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Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Cross the Line to Get to the Point A new paper establishes a long-conjectured bound about the size of the overlap between sets of lines...
a year ago
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a year ago
A new paper establishes a long-conjectured bound about the size of the overlap between sets of lines and points. The post Mathematicians Cross the Line to Get to the Point first appeared on Quanta Magazine
SubAnima
The Problem With Richard Dawkins How should we view The Selfish Gene 50 years on?
over a year ago
pcloadletter
Agile is a tainted term Oh no, not another agile article. But at least this one isn't attempting to teach or reconcile. I'm...
a year ago
41
a year ago
Oh no, not another agile article. But at least this one isn't attempting to teach or reconcile. I'm not going to talk about the difference between agile and Agile™ nor will I try to convince you of my favorite flavor of Agile™. Instead, I'm here to assert that agile is a tainted...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: Too much money in digital health? | Out-Of-Pocket Here's what some of you had to say
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
A (quantum) complex legacy: Part deux I didn’t fancy the research suggestion emailed by my PhD advisor. A 2016 email from John Preskill...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
I didn’t fancy the research suggestion emailed by my PhD advisor. A 2016 email from John Preskill led to my publishing a paper about quantum complexity in 2022, as I explained in last month’s blog post. But I didn’t explain … Continue reading →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some crypto x healthcare ideas | Out-Of-Pocket Decentralized EMRs, Insurance DAOs, and Drug Picking Models
a year ago
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: The Salton Sea Salton City and Bombay Beach could flourish with industry and tourism
6 months ago
Quanta Magazine
Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals Complex neural pathways likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Complex neural pathways likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times. The post Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
The fewer the merrier The merits of unified land ownership
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of...
4 months ago
50
4 months ago
The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of the conjecture in three dimensions illuminates a whole crop of related problems. The post ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture first appeared on...
The Works in...
Join our events in your city Sydney, Washington DC, Madrid, and more – sign up now
3 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Two new courses! And ~*fun*~ Out-Of-Pocket updates | Out-Of-Pocket
10 months ago
Asterisk
Lies, Damned Lies, and Manometer Readings America’s HVAC labor force is plagued by dishonesty and frequently incapable of meeting industry...
a year ago
19
a year ago
America’s HVAC labor force is plagued by dishonesty and frequently incapable of meeting industry standards. Interventions in indoor air quality are the next frontier in pandemic prevention — but are they up to the task?
NeuroLogica Blog
The Jersey Drones Are Likely Drones The latest flap over drone sightings in New Jersey and other states in the North East appears to be...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
The latest flap over drone sightings in New Jersey and other states in the North East appears to be – essentially nothing. Or rather, it’s a classic example of a mass panic. There are reports of “unusual” drone activity, which prompts people to look for drones, which results in...
Cremieux Recueil
Rich Country, Poor Country Growth is our most precious resource and small amounts of it make a big difference
10 months ago
Yale E360
Reciprocity: Rethinking Our Relationship with the Natural World Robin Wall Kimmerer, the bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, recently published The...
5 months ago
7
5 months ago
Robin Wall Kimmerer, the bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, recently published The Serviceberry, which explores the economies of nature. In an e360 interview, the Native American ecologist discusses reciprocity, gratitude, and aligning human law with ecological law. Read...
Yale E360
On a Dammed River, Amazon Villagers Fight to Restore the Flow Indigenous communities that rely on the natural flow of the Xingu River have long fought the Belo...
3 months ago
9
3 months ago
Indigenous communities that rely on the natural flow of the Xingu River have long fought the Belo Monte dam in Brazil. With the dam now up for relicensing, they are urging the government to allow more water to flow, which would help revive the river and their way of life. Read...
nanoscale views
Recent papers to distract.... Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers...
8 months ago
15
8 months ago
Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers who are US citizens:  vote if you have not already done so!). Reaching back, this preprint by Aharonov, Collins, Popescu talks about a thought experiment in which angular...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: Satellite Cities How to build new cities near existing ones
5 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
Skylab: The Space Station That Fell on Australia end cap from one of Skylab’s oxygen tanks in the dirt. Cattle were drinking collected rainwater from...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
end cap from one of Skylab’s oxygen tanks in the dirt. Cattle were drinking collected rainwater from the remains of a US $2.2 billion NASA investment. Skylab’s Failure and Recovery Skylab’s fate was sealed moments after lift-off when the sun shield and main solar panel were...
Yale E360
Environmental Enforcement Slows Under Trump Federal enforcement of environmental laws has slowed significantly under President Trump. Read more...
2 months ago
3
2 months ago
Federal enforcement of environmental laws has slowed significantly under President Trump. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
over a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Breaking Down Electronic Data Interchange, X12, and Stedi | Out-Of-Pocket
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023 Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to mRNA vaccines, such as those that protect against COVID-19. The post Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023 first appeared on...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Copper and Green Energy The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The...
a year ago
22
a year ago
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...
Quanta Magazine
New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What...
a year ago
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a year ago
Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies? The post New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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....
a year ago
25
a year ago
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 ...
Quanta Magazine
New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills...
a year ago
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a year ago
Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills to understand the words they’re processing. The post New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Retreating Arctic Glaciers Have Exposed 1,500 Miles of Coastline Since 2000, the melting of Arctic glaciers has exposed some 1,500 miles of coastline, a study...
3 months ago
Quanta Magazine
Are Robots About to Level Up? Today’s AI largely lives in computers, but acting and reacting in the real world — that’s the realm...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Today’s AI largely lives in computers, but acting and reacting in the real world — that’s the realm of robots. In this week’s episode, co-host Steven Strogatz talks with pioneering roboticist Daniela Rus about creativity, collaboration, and the unusual forms robots of the future...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Patient Communities Should Change | Out-Of-Pocket Evolving from ads to outcomes
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
‘Species Repulsion’ Enables High Biodiversity in Tropical Trees Because tree seedlings don’t grow as well when close to their parents, more tree species can be...
a year ago
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a year ago
Because tree seedlings don’t grow as well when close to their parents, more tree species can be packed into tropical forests. The post ‘Species Repulsion’ Enables High Biodiversity in Tropical Trees first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
How a Problem About Pigeons Powers Complexity Theory When pigeons outnumber pigeonholes, some birds must double up. This obvious statement — and its...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
When pigeons outnumber pigeonholes, some birds must double up. This obvious statement — and its inverse — have deep connections to many areas of math and computer science. The post How a Problem About Pigeons Powers Complexity Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Transcarent, AI Therapists, Interoperability, and more | Out-Of-Pocket Plus Out-Of-Pocket is hiring!!
6 months ago
The Roots of...
What if they gave an Industrial Revolution and nobody came? Imagine you could go back in time to the ancient world to jump-start the Industrial Revolution. You...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Imagine you could go back in time to the ancient world to jump-start the Industrial Revolution. You carry with you plans for a steam engine, and you present them to the emperor, explaining how the machine could be used to drain water out of mines, pump bellows for blast furnaces,...
Asterisk
Rebuilding After the Replication Crisis Over a decade has passed since scientists realized many of their studies were failing to replicate....
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Over a decade has passed since scientists realized many of their studies were failing to replicate. How well have their attempts to fix the problem actually worked?
NeuroLogica Blog
Age of the Moon Revised There are a few interesting stories lurking in this news item, but lets start with the top level – a...
a year ago
24
a year ago
There are a few interesting stories lurking in this news item, but lets start with the top level – a new study revises the minimum age of the Moon to 4.46 billion years, 40 million years older than the previous estimate. That in itself is interesting, but not game-changing. It’s...
NeuroLogica Blog
Are Electric Vehicles Worth It One of the key components of the plan to get our civilization to net zero by 2050 is to transform...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the key components of the plan to get our civilization to net zero by 2050 is to transform the motor vehicle fleet into all electric vehicles (EVs). This is a worthy goal, as it would eliminate burning gasoline for transportation. In fact it’s necessary if we want to get...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Drone Madness: Here is the Antidote For those of us who, through the years, have been through wave after wave of uncritical and...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
For those of us who, through the years, have been through wave after wave of uncritical and sensational UFO stories in the media, the current obsession with (and jumping to unwarranted conclusions about) mysterious drones seems all too familiar.  As before, untrained observers,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
SWORD Health And Virtual Musculoskeletal Care | Out-Of-Pocket A first person account
a year ago
wadertales
How are migration sites connected? Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
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...
Yale E360
Deconstructing Buildings: The Quest for New Life for Old Wood A growing number of cities have launched initiatives to reuse the wood waste from construction and...
a month ago
3
a month ago
A growing number of cities have launched initiatives to reuse the wood waste from construction and demolition that now ends up in landfills. The challenge, proponents say, is to deploy new techniques for disassembling old buildings and markets for repurposing the salvaged...
NeuroLogica Blog
Student Attitudes Toward AI in the Class Researchers recently published an extensive survey of almost 6,000 students across academic...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Researchers recently published an extensive survey of almost 6,000 students across academic institution in Sweden. The results are not surprising, but they do give a snapshot of where we are with the recent introduction of large language model AIs. Most students, 56%, reported...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Breakfast with g IQ, lived experience, and my boyfriend’s underpants
over a year ago
Marine Madness
Penguin Problems: Are human-induced food shortages driving population declines? We all love penguins. Clumsy and awkward on land, stealthy and precise underwater- these charismatic...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
We all love penguins. Clumsy and awkward on land, stealthy and precise underwater- these charismatic creatures have captured our hearts ever since the release of March of the Penguins. Unfortunately, penguin populations across the globe (especially in South Africa and Antarctica)...
Drew Ex Machina
The Hurricane Hunter Satellites: A Weather Nanosatellite Constellation As part of ongoing outreach efforts by Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA) to the meteorological...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
As part of ongoing outreach efforts by Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA) to the meteorological community, TWA’s Chief Scientist, Andrew LePage, attended the National Tropical Weather Conference […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Titan Disaster and Risk vs Benefit There has been a lot of discussion regarding the recent disaster of the Titan submersible. Was the...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
There has been a lot of discussion regarding the recent disaster of the Titan submersible. Was the risk justified? Who should be responsible for the safety issues? Who should be on the hook for the millions of dollars the rescue effort took? And why did this tragedy garner more...
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...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
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...
The Works in...
Pieces we would like to commission Write for Works in Progress
3 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Start your healthcare company outside of the US | Out-Of-Pocket Gotta start somewhere...else?
a year ago
Damn Interesting
The Traveler and His Baggage On 19 May 1943, a news report from Berlin deepened the already dreary gloom that clung to the people...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
On 19 May 1943, a news report from Berlin deepened the already dreary gloom that clung to the people of Nazi-occupied Paris. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proudly announced to the world that the German capital of Berlin was officially judenfrei–free of all Jews. As this...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 16: ExplorNapo Lodge (February 21 - 23, 2024) February 21, 2024 (continued) We sped down the Amazon and made a left at the confluence with the...
5 months ago
24
5 months ago
February 21, 2024 (continued) We sped down the Amazon and made a left at the confluence with the Napo River. The Napo had noticeably less flow, while we also realized that sandbars were also much more numerous, leading to the presence of many wading birds and terns. At around...
Beautiful Public...
Special Database 18: 3,248 Mugshots Used for Training Image Recognition Systems The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos of 1,573 people for decades, including 175 minors, until we asked about them.
NeuroLogica Blog
Dog Soundboards I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have...
10 months ago
63
10 months ago
I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have been. They pick up on subtle body language and non-verbal cues, they seem to understand specific words, and they are capable of successfully communicating their wants and desires....
NeuroLogica Blog
Is Mars the New Frontier? In the excellent sci fi show, The Expanse, which takes place a couple hundred years in the future,...
a year ago
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a year ago
In the excellent sci fi show, The Expanse, which takes place a couple hundred years in the future, Mars has been settled and is an independent self-sustaining society. In fact, Mars is presented as the most scientifically and technologically advanced society of humans in the...
Uncharted...
Why We Dress the Way We Dress The Four Layers of Fashion
2 months ago
Yale E360
How a Former Herder Protected Mongolia's Vast Grasslands Batmunkh Luvsandash has fought to protect more than a million acres of steppe lands in his native...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
Batmunkh Luvsandash has fought to protect more than a million acres of steppe lands in his native Mongolia. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he explains how, by drawing on the knowledge of local herders, he was able to take on the powerful mining industry and win. Read...
Interaction Magic -...
Hacking the terrorist timepiece The hardest part of building hardware interfaces is not having the right tools to prototype, test...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
The hardest part of building hardware interfaces is not having the right tools to prototype, test and validate ideas. A behind the scenes look at my prototyping process, on a project to re-invent the famous Casio F-91W watch.
Asterisk
Feeding the World Without Sunlight In 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history led to harvest failures across the globe....
over a year ago
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over a year ago
In 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history led to harvest failures across the globe. Today, a nuclear winter could bring the global food system crashing down. Is it possible to feed the world in the aftermath of a catastrophe?
The Works in...
The San Diego infinite housing glitch How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
9 months ago
Breck's Blog
How to get rid of advertising
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack? Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding...
a year ago
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a year ago
Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding the worst shape for packing the plane. The post Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Why Do We Like Concerts? It's not what you think
4 months ago
symmetry magazine
Practice makes perfect (particle detectors) Prototyping is an indispensable step in the development of particle physics experiments like DUNE...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Prototyping is an indispensable step in the development of particle physics experiments like DUNE and projects like PIP-II. When complete, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or DUNE, will be the world’s most comprehensive neutrino experiment—and...
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote writes for Asterisk Magazine See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus every time we figure out how to look closer: Through the Looking Glass, and What Zheludev et al. (2024) Found There at Asterisk Magazine I’ve written for Asterisk before: What I won’t...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Air Quality, Breathing, and Health | Out-Of-Pocket What we inhale is a public health issue
a year ago
Yale E360
Carbon Dioxide Levels Highest in 800,000 Years Temperatures and carbon dioxide levels hit new highs last year, according to a U.N. report detailing...
4 months ago
8
4 months ago
Temperatures and carbon dioxide levels hit new highs last year, according to a U.N. report detailing the dire state of the global climate. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Unending World A foretaste of Ch. 11 of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance on Books in Progress
9 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
This Engineer Became a Star in Technology Publishing Donald Christiansen, who transformed IEEE Spectrum from a promising but erratic technology magazine...
8 months ago
67
8 months ago
Donald Christiansen, who transformed IEEE Spectrum from a promising but erratic technology magazine into a repeat National Magazine Award winner, died on 2 October 2024, at the age of 97, in Huntington, N.Y. served aboard the aircraft carrier San Jacinto, an experience that led...
Quanta Magazine
The ‘Accidental Activist’ Who Changed the Face of Mathematics Throughout her 60-year career, Lenore Blum has developed new perspectives on logic and computation...
a year ago
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a year ago
Throughout her 60-year career, Lenore Blum has developed new perspectives on logic and computation while championing women in mathematics and computer science. Now consciousness is on her mind. The post The ‘Accidental Activist’ Who Changed the Face of Mathematics...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 2: The Huachucas September 1, 2024 For the first and only time in the trip I managed a much-needed seven hours of...
9 months ago
15
9 months ago
September 1, 2024 For the first and only time in the trip I managed a much-needed seven hours of sleep. Unfortunately, some of the others were woken up earlier than they would have liked. The owner of Beatty's Guest Ranch (he lives in a different building on the property) owns a...
Uncharted...
Where Geniuses Hide Today Where are today’s Michelangelos?
7 months ago
The Works in...
Why it's so hard to scale up new materials Getting substances out of the lab
2 months ago
ToughSF
Hypervelocity Tether Rockets Rotating tethers can reach incredible velocities when they are built out of high strength materials....
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Rotating tethers can reach incredible velocities when they are built out of high strength materials. With some design features, they can greatly surpass the exhaust velocities of chemical or even nuclear rockets. They can become propulsion systems with impressive performance......
Quanta Magazine
What Can Birdsong Teach Us About Human Language? We often consider spoken language to be a feature that distinguishes humans from other forms of...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
We often consider spoken language to be a feature that distinguishes humans from other forms of animal life. Brain research, however, suggests that other creatures — including certain birds — share some of our neural circuitry related to language. In this episode, co-host Janna...
Quanta Magazine
Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a...
a year ago
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a year ago
How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, first arose billions of years ago in bacteria with a primitive sociality. The post Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? first...
Quanta Magazine
The Lawlessness of Large Numbers Mathematicians can often figure out what happens as quantities grow infinitely large. What about...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Mathematicians can often figure out what happens as quantities grow infinitely large. What about when they are just a little big? The post The Lawlessness of Large Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Who Believes Misinformation It’s probably not a surprise that a blog author dedicated to critical thinking and neuroscience...
5 months ago
41
5 months ago
It’s probably not a surprise that a blog author dedicated to critical thinking and neuroscience feels that misinformation is one of the most significant threats to society, but I really to think this. Misinformation (false, misleading, or erroneous information) and disinformation...
Blog - Practical...
Every Kind of Bridge Explained in 15 Minutes [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The Earth is pretty cool and...
a year ago
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a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The Earth is pretty cool and all, but many of its most magnificent features make it tough for us to get around. When the topography is too wet, steep, treacherous, or prone to disaster, sometimes the only way...
Quantum Frontiers
What does it mean to create a topological qubit? I’ve worked on topological quantum computation, one of Alexei Kitaev’s brilliant innovations, for...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
I’ve worked on topological quantum computation, one of Alexei Kitaev’s brilliant innovations, for around 15 years now.  It’s hard to find a more beautiful physics problem, combining spectacular quantum phenomena (non-Abelian anyons) with the promise of transformative...
Light from Space
Iris Nebula and the Ghost of Cepheus The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus. A popular target with amateur astronomers, the...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus. A popular target with amateur astronomers, the sourrounding flux nebulas are harder to photograph and require long integration times. Also visible in this wide-field image, near the bottom left, is the Ghost Nebula. Click or...
Blog - Practical...
Was Starship’s Stage Zero a Bad Pad? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On April 20, 2023, SpaceX...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On April 20, 2023, SpaceX launched it’s first orbital test flight of its Starship spacecraft from Boca Chica on the gulf coast of Texas. You probably saw this, if not live, at least in the stunning videos that...
The Works in...
Issue 12: Houston, we have a solution Plus: How Mexico built its state, the causes of the Baby Boom, and the 141-year quest for a malaria...
a year ago
Probably...
Young Adults Want Fewer Children The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at people born in the 2000s as young adults and an updated view of people born in the 1990s at the peak of their child-bearing years. Compared to previous generations at the same ages,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
23andMe, a healthcare fund idea, and the NHS | Out-Of-Pocket Some random musings coming from London
9 months ago
Quanta Magazine
If the Universe Is a Hologram, This Long-Forgotten Math Could Decode It A 1930s-era breakthrough is helping physicists understand how quantum threads could weave together...
9 months ago
47
9 months ago
A 1930s-era breakthrough is helping physicists understand how quantum threads could weave together into a holographic space-time fabric. The post If the Universe Is a Hologram, This Long-Forgotten Math Could Decode It first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
The Man Who Coined The Word "Robot" Defends Himself You’re familiar with Karel Čapek, right? If not, you should be—he’s the guy who (along with his...
a year ago
62
a year ago
You’re familiar with Karel Čapek, right? If not, you should be—he’s the guy who (along with his brother Josef) invented the word “robot.” Čapek introduced robots to the world in 1921, when his play “R.U.R.” (subtitled “Rossum’s Universal Robots”) was first performed in Prague. It...
Quanta Magazine
What Causes Alzheimer’s? Scientists Are Rethinking the Answer. (Pt 2) If plaques of amyloid protein in the brain aren’t the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease, what is?...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
If plaques of amyloid protein in the brain aren’t the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease, what is? Researchers investigating alternative possibilities have faced resistance from the biomedical establishment for decades, but intriguing theories about the role of defects in protein...
Drew Ex Machina
Catching Up: Talking about the Weather After an unintended four-month hiatus publishing new work on the Drew Ex Machina website, I figured...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
After an unintended four-month hiatus publishing new work on the Drew Ex Machina website, I figured it was time to catch up on what I’ve been […]
Quanta Magazine
The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps...
4 months ago
59
4 months ago
Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps collectively construct a variety of coral shapes. The post The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
How to put together an international physics experiment To build the DUNE neutrino experiment and its associated accelerator upgrade, experts invent...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
To build the DUNE neutrino experiment and its associated accelerator upgrade, experts invent customized ways to transport fragile, expensive and highly specialized components. On a late-September day, in the high-bay building of Daresbury Laboratory in the...
Yale E360
Endangered Eels a Top Target for Traffickers in Europe Endangered eels, a top target for wildlife traffickers in Europe, are generating billions in profits...
3 weeks ago
3
3 weeks ago
Endangered eels, a top target for wildlife traffickers in Europe, are generating billions in profits for smugglers globally, according to two new reports. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: How should physicians get paid? | Out-Of-Pocket What is a "fair amount" for a physician to get paid?
a year ago
Asterisk
Cows vs. Chemists: The Health Debates Over Plant-Based Meat Everyone wants to know if plant-based meats are good for you. Despite what you might read, no one...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Everyone wants to know if plant-based meats are good for you. Despite what you might read, no one has a definitive answer.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Introducing The OOP Talent Collective | Out-Of-Pocket if you're hiring, this will help you find the best candidates
a year ago
Yale E360
Russia’s War Has Destroyed Forest Twice the Size of New York City Ukraine lost roughly 600 square miles of forest in the first two years of its war with Russia, an...
4 months ago
3
4 months ago
Ukraine lost roughly 600 square miles of forest in the first two years of its war with Russia, an area of woodland twice the size of New York City. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
The value of family Traditional values don't deliver babies
a year ago
pcloadletter
Coding interviews are effective Coding interviews are controversial. It can be unpleasant to code in front of someone else, knowing...
a year ago
47
a year ago
Coding interviews are controversial. It can be unpleasant to code in front of someone else, knowing you're being judged. And who likes failing? Especially when it feels like you failed intellectually. But, coding interviews are effective. One big criticism of coding interviews is...
Quanta Magazine
Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard limit to their abilities. The post Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Clinic Buildouts | Out-Of-Pocket Has software changed what's necessary in the clinic?
a year ago
The Works in...
The Spanish grid collapse Inertia and why we need it
2 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Bury Broadband and Electricity We may have a unique opportunity to make an infrastructure investment that can demonstrably save...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
We may have a unique opportunity to make an infrastructure investment that can demonstrably save money over the long term – by burying power and broadband lines. This is always an option, of course, but since we are in the early phases of rolling out fiber optic service, and also...
Yale E360
Will U.S. Push on Seabed Mining End Global Consensus on Oceans? President Trump’s recent order to expedite permits to begin deep-sea mining bypasses international...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
President Trump’s recent order to expedite permits to begin deep-sea mining bypasses international agreements that protect oceans. By moving unilaterally, says the Ocean Conservancy’s Jeff Watters, the U.S. could endanger fragile marine ecosystems and set a troubling...
Beautiful Public...
A Rover's First 590 Days* on Mars I downloaded 60,000 images to experience what NASA's Perseverance rover has been seeing since...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I downloaded 60,000 images to experience what NASA's Perseverance rover has been seeing since landing there in Feb. 2021.
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Brain Size Deep thought is what distinguishes humans from other animals. The brain is the medium for thought;...
10 months ago
28
10 months ago
Deep thought is what distinguishes humans from other animals. The brain is the medium for thought; so, there's the idea that brain size is important, with larger brains allowing more profound thought. Larger brains in hominids appears to have an evolutionary advantage, but the...
Quanta Magazine
The Brainstem Fine-Tunes Inflammation Throughout the Body The evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that controls breathing and heart rate also regulates...
a year ago
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a year ago
The evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that controls breathing and heart rate also regulates the immune system — a discovery about the brain-body axis made by experts on taste. The post The Brainstem Fine-Tunes Inflammation Throughout the Body first appeared on...
Quantum Frontiers
The first and second centuries of quantum mechanics At this week’s American Physical Society Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California, John Preskill...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
At this week’s American Physical Society Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California, John Preskill spoke at an event celebrating 100 years of groundbreaking advances in quantum mechanics. Here are his remarks. Welcome, everyone, to this celebration of 100 years of … Continue...
The Works in...
The entrepreneurial state How state competition – through war – can drive institutional progress
a year ago
Yale E360
As U.S. Scientists Look Abroad, China Aims to Lure Top Talent Chinese locales are looking to lure top scientific talent from overseas by offering lavish sums for...
a month ago
3
a month ago
Chinese locales are looking to lure top scientific talent from overseas by offering lavish sums for resettling, as well as housing, health care, and other perks. The moves come as the Trump administration cuts funding for science and works to expel Chinese students. Read more on...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Getting Healthcare Data To Train An AI Model - with Protege | Out-Of-Pocket And all the different ways you can “train” a model
4 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Special Edition: A Toilet And A Neural Network | Out-Of-Pocket You didn't know you needed this. And you probably don't.
a year ago
Yale E360
Trump’s Logging Push Thrusts a Dagger at the Heart of Wilderness Alaska’s Tongass is the world’s largest temperate rainforest and a sanctuary for wildlife. The Trump...
a week ago
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a week ago
Alaska’s Tongass is the world’s largest temperate rainforest and a sanctuary for wildlife. The Trump administration’s plan to rescind a rule banning roads in wild areas of National Forests would open untouched parts of the Tongass and other forests to logging and...
Yale E360
China's Disastrous Summer Floods Linked to Unusually Warm Spring in Tibet A new study links devastating summer floods in southern China to unusually warm spring weather over...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
A new study links devastating summer floods in southern China to unusually warm spring weather over the Tibetan plateau. Read more on E360 →
The Roots of...
Can we “cure” cancer? In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes: Ask most biologists...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes: Ask most biologists about the cure for cancer, and they will tell you it doesn’t exist: cancer is many diseases that are mostly unrelated to each other, and that all have to be cured one at a...
Quanta Magazine
‘Paraparticles’ Would Be a Third Kingdom of Quantum Particle A new proposal makes the case that paraparticles — a new category of quantum particle — could be...
3 months ago
47
3 months ago
A new proposal makes the case that paraparticles — a new category of quantum particle — could be created in exotic materials. The post ‘Paraparticles’ Would Be a Third Kingdom of Quantum Particle first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Rarely is the Question Asked: Is Our Children Learning? Across the world, more students than ever are in school. But it’s not clear that they're learning...
7 months ago
41
7 months ago
Across the world, more students than ever are in school. But it’s not clear that they're learning more while there — or if that’s even the goal.
Wanderingspace
Ganymede Sets Behind Jupiter as Seen by Hubble An image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reminds us of how powerful this aging scope really is....
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
An image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reminds us of how powerful this aging scope really is. Magnitudes sharper than the images originally sent by Pioneer as it passed by in the 1970s.
pcloadletter
The ChatGPT wrapper product boom is an uncanny valley hellscape Here we go again: I'm so tired of crypto web3 LLMs. I'm positive there are wonderful applications...
a year ago
128
a year ago
Here we go again: I'm so tired of crypto web3 LLMs. I'm positive there are wonderful applications for LLMs. The ChatGPT web UI seems great for summarizing information from various online sources (as long as you're willing to verify the things that you learn). But a lot fo the "AI...
Yale E360
Renewables Did Not Cause Spanish Blackout, Investigations Find In the aftermath of a massive blackout that hit Spain and Portugal in April, some pundits were quick...
4 weeks ago
15
4 weeks ago
In the aftermath of a massive blackout that hit Spain and Portugal in April, some pundits were quick to blame wind and solar for the loss of power. But official inquiries have found that a shortfall in conventional power led to the outages. Read more on E360 →
IEEE Spectrum
What If the Worst AI Fear Is AI Fear Itself? It’s been just about a year now—a nonprofit called the Future of Life Institute posted an open...
a year ago
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a year ago
It’s been just about a year now—a nonprofit called the Future of Life Institute posted an open letter reflecting people’s darkest fears about artificial intelligence. “Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks,” it said. It called for a pause in...
Yale E360
As War Halts, the Environmental Devastation in Gaza Runs Deep The war in Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the environment, with water supplies contaminated, raw...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
The war in Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the environment, with water supplies contaminated, raw sewage pouring into the Mediterranean, once-fertile soils ruined, and the land stripped of trees. Experts say the extent of the damage needs to be tallied to help plan for a...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Particle Health And Pulling Patient Data | Out-Of-Pocket One API, one dream
a year ago
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour to Colombia: Tour Extension To Los Llanos The topography of Colombia is dominated by the Andes. While manifested as a single mountain range...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
The topography of Colombia is dominated by the Andes. While manifested as a single mountain range from Ecuador southwards, the mountains split into three ranges (or cordilleras) near the Colombia/Ecuador border, and these three ranges span the length of Colombia from this...
The Roots of...
Who regulates the regulators? IRBs Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review...
over a year ago
85
over a year ago
IRBs Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review the ethics of medical trials: From Oversight to Overkill, by Dr. Simon Whitney. From the title alone, you can see where this is going. IRBs are supposed to (among other things)...
NeuroLogica Blog
Panspermia Again Recently I was asked what I thought about this video, which suggests it is possible that life formed...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Recently I was asked what I thought about this video, which suggests it is possible that life formed in the early universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Although no mentioned specifically in the video, the ideas presents are essentially panspermia – the idea that life formed in...
nanoscale views
March Meeting 2025, Day 1 The APS Global Physics Summit is an intimate affair, with a mere 14,000 attendees, all apparently...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
The APS Global Physics Summit is an intimate affair, with a mere 14,000 attendees, all apparently vying for lunch capacity for about 2,000 people.   The first day of the meeting was the usual controlled chaos of people trying to learn the layout of the convention center while...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 17: White-sand Birding At RN Allpahuayo-Mishana and Muyuna Lodge... February 24, 2024 Just outside of the city of Iquitos lies an expansive area containing white-sand...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
February 24, 2024 Just outside of the city of Iquitos lies an expansive area containing white-sand forest. The particular forest types that grow on white sand are somewhat uncommon in the Amazon, yet the stunted tree growth provides quite the contrast to "typical" Amazonian...
Breck's Blog
Pretext
3 months ago
Quanta Magazine
The Deep Link Equating Math Proofs and Computer Programs Mathematical logic and the code of computer programs are, in an exact way, mirror images of each...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Mathematical logic and the code of computer programs are, in an exact way, mirror images of each other. The post The Deep Link Equating Math Proofs and Computer Programs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
The Battle for Better, Broader, More Inclusive AI AI’s inclusivity problem is no secret. According to the ACLU, AI systems can perpetuate housing...
a year ago
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a year ago
AI’s inclusivity problem is no secret. According to the ACLU, AI systems can perpetuate housing discrimination and bias in the justice system, among other harms. Bias in the data an AI model relies on is reproduced in its results. Large Language Models (LLMs) share this problem;...
The Works in...
The End of Combustion Vehicles The final section of Ch.2 of Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Yale E360
London Inches Closer to Running Transit System Entirely on Renewable Power Under a new agreement, London will source enough solar power to run its light railway and tram...
2 weeks ago
13
2 weeks ago
Under a new agreement, London will source enough solar power to run its light railway and tram networks entirely on renewable energy. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
‘The Rest of the World Disappears’: Claire Voisin on Mathematical Creativity The recipient of the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics discusses math as art, math as language, and...
a year ago
39
a year ago
The recipient of the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics discusses math as art, math as language, and math as abstract thought. The post ‘The Rest of the World Disappears’: Claire Voisin on Mathematical Creativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
China's Disastrous Summer Floods Linked to Unusually Warm Spring in Tibet A new study links devastating summer floods in southern China to unusually warm spring weather over...
5 months ago
6
5 months ago
A new study links devastating summer floods in southern China to unusually warm spring weather over the Tibetan plateau. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps. The post How Math Has...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps. The post How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
Government Comic Books Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and how soldiers should handle homosexuality in the military.
Quanta Magazine
A Close-Up View Reveals the ‘Melting’ Point of an Infinite Graph Just as ice melts to water, graphs undergo phase transitions. Two mathematicians showed that they...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Just as ice melts to water, graphs undergo phase transitions. Two mathematicians showed that they can pinpoint such transitions by examining only local structure. The post A Close-Up View Reveals the ‘Melting’ Point of an Infinite Graph first appeared on Quanta...
Articles - Chris...
My $500M Mars Rover Mistake: A Failure Story Some mistakes feel worse than death.
a year ago
Asterisk
A Field Guide to AI Safety AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a decade still have strong disagreements.
Quanta Magazine
How Can Some Infinities Be Bigger Than Others? All infinities go on forever, so how is it possible for some infinities to be larger than others?...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
All infinities go on forever, so how is it possible for some infinities to be larger than others? The mathematician Justin Moore discusses the mysteries of infinity with Steven Strogatz. The post How Can Some Infinities Be Bigger Than Others? first appeared on Quanta...
symmetry magazine
What is neutral naturalness? Indirectly testing this theory, motivated by the mysterious mass of the Higgs boson, could be within...
a year ago
47
a year ago
Indirectly testing this theory, motivated by the mysterious mass of the Higgs boson, could be within reach for experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.
Quanta Magazine
What Can Tiling Patterns Teach Us? If you cover a surface with tiles, repetitive patterns always emerge — or do they? In this week’s...
a year ago
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a year ago
If you cover a surface with tiles, repetitive patterns always emerge — or do they? In this week’s episode, mathematician Natalie Priebe Frank and co-host Janna Levin discuss how recent breakthroughs in tiling can unlock structural secrets in the natural world. The...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Dec. 21 is Winter Solstice — Why We Have Seasons on Earth Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with...
7 months ago
85
7 months ago
Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with which we mark the beginning of the winter season in the Earth’s northern hemisphere.  It’s interesting to note that the planets Venus and Jupiter do not have seasons like the...
Quanta Magazine
Is Dark Energy Getting Weaker? New Evidence Strengthens the Case. Last year, an enormous map of the cosmos hinted that the engine driving cosmic expansion might be...
4 months ago
53
4 months ago
Last year, an enormous map of the cosmos hinted that the engine driving cosmic expansion might be sputtering. Now physicists are back with an even bigger map, and a stronger conclusion. The post Is Dark Energy Getting Weaker? New Evidence Strengthens the Case. first...
Yale E360
Lightning Strikes the Arctic: What Will It Mean for the Far North? A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Scientists...
a month ago
6
a month ago
A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Scientists are now reporting a dramatic surge in lightning in the Far North and are scrambling to parse how this could affect wildfires, the chemistry of the atmosphere, and Arctic...
ToughSF
Fusion Highways in Space A transport system that can get spacecraft to Jupiter in 10 days, but without a massive onboard...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
A transport system that can get spacecraft to Jupiter in 10 days, but without a massive onboard reactor, using antimatter fuel or riding a gigantic laser beam?  What we need instead is a Fusion Highway to connect the Solar System in unprecedented ways.  The art above is by...
Drew Ex Machina
Top Ten Posts of 2023 Now that we are at the end of 2023, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Now that we are at the end of 2023, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see […]
nanoscale views
Nanopasta, no, really Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun...
7 months ago
19
7 months ago
Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun physics.  As you might readily imagine, there is a good deal of interdisciplinary and industrial interest in wanting to create fine fibers out of solution-based materials.  One...
NeuroLogica Blog
Problems with the Institute Of Noetic Sciences I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of...
over a year ago
64
over a year ago
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Overall the article is very good, and author Maddie Bender was fair and reasonable in how I was quoted. I can’t always take that as a given. No matter how...
NeuroLogica Blog
Starship Explodes in Successful Launch A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The...
over a year ago
41
over a year ago
A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The irony comes from how we might define “success”. On April 20th SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of the fully assembled Starship, including a Starship rocket on top of a super heavy...
Quanta Magazine
The Biggest-Ever Digital Camera Is This Cosmologist’s Magnum Opus Tony Tyson’s cameras revealed the universe’s dark contents. Now, with the Rubin Observatory’s...
a week ago
9
a week ago
Tony Tyson’s cameras revealed the universe’s dark contents. Now, with the Rubin Observatory’s 3.2-billion-pixel camera, he’s ready to study dark matter and dark energy in unprecedented detail. The post The Biggest-Ever Digital Camera Is This Cosmologist’s Magnum Opus...
NeuroLogica Blog
Dwarf Planet Ring Mystery Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence consistent with existing theories, providing further confirmation, but it’s exciting to find evidence that cannot be explained with existing theories. Astronomers may have found such...
Quantum Frontiers
The Noncommuting-Charges World Tour (Part 1 of 4) Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many similarities with fairy tales. For example, most of them begin with a familiar opening. In thermodynamics, the phrase “Consider an isolated box of particles” serves a similar purpose …...
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum computing vs. Grubhub pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my...
over a year ago
67
over a year ago
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 →
Many Worlds
After Seven Years Away Exploring an Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx is Landing Soon with Precious Samples Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft should be landing in the Utah desert later this month. The delivery will be a first for NASA — its first sample return from an asteroid and one of a very...
Breck's Blog
Does 3D exist?
2 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Ro Breakdown | Out-Of-Pocket The idea of “goal oriented care” and the big questions around direct-to-patient care
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
My Fantastic Voyage at Quanta Magazine Founding editor-in-chief Thomas Lin looks back at a decade of Quanta journalism and forward to...
a year ago
48
a year ago
Founding editor-in-chief Thomas Lin looks back at a decade of Quanta journalism and forward to what’s next for the magazine. The post My Fantastic Voyage at Quanta Magazine first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
Rap with an undercurrent of particle physics UK musician Consensus spins the big ideas of physics into rap and hip-hop tracks.
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Physicians and Pharma Marketing | Out-Of-Pocket oh we getting that drug money
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books....
5 months ago
71
5 months ago
The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal. The post New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection first appeared on Quanta...
Quanta Magazine
What Are Sheaves? These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics. The post...
12 months ago
76
12 months ago
These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics. The post What Are Sheaves? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
In Test, A.I. Weather Model Fails to Predict Freak Storm Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than conventional forecasts and are faster and cheaper to produce. But new research shows A.I. may fail to predict unprecedented weather events, a troubling finding as warming fuels new...
Quanta Magazine
AI Starts to Sift Through String Theory’s Near-Endless Possibilities Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra...
a year ago
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a year ago
Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra dimensions translate into sets of elementary particles — though not yet those of our universe. The post AI Starts to Sift Through String Theory’s Near-Endless...
Quanta Magazine
With ‘Digital Twins,’ The Doctor Will See You Now By creating digital twins of patients, Amanda Randles wants to bring unprecedented precision to...
11 months ago
71
11 months ago
By creating digital twins of patients, Amanda Randles wants to bring unprecedented precision to medical forecasts. The post With ‘Digital Twins,’ The Doctor Will See You Now first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
How To Keep AIs From Lying We had a fascinating discussion on this week’s SGU that I wanted to bring here – the subject of...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
We had a fascinating discussion on this week’s SGU that I wanted to bring here – the subject of artificial intelligence programs (AI), specifically large language models (LLMs), lying. The starting point for the discussion was this study, which looked at punishing LLMs as a...
Probably...
What’s a Chartist? Recently I heard the word “chartist” for the first time in my life (that I recall). And then later...
8 months ago
9
8 months ago
Recently I heard the word “chartist” for the first time in my life (that I recall). And then later the same day, I heard it again. So that raises two questions: To answer the second question first, it’s someone who supported chartism, which was “a working-class movement for...
Asterisk
The Science of Woo A conversation about neuroscience, meditation, and the many paths to insight.
4 months ago
Yale E360
Peatland Algae to Soak Up More Carbon as Planet Warms New research finds that microalgae in northern peat bogs will absorb more carbon dioxide as the...
4 months ago
5
4 months ago
New research finds that microalgae in northern peat bogs will absorb more carbon dioxide as the planet warms, helping to take a bite out of emissions. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
DNA Directed Assembly of Nanomaterials Arguably the type of advance that has the greatest impact on technology is material science....
a year ago
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a year ago
Arguably the type of advance that has the greatest impact on technology is material science. Technology can advance by doing more with the materials we have, but new materials can change the game entirely. It is no coincidence that we mark different technological ages by the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Latest Gallup Creationism Poll Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people...
11 months ago
67
11 months ago
Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people answer. But it is useful to ask the exact same question over a long period of time, because that can indicate how public attitudes are changing. This is one of the benefits of...
Quanta Magazine
Does Form Really Shape Function? From brain folds to insect architecture, L. Mahadevan explains how complex biological forms and...
a month ago
15
a month ago
From brain folds to insect architecture, L. Mahadevan explains how complex biological forms and behaviors emerge through the interplay of physical forces, environment and embodiment. The post Does Form Really Shape Function? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
How Wolves Could Help Bring Back Scottish Forests Wolves have been gone from the Scottish Highlands for more than 200 years, and in their absence red...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
Wolves have been gone from the Scottish Highlands for more than 200 years, and in their absence red deer have proliferated. Researchers say that returning wolves to the Highlands would keep deer in check, allowing large areas of native woodland to regrow. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
Environmental Enforcement Slows Under Trump Federal enforcement of environmental laws has slowed significantly under President Trump. Read more...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
Federal enforcement of environmental laws has slowed significantly under President Trump. Read more on E360 →
Asterisk
How Not To Predict The Future Good forecasting thrives on a delicate balance of math, expertise, and…vibes.
a year ago
wadertales
How do wader chicks respond to being handled? Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they...
9 months ago
81
9 months ago
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...
Quanta Magazine
What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly? Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet...
a year ago
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a year ago
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet experiment, leaving open the possibility that the results point to a new fundamental particle. The post What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Confessions of a...
Let’s argue against the Shark Cull with science There’s been a lot in the news recently about the implementation of the Shark Cull (or, as the...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
There’s been a lot in the news recently about the implementation of the Shark Cull (or, as the Government put it, the “shark protection measures”) here in Western Australia.  Just as I am not a climate scientist, I am not a shark biologist, and cannot claim to be a shark expert....
Chris Grossack's...
Talk -- What is Factorization Homology? I was recently invited to speak at the AMS Sectional in Tallahassee, Florida. In particular, at the...
a year ago
75
a year ago
I was recently invited to speak at the AMS Sectional in Tallahassee, Florida. In particular, at the special session on Homotopy Theory and Category Theory in Interaction. The conference was this weekend, and I’m typing this up on my plane ride home. I had a great time, and...
Marine Madness
Cownose rays at Bristol Aquarium (video) Watch Bristol Aquarium’s newest residents in action. Bristol Aquarium reopened its doors on May 18...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
Watch Bristol Aquarium’s newest residents in action. Bristol Aquarium reopened its doors on May 18 after being closed for months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning visitors were finally allowed to return and see their favourite ocean creatures up close. But during the...
Quanta Magazine
New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal By eliminating a hidden inefficiency, computer scientists have come up with a new way to multiply...
a year ago
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a year ago
By eliminating a hidden inefficiency, computer scientists have come up with a new way to multiply large matrices that’s faster than ever. The post New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t...
a year ago
26
a year ago
The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t persist in adults. The post Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Good Meteor Shower Coming August 11-12 The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer The post Good...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer The post Good Meteor Shower Coming August 11-12 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Yale E360
Taiwan to Ramp Up Gas Imports After Shuttering Last Nuclear Plant Having shut down its last remaining nuclear plant Saturday, Taiwan is working to secure new imports...
2 months ago
3
2 months ago
Having shut down its last remaining nuclear plant Saturday, Taiwan is working to secure new imports of natural gas. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Does higher density cause lower birth rates? Assessing one recent claim that it does
a year ago
Wanderingspace
Saturn Family Portrait From planetary.org: On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
From planetary.org: On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with its narrow-angle camera: Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Rhea, and Mimas. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. This is a full-color look at a view that was originally published in...
IEEE Spectrum
Smalltalk Blew Steve Jobs’s Mind Late in 1979, Steve Jobs and other colleagues from Apple visited the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center...
over a year ago
42
over a year ago
Late in 1979, Steve Jobs and other colleagues from Apple visited the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). There they were introduced to the experimental Alto computer and the Smalltalk language and computing environment, developed by Alan Kay’s Learning Research Group....
Yale E360
Saving U.S. Climate and Environmental Data Before It Goes Away Some 2,000 records went missing from government data sets after the Trump administration took office...
4 months ago
8
4 months ago
Some 2,000 records went missing from government data sets after the Trump administration took office in January. Canadian geographer Eric Nost talks about the work he and colleagues are doing to archive data related to climate and the environment while it is still...
Yale E360
Carnivorous Squirrels Discovered in California Scientists have discovered that in addition to seeds and nuts, some California ground squirrels also...
7 months ago
10
7 months ago
Scientists have discovered that in addition to seeds and nuts, some California ground squirrels also eat voles. Read more on E360 →
Breck's Blog
The Infosphere
3 months ago
Quanta Magazine
The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It New research finds that the memories useful for future generalizations are held in the brain...
a year ago
64
a year ago
New research finds that the memories useful for future generalizations are held in the brain separately from those recording unusual events. The post The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Secret Research Techniques | Out-Of-Pocket A magician always reveals his tricks for the purposes of engagement
a year ago
Eukaryote Writes...
Book Review: Cuisine and Empire Things people nigh-universally like to eat: salt, fat, sugar, starch, sauces, meat, drugs...
a year ago
Damn Interesting
Fifteen Years Forsaken Editor’s Note: This article contains quotations from contemporaneous accounts which might be...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
Editor’s Note: This article contains quotations from contemporaneous accounts which might be offensive for today’s readers. The moon was new on the night of 31 July 1761, and the wide expanse of the Indian Ocean uniformly black. But Captain Jean de Lafargue of the French cargo...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Genetic Engineering To Fight Malaria Despite robust efforts to fight it, malaria remains one of the most significant infectious diseases...
over a year ago
24
over a year ago
Despite robust efforts to fight it, malaria remains one of the most significant infectious diseases affecting humans. According to UNICEF – ” In 2021, there were 247 million malaria cases globally that led to 619,000 deaths in total. Of these deaths, 77 per cent were children...
Quantum Frontiers
Congratulations, class of 2025! Words from a new graduate Editor’s note (Nicole Yunger Halpern): Jade LeSchack, the Quantum Steampunk Laboratory’s first...
a month ago
16
a month ago
Editor’s note (Nicole Yunger Halpern): Jade LeSchack, the Quantum Steampunk Laboratory’s first undergraduate, received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland this spring. Kermit the Frog presented the valedictory address, but Jade gave the following speech at the...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some more thoughts on telemedicine | Out-Of-Pocket a collection of the best audience responses
a year ago
Yale E360
Russia's War Is Driving Up Emissions by Forcing Planes to Reroute Since war broke out in Ukraine, Western airlines have been charting longer routes to avoid flying...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
Since war broke out in Ukraine, Western airlines have been charting longer routes to avoid flying over Russia, with a discernible impact on emissions. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Where inflation comes from How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences...
8 months ago
54
8 months ago
How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences in how well-off we think we are.
Quanta Magazine
Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient...
a year ago
69
a year ago
At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient essential for life. The pair are in the process of merging into a single organism. The post Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Deep South – A Neuromorphic Supercomputer Australian researchers at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Australian researchers at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney University have announced they are building what they are calling Deep South (based on IBM’s Deep Blue). This will be the world’s largest neuromorphic supercomputer, with 228...
The Works in...
Issue 16: I dream of genes Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and...
10 months ago
74
10 months ago
Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and how America's favourite type of coffee got really, really good.
The Roots of...
Event, Feb 29: “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” in Boston and on Zoom On Thursday, February 29, I’ll be giving my talk “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” to the New...
a year ago
94
a year ago
On Thursday, February 29, I’ll be giving my talk “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” to the New England Legal Foundation, for their Economic Liberty Speaker Series. The talk will be held over breakfast at NELF’s offices in Boston, and will also be livestreamed over Zoom. See...
SubAnima
Why do bees die when they sting you? Suicide is a truly bizarre evolutionary strategy. Why does it exist?
over a year ago
Uncharted...
Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps: Why Do People Live Where They Live in the... Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps
7 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Is Music Getting Simpler I don’t think I know anyone personally who doesn’t have strong opinions about music – which genres...
a year ago
57
a year ago
I don’t think I know anyone personally who doesn’t have strong opinions about music – which genres they like, and how the quality of music may have changed over time. My own sense is that music as a cultural phenomenon is incredibly complex, no one (in my social group) really...
Yale E360
Retreating Arctic Glaciers Have Exposed 1,500 Miles of Coastline Since 2000, the melting of Arctic glaciers has exposed some 1,500 miles of coastline, a study...
3 months ago
Yale E360
A Win for Farmers and Tribes Brings New Hope to the Klamath In the long-contentious Klamath River watershed, an experiment that turned a barley field into a...
a month ago
3
a month ago
In the long-contentious Klamath River watershed, an experiment that turned a barley field into a wetland not only improved water quality. It also offered a path forward for restoring populations of two endangered fish species that are of cultural importance to Native tribes. Read...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
A few more thoughts on Medical Aid in Dying | Out-Of-Pocket Readers sent in their experiences and thoughts - let the morality fight begin
3 months ago
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Prove Hawking Wrong About the Most Extreme Black Holes For decades, extremal black holes were considered mathematically impossible. A new proof reveals...
11 months ago
79
11 months ago
For decades, extremal black holes were considered mathematically impossible. A new proof reveals otherwise. The post Mathematicians Prove Hawking Wrong About the Most Extreme Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
Ethernet is Still Going Strong After 50 Years The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California has spawned many pioneering computer technologies...
a year ago
57
a year ago
The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California has spawned many pioneering computer technologies including the Alto—the first personal computer to use a graphical user interface—and the first laser printer. The PARC facility also is known for the invention of Ethernet, a...
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,...
a year ago
29
a year ago
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...
symmetry magazine
Applications of quantum mechanics at the beach How does sunscreen work on the atomic level?
a year ago
wadertales
Why count shorebirds? A tale from Portugal The Sado Estuary is one of Portugal’s most important wetlands – a key link in the chain of sites...
over a year ago
45
over a year ago
The Sado Estuary is one of Portugal’s most important wetlands – a key link in the chain of sites connecting Africa and the Arctic, on the East Atlantic Flyway. In a paper in Waterbirds, João Belo and colleagues analyse changes in numbers of waders wintering in this estuary over...
Damn Interesting
The Mount St. Helens Trespasser The Washington state deputy sheriff looked suspiciously at the motorcycle strapped to the back of...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
The Washington state deputy sheriff looked suspiciously at the motorcycle strapped to the back of the odd little French car. The motorcycle was a recently repaired Honda 90, sporting a fresh coat of grey spray paint. The driver, Robert Rogers, kept a neutral expression as the...
Yale E360
A.I. Is Quietly Powering a Revolution in Weather Prediction Weather forecasts powered by artificial intelligence are usually more accurate — and require less...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
Weather forecasts powered by artificial intelligence are usually more accurate — and require less computational energy and fewer human hours — than conventional predictions. But questions remain about A.I. systems’ reliability and their ability to forecast extreme weather...
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...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In one shot, you can see Mars as a half-lit disk, with Phobos, its tiny moon, hovering above. Right below Phobos is Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano, towering 22 km...
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...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
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...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder – July 4, 1997 During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to the television set watching live […]
Yale E360
Antarctic Ice Sheet May Be Less Vulnerable Than Previously Thought A new study reveals the massive West Antarctic ice sheet did not completely collapse during the last...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
A new study reveals the massive West Antarctic ice sheet did not completely collapse during the last warm period, as prior modeling had suggested. The findings offer some hope for the future of the ice sheet as the planet heats up. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
Chimps Found Treating Each Other's Wounds Chimpanzees in Uganda were found treating the injuries of other, unrelated chimps, including those...
2 months ago
3
2 months ago
Chimpanzees in Uganda were found treating the injuries of other, unrelated chimps, including those caught in hunting snares.  Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
Britain Sees Sunniest Spring on Record This spring was the warmest and sunniest on record in the U.K., a symptom of a rapidly warming...
a month ago
14
a month ago
This spring was the warmest and sunniest on record in the U.K., a symptom of a rapidly warming climate, weather officials say. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
How Did Geometry Create Modern Physics? Geometry may have its origins thousands of years ago in ancient land surveying, but it has also had...
2 months ago
25
2 months ago
Geometry may have its origins thousands of years ago in ancient land surveying, but it has also had a surprising impact on modern physics. In the latest episode of The Joy of Why, Yang-Hui He explores geometry’s evolution and its future potential through AI. The post...
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...
5 months ago
63
5 months ago
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!...
IEEE Spectrum
The Data Reveals Top Patent Portfolios Eight years is a long time in the world of patents. When we last published what we then called the...
a month ago
11
a month ago
Eight years is a long time in the world of patents. When we last published what we then called the Patent Power Scorecard, in 2017, it was a different technological and social landscape—Google had just filed a patent application on the transformer architecture, a momentous...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Era Of Digital Therapeutics | Out-Of-Pocket Guess it's time to start defining the term again
a year ago
The Works in...
How to write for Works in Progress We're looking for new authors and article pitches.
12 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Copilots Are Coming I’m going to do something I rarely do and make a straight-up prediction – I think we are close to...
9 months ago
73
9 months ago
I’m going to do something I rarely do and make a straight-up prediction – I think we are close to having AI apps that will function as our all-purpose digital assistants. That’s not really a tough call, we already have digital assistants and they are progressing rapidly. So I am...
Quanta Magazine
Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways...
7 months ago
57
7 months ago
Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup. The post Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Casey Handmer's blog
What can we send to Mars on the first Starships? As of today, it is 601 days until October 17, 2026, when the mass-optimal launch window to Mars...
4 months ago
57
4 months ago
As of today, it is 601 days until October 17, 2026, when the mass-optimal launch window to Mars opens next.  While I don’t have any privileged information, it’s fun to speculate about what SpaceX could choose to send on its first Starship flights to Mars. (Spoiler alert: Rods...
Quantum Frontiers
Explorations in Quantum TiqTaqToe Several years ago, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across a video of Paul Rudd playing...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Several years ago, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across a video of Paul Rudd playing something called “Quantum Chess.” I had no idea what it was, nor did I know that it would become one of the most gloriously … Continue reading →
The Works in...
How New Zealand invented inflation targeting The political gamble that made modern central banking
3 weeks ago
Quanta Magazine
Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups The numbers count a variety of seemingly unrelated mathematical structures. The post...
a year ago
23
a year ago
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
Chris Grossack's...
Talk - Where Are The Open Sets? I was invited to give a talk at HoTTEST 2022, and was more than happy to accept! Ever since I was...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
I was invited to give a talk at HoTTEST 2022, and was more than happy to accept! Ever since I was first learning HoTT I was curious how we could be sure that theorems in HoTT give us corresponding theorems in “classical” homotopy theory. Earlier this summer I spent a lot of...
Quanta Magazine
What Has the Pandemic Taught Us About Vaccines? Should Covid-19 vaccines be judged by how well they prevent disease or how well they prevent death?...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
Should Covid-19 vaccines be judged by how well they prevent disease or how well they prevent death? Anna Durbin, a public health expert and vaccine researcher, talks with Steven Strogatz about the science behind vaccines. The post What Has the Pandemic Taught Us About...
Blog - Practical...
Why Is Desalination So Difficult? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Carlsbad...
over a year ago
86
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Carlsbad Desalination Plant outside of San Diego, California. It produces roughly ten percent of the area’s fresh water, around 50 million gallons or 23,000 cubic meters per day. Unlike most...
Quanta Magazine
Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy...
a year ago
38
a year ago
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy clusters. If confirmed, the approach could be used to reveal where cosmic magnetic fields come from. The post Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields...
NeuroLogica Blog
Tong Test for Artificial General Intelligence Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing...
a year ago
22
a year ago
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”....
Interaction Magic -...
Podcast: Designed for life A deep dive into my career and the future of experience prototyping with Tony Ryan, CEO of Design &...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
A deep dive into my career and the future of experience prototyping with Tony Ryan, CEO of Design & Technology Association.
Cremieux Recueil
Preregistration Is No Panacea Stopping scientific cheaters requires setting up systems that can't be gamed
7 months ago
Eukaryote Writes...
Will the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not? If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected...
over a year ago
85
over a year ago
If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected meat, my default assumption would be “we're in danger.” But a prion isn’t a virus. Why does that matter?
NeuroLogica Blog
Eating Methane Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce anthropogenic climate change, we talk about decarbonizing our electrical and transport sectors, and carbon removal. But methane is also a greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming,...
Sean Carroll
Johns Hopkins As far as I remember, the first time I stepped onto a university campus was in junior high school,...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
As far as I remember, the first time I stepped onto a university campus was in junior high school, when I visited Johns Hopkins for an awards ceremony for the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth. (I grew up in an environment that didn’t involve spending a lot of time on...
Yale E360
Cheap Chinese Solar Panels Sparking a Renewable Boom in the Global South Facing trade barriers in the U.S. and other wealthy nations, Chinese solar firms are exporting cheap...
4 months ago
3
4 months ago
Facing trade barriers in the U.S. and other wealthy nations, Chinese solar firms are exporting cheap panels to poorer countries, fueling a surge in solar installations in parts of the developing world. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Diamond Boom The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us...
a year ago
52
a year ago
The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us something about a post-scarcity world. Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. However, it like to form with other elements and therefore it was very difficulty to...
Quanta Magazine
The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could...
a year ago
72
a year ago
Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size. The post The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes first appeared on Quanta...
Drew Ex Machina
Epsilon Indi’s Super Jovian Exoplanet – Background & New Observations by JWST On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max...
11 months ago
74
11 months ago
On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max Plank Institute for Astronomy, announced that they had used […]
Quanta Magazine
Even Synthetic Life Forms With a Tiny Genome Can Evolve By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome...
a year ago
30
a year ago
By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome can be too simple to evolve. The post Even Synthetic Life Forms With a Tiny Genome Can Evolve first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent...
a year ago
103
a year ago
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent parts. A new framework has researchers hopeful that a solution is near. The post The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Chris Grossack's...
An Explicit Computation in Derived Algebraic Geoemtry Earlier this week my friend Shane and I took a day and just did a bunch of computations. In the...
4 weeks ago
18
4 weeks ago
Earlier this week my friend Shane and I took a day and just did a bunch of computations. In the morning we did some differential geometry, where he told me some things about what he’s doing with symplectic lie algebroids. We went to get lunch, and then in the afternoon we did...
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
NeuroLogica Blog
Microbes Aboard the ISS As I have written many times, including in yesterday’s post, people occupying space is hard. The...
a year ago
35
a year ago
As I have written many times, including in yesterday’s post, people occupying space is hard. The environment of space, or really anywhere not on Earth, is harsh and unforgiving. One of the issues, for example, rarely addressed in science fiction or even discussions of space...
The Roots of...
Video: Intro to progress studies at Learning Night Boston I got invited to speak at Learning Night Boston and give an intro to progress studies: why study...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
I got invited to speak at Learning Night Boston and give an intro to progress studies: why study progress, and why do we need a new philosophy of progress? There are then a few minutes of Q&A. (It was in a bar and the audio quality is poor, sorry.)
Blog - Practical...
What's the Difference Between Paint and Coatings? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] There’s a popular myth that...
over a year ago
61
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] There’s a popular myth that I’ve heard about several bridges (including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Forth Bridge in eastern Scotland) that they paint the structure continuously from end to...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Sleep health is getting interesting | Out-Of-Pocket The consumer and clinical worlds of sleep are colliding
7 months ago
Asterisk
Does Abundance Start at Home? Kelsey Piper and Jasmine Sun talk about microschools, whether localism is the enemy of Abundance,...
2 months ago
37
2 months ago
Kelsey Piper and Jasmine Sun talk about microschools, whether localism is the enemy of Abundance, and why Chinese bureaucrats are like Growth PMs.
IEEE Spectrum
The Story Behind Pixar’s RenderMan CGI Software Watching movies and TV series that use digital visual effects to create fantastical worlds lets...
a year ago
135
a year ago
Watching movies and TV series that use digital visual effects to create fantastical worlds lets people escape reality for a few hours. Thanks to advancements in computer-generated technology used to produce films and shows, those worlds are highly realistic. In many cases, it can...
Yale E360
Bill McKibben on Climate Activism in the Age of Trump 2.0 Activist Bill McKibben says Americans upset by the Trump administration’s gutting of U.S. climate...
4 months ago
3
4 months ago
Activist Bill McKibben says Americans upset by the Trump administration’s gutting of U.S. climate efforts need to move beyond despair. In an interview with e360, he talks about rethinking the role of protest, the global push on clean energy, and why he sees reason for hope. Read...
symmetry magazine
Physics on tour A group called the Big Bang Collective sets up physics discovery stations at rather unexpected...
over a year ago
73
over a year ago
A group called the Big Bang Collective sets up physics discovery stations at rather unexpected venues: music festivals.
Yale E360
As Earth's Magnetic Field Grows Stronger, Oxygen Levels Rise When the magnetic field around the Earth grows stronger, oxygen levels rise. That is the surprising...
a month ago
3
a month ago
When the magnetic field around the Earth grows stronger, oxygen levels rise. That is the surprising finding of a new study looking at more than half a billion years of planetary history. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some Common Mistakes to Avoid When Pitching Angels | Out-Of-Pocket With some real decks and emails!
a year ago
The Works in...
How Israel turned homeowners into YIMBYs A housing success story
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Floating Solar Farms My last post was about floating nuclear power plants. By coincidence I then ran across a news item...
2 months ago
25
2 months ago
My last post was about floating nuclear power plants. By coincidence I then ran across a news item about floating solar installations. This is also a potentially useful idea, and is already being implemented and increasing. It is estimated that in 2022 total installed floating...
Quanta Magazine
The Year in Biology In a year packed with fascinating discoveries, biologists pushed the limits of synthetic life,...
a year ago
39
a year ago
In a year packed with fascinating discoveries, biologists pushed the limits of synthetic life, probed how organisms keep time, and refined theories about consciousness and emotional health. The post The Year in Biology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Confessions of a...
Impacts of climate change on marine communities, seagrass dieback, and a trip to the Abrolhos... You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks.  No holiday for me though, here’s a...
over a year ago
68
over a year ago
You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks.  No holiday for me though, here’s a quick taste of some of the other stuff I’ve been up to! Impact of climate change on marine coastal ecosystems – A masterclass with Nuria Marbá I was lucky enough to be invited along...
Quantum Frontiers
The spirit of relativity One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a university I visited this month. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, by Natasha Pulley, features a budding scientist named Grace Carrow. Grace attends Oxford as … Continue reading →
The Works in...
Everything drugs The promise of SGLT2 inhibitors
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
‘Magical’ Error Correction Scheme Proved Inherently Inefficient Locally correctable codes need barely any information to fix errors, but they’re extremely long. Now...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Locally correctable codes need barely any information to fix errors, but they’re extremely long. Now we know that the simplest versions can’t get any shorter. The post ‘Magical’ Error Correction Scheme Proved Inherently Inefficient first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
How the Designer of the First Hydrogen Bomb Got the Gig Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE...
10 months ago
95
10 months ago
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE Life Fellow has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, France’s La Grande Médaille de l’Académie des Sciences, and is one of just a handful of people...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Amazon + One Medical Post | Out-Of-Pocket I guess I should say something?
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Social Media Dilemma Australia is planning a total ban on social media for children under 16 years old. Prime Minister...
8 months ago
53
8 months ago
Australia is planning a total ban on social media for children under 16 years old. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese argues that it is the only way to protect vulnerable children from the demonstrable harm that social media can do. This has sparked another round of debates about...
Stephen Wolfram...
On the Nature of Time The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is...
9 months ago
117
9 months ago
The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is it? In traditional scientific accounts it’s often represented as some kind of coordinate much like space (though a coordinate that for some reason is always systematically...
Uncharted...
10 Fascinating GeoHistory Updates Q1 2025
3 months ago
Chris Grossack's...
Talk -- 2-Categorical Descent and (Essentially) Algebraic Theories A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the CT Octoberfest 2023 about some work I did over the summer that...
a year ago
24
a year ago
A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the CT Octoberfest 2023 about some work I did over the summer that I’m really proud of. Unfortunately, while writing up the result I found a 1999 paper by Pedicchio and Wood that proves the same theorem (with roughly the same proof), so I...
NeuroLogica Blog
Possible Biosignature on K2-18b Exoplanets are pretty exciting – in the last few decades we have gone from knowing absolutely...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
Exoplanets are pretty exciting – in the last few decades we have gone from knowing absolutely nothing about planets beyond our solar system to having a catalogue of over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets. That’s still a small sample considering there are likely between 100 billion and 1...
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for something we’ve all heard of, but maybe don’t appreciate as much as we...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for something we’ve all heard of, but maybe don’t appreciate as much as we should: electromagnetism. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field...
NeuroLogica Blog
GMOs May Save Florida Citrus Citrus greening (also called Huanglongbing or HLB) is an infectious disease affecting citrus trees...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Citrus greening (also called Huanglongbing or HLB) is an infectious disease affecting citrus trees in Florida. It is a bacterium, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, and spread by an invasive fly, the Asian citrus psyllid. Since 2004 it has caused a reduction in the Florida citrus...
brr
McMurdo Postal Mail How to mail things to and from Antarctica!
over a year ago
SubAnima
Could There Be Laws Of Biology? Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles or axioms for biology?
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Why don’t healthcare companies say what they do? | Out-Of-Pocket And some tips to figure out what a company does
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking...
a year ago
52
a year ago
By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking agreement with their standard theoretical model of how the universe evolves. The post Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts first appeared on Quanta...
Interaction Magic -...
3 tips for co-designing with kids Designing future sports products with a group of 11 year olds.
over a year ago
nanoscale views
A Grand Bargain and its chaotic dissolution After World War II, under the influence (direct and indirect) of people like Vannevar Bush, a "grand...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
After World War II, under the influence (direct and indirect) of people like Vannevar Bush, a "grand bargain" was effectively struck between the US government and the nation's universities.  The war had demonstrated how important science and engineering research could be, through...
Yale E360
In Vermont, a Push to Prevent Flooding or Get Out of the Way An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont especially hard. As disaster declarations mount, state officials and community groups are collaborating to restore floodplains, reduce runoff from slopes, and buy out vulnerable...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: 1. Guantanamo City Why we should turn Guantanamo Bay into Guantanamo City
6 months ago
Quanta Magazine
The Year in Computer Science Researchers got a better look at chatbots’ thoughts, amateurs learned just how complicated simple...
7 months ago
97
7 months ago
Researchers got a better look at chatbots’ thoughts, amateurs learned just how complicated simple systems can be, and codes became expert self-fixers. The post The Year in Computer Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Malpractice, Expert Witnesses, and Lawsuits with Dr. Eric Funk | Out-Of-Pocket Suits and White Coats
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
Lewis H. Latimer: A Life of Lightbulb Moments James Weldon Johnson’s hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” adopted by African Americans as the...
a year ago
21
a year ago
James Weldon Johnson’s hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” adopted by African Americans as the unofficial “Negro National Anthem,” includes the line, “We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,” which sums up how Black Americans have found ways to thrive under...
NeuroLogica Blog
Finding Common Ground on Democracy How is American democracy doing, and what can we do to improve it, if necessary? This is clearly a...
a year ago
24
a year ago
How is American democracy doing, and what can we do to improve it, if necessary? This is clearly a question of political science, and I am not a political scientist, and this is not a political blog. But there are some basic principles of critical thinking that might apply, and...
Many Worlds
Webb Telescope Finds No Signs of a Thick Atmosphere Around a Second TRAPPIST-1 Planet Among the most eagerly awaited results from the early observations of the James Webb Space Telescope...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Among the most eagerly awaited results from the early observations of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is whether or not the seven rocky planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system have atmospheres. The TRAPPIST-1 planets are close to us (40 light-years away), are all solid rather than...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Material for Nanoconductors One of the things I have come to understand from following technology news for decades is that...
6 months ago
52
6 months ago
One of the things I have come to understand from following technology news for decades is that perhaps the most important breakthroughs, and often the least appreciated, are those in material science. We can get better at engineering and making stuff out of the materials we have,...
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum Frontiers salutes an English teacher If I ever mention a crazy high-school English teacher to you, I might be referring to Mr. Lukacs....
a year ago
91
a year ago
If I ever mention a crazy high-school English teacher to you, I might be referring to Mr. Lukacs. One morning, before the first bell rang, I found him wandering among the lockers, wearing a white beard and a mischievous grin. … Continue reading →
pcloadletter
RSS is still pretty great I think a lot about information and information consumption. The way the Internet made information...
a year ago
40
a year ago
I think a lot about information and information consumption. The way the Internet made information readily available is phenomenal. Sadly, the signal-to-noise ratio here is pretty low. For me, consuming RSS feeds[1] offers the best way to read the kind of high-quality information...
NeuroLogica Blog
Rats! What killed off the dodo? Humans first arrived at Mauritius island in the late 1500s. They found on...
a year ago
110
a year ago
What killed off the dodo? Humans first arrived at Mauritius island in the late 1500s. They found on this island fat flightless birds who nested on the ground and were a convenient way to restock their ship’s food supply. Within 80 years the dodo went extinct. But hunting was not...
IEEE Spectrum
The Do-or-Die Moments That Determined the Fate of the Internet CES) and the Game Developers Conference have become regular features of the digital world. ARPANET...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
CES) and the Game Developers Conference have become regular features of the digital world. ARPANET in 1972, or the mid-1980s conferences now known as Interop, alerted experts to new technologies, and, in some cases, altered the balance between competing approaches. Packet...
Quanta Magazine
Quantum Complexity Shows How to Escape Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a group of young physicists think they have resolved the conflict by appealing to the central pillar of the new century — the physics of quantum information. The post...
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...
a year ago
300
a year ago
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...
Quanta Magazine
How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new languages faster and more easily. The post How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The Threat of Technology In my second book (shameless plug alert) – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I...
a year ago
20
a year ago
In my second book (shameless plug alert) – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I try to imagine both the utopian and dystopian versions of the future, brought about by technology, either individually or collectively. This topic has come up multiple times recently...
brr
The Last Egg Five more months until freshies...
over a year ago