORE you have something worth saying Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
29th Dec 2024
116

Learn to write well BEFORE you have something worth saying

from Eukaryote Writes Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

29th Dec 2024
Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
Viagra for Life Extension Does it work? I'm doubtful
1st Jun 2026
1

Viagra for Life Extension

from Cremieux Recueil [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jun 2026
Does it work? I'm doubtful
John Rendon: Long-term Policy to Make the War on Terror Short ### Only connect John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to...
15th Jul 2006
1

John Rendon: Long-term Policy to Make the War on Terror Short

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Jul 2006
### Only connect John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to the White Houses and Departments of Defense. His subject in this talk is how to replace tactical, reactive response to terror with long-term strategic initative. I think that people...
Milestone Experiment Proves Quantum Communication Really Is Faster In a Paris lab, researchers have shown for the first time that quantum methods of transmitting...
7th Nov 2019
1

Milestone Experiment Proves Quantum Communication Really Is Faster

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

7th Nov 2019
In a Paris lab, researchers have shown for the first time that quantum methods of transmitting information are superior to classical ones. The post Milestone Experiment Proves Quantum Communication Really Is Faster first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Jim Richardson: Heirlooms ### Save Agricultural Biodiversity Humanity’s agricultural legacy is on a par with any of our great...
23rd Feb 2012
1

Jim Richardson: Heirlooms

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
Carl Zimmer: Viral Time ### What's time to a virus? "Everything about viruses is extreme," Zimmer began. The number of...
8th Jun 2011
1

Carl Zimmer: Viral Time

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Jun 2011
### What's time to a virus? "Everything about viruses is extreme," Zimmer began. The number of viruses on Earth is estimated to be 1 followed by 31 zeroes. Small as they are, if you stacked them all up, the stack would reach 100 million light years. They are the planet's most...
Kim Carson: Inspired by Intelligence What if AI is not here actually to replace us, but to remind us who we actually are? That was the...
13th Jun 2025
1

Kim Carson: Inspired by Intelligence

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

13th Jun 2025
What if AI is not here actually to replace us, but to remind us who we actually are? That was the question at the heart of Kim Carson’s Long Now Talk. In _Inspired by Intelligence: Purpose and Creativity in the AI Era_, Carson challenged us to avoid the easy narratives of...
New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms...
1st Mar 2018
1

New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Mar 2018
A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms — and might also explain how human brains learn. The post New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Moto-Orion: Mechanized Nuclear Pulse Propulsion The Orion nuclear pulse propulsion concept has been around for over six decades now. It is powerful...
4th Jan 2021
1

Moto-Orion: Mechanized Nuclear Pulse Propulsion

from ToughSF [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Jan 2021
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...
Who’s afraid of artificial flavors? ‘Artificial’ didn’t scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?
8th May 2026
1

Who’s afraid of artificial flavors?

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

8th May 2026
‘Artificial’ didn’t scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?
A Debate Over the Physics of Time According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to...
8th Sep 2016
1

A Debate Over the Physics of Time

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Sep 2016
According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to pass. The post A Debate Over the Physics of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Which countries eat the most seafood per person? The top 10 seafood-consuming nations in the world, plus trends among the world’s richest countries....
11th Dec 2021
70

Which countries eat the most seafood per person?

from Marine Madness [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Dec 2021
The top 10 seafood-consuming nations in the world, plus trends among the world’s richest countries. Seafood is a vital food group and form of income for millions of people around the world. The seafood industry has more than quadrupled in the last 50 years and is estimated to be...
Making an Aging Clock Is this really where longevity science needs to go?
a week ago
1

Making an Aging Clock

from Cremieux Recueil [alt+shift+b] in science

a week ago
Is this really where longevity science needs to go?
Not everything is physics The first book I ever read was The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I liked it so much that...
1st Sep 2024
124

Not everything is physics

from Inverted Passion [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Sep 2024
The first book I ever read was The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I liked it so much that I re-read it 8 times. As a young boy, the book had made a lasting impression on me, making me fall in love with ideas such as the arrow of time, black holes, entropy,… Read...
Flipping the switch on far-UVC We’ve known about far-UVC’s promise for a decade. Why isn't it everywhere?
10th Mar 2025
47

Flipping the switch on far-UVC

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Mar 2025
We’ve known about far-UVC’s promise for a decade. Why isn't it everywhere?
The New Wave of Concierge Medicine | Out-Of-Pocket This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
9th Jul 2024
119

The New Wave of Concierge Medicine | Out-Of-Pocket

from Out-of-Pocket Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Jul 2024
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
4th Nov 2025
13

Readers from Canada, Australia and the EU can now subscribe to Works in Progress

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Nov 2025
Our first print edition ships in two weeks.
Tong Test for Artificial General Intelligence Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing...
2nd Oct 2023
30

Tong Test for Artificial General Intelligence

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Oct 2023
Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing expert Alan Turing in 1950, and originally called “The Imitation Game”. The original paper is enlightening to read. Turing was not trying to answer the question “can machines think”....
Moult, captured on camera Autumn moult is an important part of the annual cycle of migratory shorebirds, typically squeezed in...
9th Oct 2025
25

Moult, captured on camera

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Oct 2025
Autumn moult is an important part of the annual cycle of migratory shorebirds, typically squeezed in between chick-rearing and the onset of winter. The process of changing an individual’s feathers lasts as long as the whole of the breeding season but is far well less well...
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs ### Ignore confident forecasters "What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?" From his...
27th Jan 2007
1

Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Jan 2007
### Ignore confident forecasters "What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?" From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time...
Should We Eradicate Mosquitoes? They kill us and bother us, but is that enough to eradicate them, or their role in the environment...
1st Sep 2026
2

Should We Eradicate Mosquitoes?

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Sep 2026
They kill us and bother us, but is that enough to eradicate them, or their role in the environment is too important?
David Grinspoon: Earth in Human Hands ## Cognitive planet **Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people...
20th Sep 2017
1

David Grinspoon: Earth in Human Hands

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

20th Sep 2017
## Cognitive planet **Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people say we are entering an Anthropocene Epoch, Grinspoon began, but what if the term “epoch” understates the consequence of what is going on? Astrobiologists recently learned that...
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
1

Making The Most Of Winter

from Explorations of an Ecologist [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
Web-surfing tips for strange times Meditations on what's bad about the internet lately and how to use it anyhow.
31st May 2024
130

Web-surfing tips for strange times

from Eukaryote Writes Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

31st May 2024
Meditations on what's bad about the internet lately and how to use it anyhow.
The spirit of relativity One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a...
14th Nov 2022
49

The spirit of relativity

from Quantum Frontiers [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Nov 2022
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 →
(Ethically dubious) ways to give patients more choice | Out-Of-Pocket Do these ideas give you the ick? Or is there something interesting here
4th Sep 2025
31

(Ethically dubious) ways to give patients more choice | Out-Of-Pocket

from Out-of-Pocket Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Sep 2025
Do these ideas give you the ick? Or is there something interesting here
DOE experimental condensed matter PI meeting, + other items This week I am attending the every-two-years DOE Experimental Condensed Matter Physics PI meeting. ...
8th Sep 2025
1

DOE experimental condensed matter PI meeting, + other items

from nanoscale views [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Sep 2025
This week I am attending the every-two-years DOE Experimental Condensed Matter Physics PI meeting.  Previously I have written up highlights of these meetings (see here, here, here, here, here), though two years I was unable to do so because I was attending virtually.  I will do...
Nicholas Negroponte: Beyond Digital ### A world of convergence In education, Negroponte explained, there’s a fundamental distinction...
18th Apr 2013
1

Nicholas Negroponte: Beyond Digital

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

18th Apr 2013
### A world of convergence In education, Negroponte explained, there’s a fundamental distinction between "instructionism" and "constructionism." "Constructionism is learning by discovery, by doing, by making. Instructionism is learning by being told." Negroponte’s lifelong...
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
1

The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

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
My Free Introductory Astronomy Textbook Hits a Milestone This time I am posting something a bit personal. I am the lead author of a free book that is part of...
5th May 2024
62

My Free Introductory Astronomy Textbook Hits a Milestone

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

5th May 2024
This time I am posting something a bit personal. I am the lead author of a free book that is part of a nonprofit experiment to help students with the costs of college. Here is the news from our publisher: OpenStax, the open textbook publisher based at Rice University, is pleased...
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
1

A Secret Flexibility Found in Life’s Blueprints

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

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
Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the...
18th Aug 2021
45

Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno

from Wanderingspace [alt+shift+b] in science

18th Aug 2021
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the rest are thought to be active volcanos on the Io surface. The moons are not a primary target of the Juno mission, but they do occasionally take a peek to try and monitor such...
Predation of juvenile reef fish in coral patches at Ningaloo Reef The second research article I have decided to discuss is one I had the pleasure to be involved with!...
11th Feb 2013
61

Predation of juvenile reef fish in coral patches at Ningaloo Reef

from Confessions of a Marine Ecologist [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Feb 2013
The second research article I have decided to discuss is one I had the pleasure to be involved with!  In fact, it was the first paper I was a co-author on, after linking up with the Department of Environment and Conservation through an ANNiMS internship program.  The paper was...
Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more...
3rd Jan 2019
1

Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Jan 2019
An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more complex during the Cambrian explosion. The post Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Terraform Talent Development Originally posted at the Terraform Blog on November 17, 2025. Terraform Industries is the vehicle by...
24th Nov 2025
1

Terraform Talent Development

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

24th Nov 2025
Originally posted at the Terraform Blog on November 17, 2025. Terraform Industries is the vehicle by which I build the people that build the team I need to build the future I am determined to build. One of the unexpected privileges of founding an ambitious, future-oriented...
Why the Art of Invention Is Always Being Reinvented Every invention begins with a problem—and the creative act of seeing a problem where others might...
1st Nov 2024
81

Why the Art of Invention Is Always Being Reinvented

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Nov 2024
Every invention begins with a problem—and the creative act of seeing a problem where others might just see unchangeable reality. For one 5-year-old, the problem was simple: She liked to have her tummy rubbed as she fell asleep. But her mom, exhausted from working two jobs, often...
The Art of Teaching Math and Science The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational...
26th Jan 2017
1

The Art of Teaching Math and Science

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

26th Jan 2017
The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational theory. What can we learn from the best teachers on the front lines? The post The Art of Teaching Math and Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Common healthcare questions I get | Out-Of-Pocket Some of your FAQs finally answered
4th Dec 2024
88

Common healthcare questions I get | Out-Of-Pocket

from Out-of-Pocket Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Dec 2024
Some of your FAQs finally answered
John Preskill receives 2025 Quantum Leadership Award The 2025 Quantum Leadership Awards were announced at the Quantum World Congress on 18 September...
18th Sep 2025
33

John Preskill receives 2025 Quantum Leadership Award

from Quantum Frontiers [alt+shift+b] in science

18th Sep 2025
The 2025 Quantum Leadership Awards were announced at the Quantum World Congress on 18 September 2025. Upon receiving the Academic Pioneer of the Year Award, John Preskill made these remarks. I’m enormously excited and honored to receive this Quantum Leadership … Continue reading...
An Empty Product of Nonempty Sets A few days ago I saw a cute question on mse asking about a particularly non-intuitive failing of...
4th Jun 2025
43

An Empty Product of Nonempty Sets

from Chris Grossack's Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Jun 2025
A few days ago I saw a cute question on mse asking about a particularly non-intuitive failing of the axiom of choice. I remember when I was an undergrad talking to a friend of mine about various statements equivalent to choice, and being particularly hung up on the same...
Warm Countries’ Poverty & Mountains: Responses to Your Comments Geographic arguments against the theory: Switzerland, Austria, Colorado, India, Cambodia, Indonesia,...
1st Oct 2025
1

Warm Countries’ Poverty & Mountains: Responses to Your Comments

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Oct 2025
Geographic arguments against the theory: Switzerland, Austria, Colorado, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, China…Has race had any role in warm countries’ poverty?Does this disregard colonialism?
Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and...
7th Nov 2022
60

Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

7th Nov 2022
Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and floodplains.
Don’t Bet on the Super Bowl If you have studied probability, you might be familiar with fractional odds, which represent the...
8th Feb 2026
2

Don’t Bet on the Super Bowl

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Feb 2026
If you have studied probability, you might be familiar with fractional odds, which represent the ratio of the probability something happens to the probability it doesn’t. For example, if the Seahawks have a 75% chance of winning the Super Bowl, they have a 25% chance of losing,...
Getting things done by not trying I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned....
20th Oct 2024
133

Getting things done by not trying

from Inverted Passion [alt+shift+b] in science

20th Oct 2024
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned. It’s an unconventional self-help book disguised as a computer science research exposition (that’s why the publisher is Springer). I strongly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of...
The perks of being a mole rat The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for...
4th Feb 2026
1

The perks of being a mole rat

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Feb 2026
The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for centuries.
Watch men Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the...
2nd Dec 2025
1

Watch men

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Dec 2025
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
The New Science of Seeing Around Corners Computer vision researchers have uncovered a world of visual signals hiding in our midst, including...
1st Aug 2019
1

The New Science of Seeing Around Corners

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Aug 2019
Computer vision researchers have uncovered a world of visual signals hiding in our midst, including subtle motions that betray what’s being said and faint images of what’s around a corner. The post The New Science of Seeing Around Corners first appeared on Quanta...
The Brain Has a 'Low-Power Mode' That Blunts Our Senses Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of...
12th Oct 2022
1

The Brain Has a 'Low-Power Mode' That Blunts Our Senses

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Oct 2022
Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained details. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Unanswered Questions” by Kevin MacLeod.
Esther Dyson: The Short Now: What Addiction, Day Trading, and Most of Society’s Ills Have in Common Long Now board member Esther Dyson shares her ongoing work to move communities away from short-term...
9th Jan 2020
1
9th Jan 2020
Long Now board member Esther Dyson shares her ongoing work to move communities away from short-term thinking and into health. In conversation with previous Interval speaker [Kara Platoni](http://www.karaplatoni.com/), she discusses how short-term desire is addiction, affecting...
You've Been Lied To About Genetics Should we give Mendel's peas a chance? Nah, we've moved on.
20th Jan 2023
39

You've Been Lied To About Genetics

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

20th Jan 2023
Should we give Mendel's peas a chance? Nah, we've moved on.
Silicon Valley’s Gold Rush Roots Silicon Valley, purveyor of disruptive technologies, likes to think of itself as sui generis. But...
1st Apr 2024
25

Silicon Valley’s Gold Rush Roots

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Apr 2024
Silicon Valley, purveyor of disruptive technologies, likes to think of itself as sui generis. But there’s a clear line from tech’s knowledge economy to the Bay Area’s first economy: gold mining.
To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization [Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap...
8th Apr 2025
81

To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Apr 2025
[Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate that we had kicked off the process of recompiling the foundation layer of our entire industrial...
Engineering for Slow Internet How to minimize user frustration in Antarctica.
31st May 2024
122

Engineering for Slow Internet

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

31st May 2024
How to minimize user frustration in Antarctica.
Plastic archeology The history, science and engineering of Lego bricks, on the cusp between trash and treasure.
20th Nov 2023
38

Plastic archeology

from Interaction Magic - George Cave [alt+shift+b] in science

20th Nov 2023
The history, science and engineering of Lego bricks, on the cusp between trash and treasure.
The Naughty Words the FAA Removed From the Sky New FOIA records from the FAA shed light on the frantic effort in 2015 to rename navigation...
28th May 2024
132

The Naughty Words the FAA Removed From the Sky

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

28th May 2024
New FOIA records from the FAA shed light on the frantic effort in 2015 to rename navigation waypoints related to Donald Trump and reveal the list of naughty waypoint names that were changed over the years.
More Than 110 New Species Discovered In Deep Waters Off Australia Scientists have identified more than 110 new species found in deep water beyond the edges of...
1st Apr 2026
4

More Than 110 New Species Discovered In Deep Waters Off Australia

from Yale E360 [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Apr 2026
Scientists have identified more than 110 new species found in deep water beyond the edges of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Read more on E360 →
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
40

Could There Be Laws Of Biology?

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Mar 2023
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles or axioms for biology?
Melody Jue: Ocean Memory The ocean is not empty. It is a vast storage facility of memory agents. Ocean bodies use the...
9th Apr 2026
1

Melody Jue: Ocean Memory

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Apr 2026
The ocean is not empty. It is a vast storage facility of memory agents. Ocean bodies use the chemical signatures of seawater for memory and intelligence in ways we can barely imagine. In her Talk, Melody Jue said our struggle to understand ocean memory comes from our terrestrial...
What is progress? In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another...
9th Mar 2024
156

What is progress?

from The Roots of Progress | Articles [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Mar 2024
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...
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...
17th May 2022
33

what's happened since the human genome project

from Apoorva Srinivasan [alt+shift+b] in science

17th May 2022
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,...
My Science Fiction Story “Who Speaks for Earth” Just Published; Free Link I am tickled to report that The Worlds Within magazine has just published my science-fiction story...
22nd Mar 2026
1

My Science Fiction Story “Who Speaks for Earth” Just Published; Free Link

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Mar 2026
I am tickled to report that The Worlds Within magazine has just published my science-fiction story “Who Speaks for Earth.”  It concerns a Congressional hearing about a future President, who had to bomb a radio telescope owned by a religious group that insisted on answering an...
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
89
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...
Bayesian Decision Analysis At PyData Global 2025 I presented a workshop on Bayesian Decision Analysis with PyMC. The video is...
9th Jan 2026
1

Bayesian Decision Analysis

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Jan 2026
At PyData Global 2025 I presented a workshop on Bayesian Decision Analysis with PyMC. The video is available now. This workshop is based on the first session of the Applied Bayesian Modeling Workshop I teach along with my colleagues at PyMC Labs. If you would like to learn more,...
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
1

Roads too! Another problem for Iceland’s waders

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
Monoidal Monoidoidoids So I was on the nlab the other day, and I saw a fantastic joke: A 2-category is “just” a monoidal...
21st Aug 2022
33

Monoidal Monoidoidoids

from Chris Grossack's Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

21st Aug 2022
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...
$\mathsf{B}\text{Diff}(\Sigma)$ Classifies $\Sigma$-bundles I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the cobordism hypothesis,...
21st Dec 2024
120

$\mathsf{B}\text{Diff}(\Sigma)$ Classifies $\Sigma$-bundles

from Chris Grossack's Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

21st Dec 2024
I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the cobordism hypothesis, and how to use $(\infty,n)$-categories. This is all in service of some stuff I’m doing with skein algebras (which are part of a “$3+1$ TQFT” often named after Crane–Yetter, but...
Perseid Meteor Shower Aug 12-13, 2023 We make suggestions for how best to see the 2023 Perseid meteor shower. The post Perseid Meteor...
5th Aug 2023
34

Perseid Meteor Shower Aug 12-13, 2023

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Aug 2023
We make suggestions for how best to see the 2023 Perseid meteor shower. The post Perseid Meteor Shower Aug 12-13, 2023 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Sea Monkeys, Jupiter, and the Mystery of Turbulence Turbulence is all around us: bumping our planes, roiling our rivers, swirling milk into our coffee....
6th Oct 2026
3

Sea Monkeys, Jupiter, and the Mystery of Turbulence

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Oct 2026
Turbulence is all around us: bumping our planes, roiling our rivers, swirling milk into our coffee. These systems quickly become extremely chaotic and complex. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with contributing writer Stephen Ornes about a recent...
Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet...
2nd May 2024
91

Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd May 2024
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet we know comparatively little about them. But in recent years phage research has taken off with renewed interest. This is partly driven by the availability of CRISPR-based tools for...
Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that...
2nd Feb 2017
1

Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

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
AI After Drug Development Coming up with drug candidates isn’t the bottleneck on finding new treatments. Can AI help with the...
1st Jan 1970
1

AI After Drug Development

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jan 1970
Coming up with drug candidates isn’t the bottleneck on finding new treatments. Can AI help with the things that are?
Pioneer 3: JPL’s First Moonshot Attempt With the new push by the United States and other space faring powers to renew the exploration of the...
6th Dec 2022
47

Pioneer 3: JPL’s First Moonshot Attempt

from Drew Ex Machina [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Dec 2022
With the new push by the United States and other space faring powers to renew the exploration of the Moon, miniaturized spacecraft have been made part […]
An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th. The post An Eclipse...
23rd Mar 2024
48

An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th

from Andrew Fraknoi – Astronomy Lectures – Astronomy Education Resources [alt+shift+b] in science

23rd Mar 2024
A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th. The post An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
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
1

Watt lies beneath

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

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.
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
1

Robert Fuller: Patient Revolution: Human Rights Past and Future

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic...
14th Feb 2019
1

Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Feb 2019
In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic systems. The post Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos first appeared on Quanta Magazine
There was no great stagnation We may not have flying cars but we do have incredible information technology. We’re mismeasuring the...
12th Oct 2022
1

There was no great stagnation

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Oct 2022
We may not have flying cars but we do have incredible information technology. We’re mismeasuring the huge benefits it is bringing.
Cape Crozier A nearby field camp, and my first helicopter flight!
1st Dec 2022
52

Cape Crozier

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Dec 2022
A nearby field camp, and my first helicopter flight!
Visions of Future Physics Nima Arkani-Hamed is championing a campaign to build the world’s largest particle collider, even as...
1st Oct 2015
1

Visions of Future Physics

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Oct 2015
Nima Arkani-Hamed is championing a campaign to build the world’s largest particle collider, even as he pursues a new vision of the laws of nature. The post Visions of Future Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Nestedly Recursive Functions Yet Another Ruliological Surprise Integers. Addition. Subtraction. Maybe multiplication. Surely...
27th Sep 2024
121

Nestedly Recursive Functions

from Stephen Wolfram Writings [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Sep 2024
Yet Another Ruliological Surprise Integers. Addition. Subtraction. Maybe multiplication. Surely that’s not enough to be able to generate any serious complexity. In the early 1980s I had made the very surprising discovery that very simple programs based on cellular automata could...
Announcing the quantum-steampunk creative-writing course! Why not run a quantum-steampunk creative-writing course? Quantum steampunk, as Quantum Frontiers...
19th Sep 2024
97

Announcing the quantum-steampunk creative-writing course!

from Quantum Frontiers [alt+shift+b] in science

19th Sep 2024
Why not run a quantum-steampunk creative-writing course? Quantum steampunk, as Quantum Frontiers regulars know, is the aesthetic and spirit of a growing scientific field. Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction. In it, futuristic technologies invade Victorian-era settings:...
When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness...
2nd Oct 2024
69

When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again.

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Oct 2024
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
The Refugee Reality: Thinking Long-term About the Evolving Global Challenge With a complex and truly global problem like this, we can only scratch the surface in an hour. But...
1st Oct 2017
1
1st Oct 2017
With a complex and truly global problem like this, we can only scratch the surface in an hour. But we hoped to reframe some aspects and include perspectives not always heard. What's certain is this is a long-term problem that has been ongoing and looks likely to worsen due to...
Approximation game The number 22/7 and the pigeon flock of Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet.
28th Feb 2026
1

Approximation game

from lcamtuf’s thing [alt+shift+b] in science

28th Feb 2026
The number 22/7 and the pigeon flock of Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet.
Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems....
3rd Jun 2024
118

Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Jun 2024
Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems. The post Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A Taste of Italy In the mid-1800s, Italy was consumed by two parallel fights: one to rid itself of Austrian...
14th May 2021
30

A Taste of Italy

from Damn Interesting [alt+shift+b] in science

14th May 2021
In the mid-1800s, Italy was consumed by two parallel fights: one to rid itself of Austrian domination (a holdover from the Holy Roman Empire) and the other for unification. At the time, Europe’s boot was a curious conglomeration of separate states, not all of which got along....
What I’ve been reading, June 2023 A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find...
5th Jun 2023
187

What I’ve been reading, June 2023

from The Roots of Progress | Articles [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Jun 2023
A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find them in my links digests. In all quotes below, any emphasis in bold was added by me. Books Thomas S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution, 1760–1830 (1948). A classic in the field,...
Design for the People: The US Web Design System and the Public Sans Typeface The United States has an official web design system and a custom typeface that belongs to the...
2nd Jul 2024
134

Design for the People: The US Web Design System and the Public Sans Typeface

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Jul 2024
The United States has an official web design system and a custom typeface that belongs to the people. This thoughtful public design system aims to make government websites not only look good, but to make them accessible and functional for all.
Notes on Progress: A winter's tale Melting snow can make the season easier
4th May 2023
55

Notes on Progress: A winter's tale

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

4th May 2023
Melting snow can make the season easier
Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes...
13th Oct 2016
1

Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

13th Oct 2016
Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes are shaking up astrophysics. The post Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
53

If you wish to make an apple pie, you must first become dictator of the universe

from The Roots of Progress | Articles [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
Jimmy Wales: Vision: Wikipedia and the Future of Free Culture ### Community-built content rules Vision is one of the most powerful forms of long-term thinking....
15th Apr 2006
1

Jimmy Wales: Vision: Wikipedia and the Future of Free Culture

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Apr 2006
### Community-built content rules Vision is one of the most powerful forms of long-term thinking. Jimmy Wales, founder and president of the all-embracing online encyclopedia Wikipedia, examines how vision drives and defines that project and its strategy-- and how it fits into...
Rusty Schweickart: The Asteroid Threat Over the Next 100,000 Years ### Asteroid threat report Schweickart filled the hall with some 240 at the Presidio Officers Club...
13th Mar 2004
1

Rusty Schweickart: The Asteroid Threat Over the Next 100,000 Years

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

13th Mar 2004
### Asteroid threat report Schweickart filled the hall with some 240 at the Presidio Officers Club and gave a dazzling lecture. He left the next day for Washington DC to lobby Congress to apply its will to making the Earth safe for the very long term. "For life to survive in...
Detecting Online Predatory Journals The World Wide Web has proven to be a transformative communication technology (we are using it right...
2nd Sep 2025
37

Detecting Online Predatory Journals

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

2nd Sep 2025
The World Wide Web has proven to be a transformative communication technology (we are using it right now). At the same time there have been some rather negative unforeseen consequences. Significantly lowering the threshold for establishing a communications outlet has democratized...
Metaphors mold minds Every good design is founded on a great metaphor. How to use metaphors to design more a inclusive...
21st Mar 2022
26

Metaphors mold minds

from Interaction Magic - George Cave [alt+shift+b] in science

21st Mar 2022
Every good design is founded on a great metaphor. How to use metaphors to design more a inclusive future for our cities. My IXDA Interaction 22 conference talk.
Space Tethers: Stringing up the Solar System All the methods we have used to reach space so far have been subject to the Tsiolkovsky rocket...
15th Sep 2020
1

Space Tethers: Stringing up the Solar System

from ToughSF [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Sep 2020
All the methods we have used to reach space so far have been subject to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation - propellant must be ejected and more and more of it is needed to go further. What if we could break that equation with rotating orbital tethers? The tether I have worked...
Understanding the Baby Boom The West has been below replacement fertility once before. Then came the Baby Boom. Understanding...
7th Sep 2023
1

Understanding the Baby Boom

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

7th Sep 2023
The West has been below replacement fertility once before. Then came the Baby Boom. Understanding that boom may help us deal with today’s bust.
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
1

Light-Triggered Genes Reveal the Hidden Workings of Memory

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
Government Comic Books Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and...
27th Nov 2023
66

Government Comic Books

from Beautiful Public Data [alt+shift+b] in science

27th Nov 2023
Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and how soldiers should handle homosexuality in the military.
Trust and Well-Being In a previous article, I claimed that Young adults are not very happy. Now the World Happiness...
3rd Apr 2026
1

Trust and Well-Being

from Probably Overthinking It [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Apr 2026
In a previous article, I claimed that Young adults are not very happy. Now the World Happiness Report 2026 has confirmed that young people in North America and Western Europe are less happy than they were fifteen years ago, and less happy than previous generations. In this...
Copper and Green Energy The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The...
1st Jul 2024
31

Copper and Green Energy

from Tikalon Blog by Dev Gualtieri [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jul 2024
The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The current list of 54 materials includes elements that are presently critical to a transition to green energy, such as the rare earth elements important to turbine generators, and...
How one Kiwi tamed inflation Inflation targeting is now standard in central banking. But it began with an offhand comment and a...
12th Jun 2025
1

How one Kiwi tamed inflation

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Jun 2025
Inflation targeting is now standard in central banking. But it began with an offhand comment and a political gamble in New Zealand – long before economists took it seriously.
License My blog posts are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International...
1st Jan 2001
1

License

from Peder M. Isager [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jan 2001
My blog posts are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The road from serfdom Using opt-ins to reform Russia's backwards tsarist agricultural sector
6th Mar 2024
107

The road from serfdom

from The Works in Progress Newsletter [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Mar 2024
Using opt-ins to reform Russia's backwards tsarist agricultural sector
Nicole’s guide to writing research statements Sunflowers are blooming, stores are trumpeting back-to-school sales, and professors are scrambling...
11th Aug 2025
37

Nicole’s guide to writing research statements

from Quantum Frontiers [alt+shift+b] in science

11th Aug 2025
Sunflowers are blooming, stores are trumpeting back-to-school sales, and professors are scrambling to chart out the courses they planned to develop in July. If you’re applying for an academic job this fall, now is the time to get your application … Continue reading →
Where Do Those Undergraduate Divisibility Problems Come From? Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class or something...
16th Jan 2025
73

Where Do Those Undergraduate Divisibility Problems Come From?

from Chris Grossack's Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

16th Jan 2025
Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class or something similar, you’ll be shown problems of the form “prove that for $n^6 + n^3 + 2n^2 + 2n$ is a multiple of $6$ for every $n$”… But where do these problems come from? And have you ever...
Saving Academics from Themselves The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
1st Jul 2026
1

Saving Academics from Themselves

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jul 2026
The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
Mary Lou Jepsen: Toward Practical Telepathy With her stunning breakthroughs in neural imaging, Mary Lou Jepsen is making the brain readable (and...
5th Nov 2018
1

Mary Lou Jepsen: Toward Practical Telepathy

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Nov 2018
With her stunning breakthroughs in neural imaging, Mary Lou Jepsen is making the brain readable (and stimulatable) in real time. That will revolutionize brain study and brain medicine, but what about brain communication? Could a direct high-resolution interface to the brain lead...
How Randomness Improves Algorithms Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems. The...
3rd Apr 2023
74

How Randomness Improves Algorithms

from Quanta Magazine [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Apr 2023
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems. The post How Randomness Improves Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco, 5 ### Lives of San Francisco "You are the soundtrack," Prelinger told the capacity audience at the...
17th Dec 2010
1

Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco, 5

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

17th Dec 2010
### Lives of San Francisco "You are the soundtrack," Prelinger told the capacity audience at the Herbst Theater, and they responded to his mostly silent archival films by calling out locations, questions, comments, and jokes. They saw footage of a 1941 Market Street parade of...
The road from serfdom Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful...
16th Feb 2024
1

The road from serfdom

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

16th Feb 2024
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful opposition took a remarkable approach that let peasants vote themselves into freedom.
A Natural History of Beauty A mashup of ideas from David Deutsch, Geoffrey Miller, and Richard Prum, with a little César Hidalgo...
30th Oct 2018
47

A Natural History of Beauty

from Melting Asphalt [alt+shift+b] in science

30th Oct 2018
A mashup of ideas from David Deutsch, Geoffrey Miller, and Richard Prum, with a little César Hidalgo thrown in for good measure. —— Of all the problems that can plague a discussion of beauty — and there are several — perhaps… Read more ›
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...
8th Dec 2024
111

Apollo A-002: Testing the Limits of the Launch Escape System

from Drew Ex Machina [alt+shift+b] in science

8th Dec 2024
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 […]
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
1

Beth Shapiro: How to Clone a Mammoth

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

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...
What Is Orbitronics You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of...
1st Oct 2024
81

What Is Orbitronics

from NeuroLogica Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Oct 2024
You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of spintronics and photonics. Now there is also the possibility of orbitronics. What do these cool-sounding words mean? Electronic technology is one of those core technologies that has...
Modelling my brain A 22 hour medical experiment breathing 12% oxygen, and the 7000 images of my brain that came out of...
29th Mar 2021
31

Modelling my brain

from Interaction Magic - George Cave [alt+shift+b] in science

29th Mar 2021
A 22 hour medical experiment breathing 12% oxygen, and the 7000 images of my brain that came out of it.
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
1

Watt lies beneath

from Works in Progress RSS Feed [alt+shift+b] in science

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.
Lofty Ambitions One summer day in 1933, in a brief pocket of time between the two World Wars, a British man named...
14th Dec 2022
34

Lofty Ambitions

from Damn Interesting [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Dec 2022
One summer day in 1933, in a brief pocket of time between the two World Wars, a British man named Maurice Wilson clutched the stick of his tiny, open air biplane and watched his fuel gauge dwindle. He had only learned to fly two months earlier, but inexperience was not his...
Eight highlights from publishing a science book for the general public What’s it like to publish a book? I’ve faced the question again and again this year, as my book...
19th Dec 2022
55

Eight highlights from publishing a science book for the general public

from Quantum Frontiers [alt+shift+b] in science

19th Dec 2022
What’s it like to publish a book? I’ve faced the question again and again this year, as my book Quantum Steampunk hit bookshelves in April. Two responses suggest themselves. On the one hand, I channel the Beatles: It’s a hard … Continue reading →
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
3rd Jun 2024
125

Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket

from Out-of-Pocket Blog [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Jun 2024
The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
Sylvia Earle & Tierney Thys: Oceanic ### Oceans alive Neither of them eats fish. Both marine biologists applaud the improved regulation...
21st May 2014
1

Sylvia Earle & Tierney Thys: Oceanic

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

21st May 2014
### Oceans alive Neither of them eats fish. Both marine biologists applaud the improved regulation of American fishing and the resulting recovery of important fisheries, but they note that 90% of our seafood is imported, and one-third of that is caught illegally. Two-thirds of...
The Math of Democracy Never Quite Works Out The French mathematician Nicolas de Condorcet was a passionate believer in democracy, but he also...
a week ago
1

The Math of Democracy Never Quite Works Out

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

a week ago
The French mathematician Nicolas de Condorcet was a passionate believer in democracy, but he also discovered a frustrating paradox within it: A majority can sometimes vote itself into a logical loop. Mathematicians have now found that this “logical loop” maps onto a strange...
Beth Noveck: Transparent Government ### Dot.Gov Noveck began with the example of patents, first devised in Renaissance Florence and...
5th Mar 2010
1

Beth Noveck: Transparent Government

from Long Now [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Mar 2010
### Dot.Gov Noveck began with the example of patents, first devised in Renaissance Florence and Venice to protect techniques such as glass manufacture. In England, conferring a monopoly on a tool or technique became a prerogative of the king. In contemporary America, the process...
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
1

In Game Theory, No Clear Path to Equilibrium

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

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
How AI Will Change Media Work with me to make it happen
3rd Apr 2026
1

How AI Will Change Media

from Uncharted Territories [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd Apr 2026
Work with me to make it happen
Where is the YIMBY movement for healthcare? In the progress movement, some cause areas are about technical breakthroughs, such as fusion power...
10th May 2025
1

Where is the YIMBY movement for healthcare?

from The Roots of Progress [alt+shift+b] in science

10th May 2025
In the progress movement, some cause areas are about technical breakthroughs, such as fusion power or a cure for aging. In other areas, the problems are not technical, but social. Housing, for instance, is technologically a solved problem. We know how to build houses, but housing...
Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because...
4th Jun 2020
1

Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures

from The Quanta Podcast [alt+shift+b] in science

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
Chips Need to Chill Out Diamonds, lasers, and oil aren’t the first things you may think of when considering ways to keep...
1st Nov 2025
1

Chips Need to Chill Out

from IEEE Spectrum [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Nov 2025
Diamonds, lasers, and oil aren’t the first things you may think of when considering ways to keep chips and computers cool. But as modern chip designs pack and stack more transistors into ever smaller spaces, heat has emerged as a critical problem. To solve it, the semiconductor...
I guess we’re doing Moon factories now A quick note collating a list of blogs I’ve written on the topic. I’ll update it with good third...
10th Feb 2026
2

I guess we’re doing Moon factories now

from Casey Handmer's blog [alt+shift+b] in science

10th Feb 2026
A quick note collating a list of blogs I’ve written on the topic. I’ll update it with good third party write ups as I become aware of them. Context: SpaceX announced a refocus on lunar development. My best explanation for this is that SpaceX wants to accelerate human occupation...
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