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Math Is Still...
Two Students Shoot Down a Widely Believed Math Conjecture Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures...
a year ago
5
a year ago
Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures known as Apollonian circles. But a summer project would lead to its downfall. The post Two Students Shoot Down a Widely Believed Math Conjecture first appeared on Quanta...
IEEE Spectrum
Granville T. Woods: Smartest Guy in the Room Any home baker will confirm that, even if you have all the right ingredients and follow the recipe,...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Any home baker will confirm that, even if you have all the right ingredients and follow the recipe, things don’t always turn out the way you envisioned. Such was the life of inventor extraordinaire Granville T. Woods. Who was Granville T. Woods? Woods was endowed with...
Stephen Wolfram...
When Exactly Will the Eclipse Happen? A Multimillennium Tale of Computation Updated and expanded from a post for the eclipse of August 21, 2017. Preparing for April 8, 2024 On...
8 months ago
48
8 months ago
Updated and expanded from a post for the eclipse of August 21, 2017. Preparing for April 8, 2024 On April 8, 2024, there’s going to be a total eclipse of the Sun visible on a line across the US. But when exactly will the eclipse occur at a given location? Being able to predict...
Eukaryote Writes...
Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11 This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at...
11 months ago
54
11 months ago
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at great effort and expense during the 1969 Apollo landing.
symmetry magazine
Whatever happened to the theory of everything? A theory of everything was all the rage in the 1980s. So where did it go? It is...
a year ago
52
a year ago
A theory of everything was all the rage in the 1980s. So where did it go? It is only the optimists who achieve anything in this world—theorist John Ellis once read this adage on a candy wrapper. It stuck with him, so much so that in 1986 he referenced this...
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2024, 1) Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras...
9 months ago
95
9 months ago
Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras used for good and evil, ant heaven now, and more.
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote writes for Asterisk Magazine See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus...
2 months ago
34
2 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...
Asterisk
From Warp Speed to 100 Days During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is...
a year ago
1
a year ago
During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is testing that they work. To get even faster, we need innovations in clinical trial design.
Math Is Still...
Memories Help Brains Recognize New Events Worth Remembering Memories may affect how well the brain will learn about future events by shifting our perceptions of...
a year ago
66
a year ago
Memories may affect how well the brain will learn about future events by shifting our perceptions of the world. The post Memories Help Brains Recognize New Events Worth Remembering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Carbon Fiber Structural Battery I have written previously about the concept of structural batteries, such as this recent post on a...
3 months ago
22
3 months ago
I have written previously about the concept of structural batteries, such as this recent post on a concrete battery. The basic idea is a battery made out of material that is strong enough that it can bare a load. Essentially we’re asking the material to do two things at once – be...
Math Is Still...
The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View Astronomers are reveling in the James Webb Space Telescope’s discoveries about the formative epoch...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
Astronomers are reveling in the James Webb Space Telescope’s discoveries about the formative epoch of cosmic history. The post The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Wanderingspace
Cassini’s Final Look at Enceladus Taken on August 28, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This is from images...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Taken on August 28, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This is from images obtained by Cassini shortly before plunging into the Saturnian atmosphere. The images were taken over 14 hours and compiled into this animation.
Math Is Still...
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
6
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...
Light from Space
Elephant Trunk & IC 1396 A beautiful nebula in Cepheus. The middle bottom left of the image shows the “Elephant Trunk”,  but...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
A beautiful nebula in Cepheus. The middle bottom left of the image shows the “Elephant Trunk”,  but the whole nebula IC 1396 shows much impressive detail. A whole layer of dark nebulas overlaps everything, looking like a giant explosion frozen in time. Total exposure time: 18h...
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...
11 months ago
31
11 months 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Part 2: How To Build Patient Communities | Out-Of-Pocket And my investments in Most Days + Little Otter
a year ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Anti-aging tech fixes demographic collapse With the latest studies on GLP-1 drugs showing not just a drop in all-cause mortality but also an...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
With the latest studies on GLP-1 drugs showing not just a drop in all-cause mortality but also an apparent slowing of aging, I thought I’d write a quick note on how I think this technology, if it replicates, can drastically improve our lives. It’s hard to believe I’m writing...
Damn Interesting
Devouring the Heart of Portugal On the morning of Thursday, 04 December 1924, a tall and well-dressed Dutch trader named Karel...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
On the morning of Thursday, 04 December 1924, a tall and well-dressed Dutch trader named Karel Marang strolled along Great Winchester Street in the City of London, among the bustling crowds of bankers and brokers of the business district, unaware that the parcel he carried held...
wadertales
Conservation beyond boundaries When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be...
a year ago
26
a year ago
When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be affected by a new airport, because relatively small flocks are counted during field surveys, is there an assumption that the birds encountered are always the same individuals? What if...
Math Is Still...
The Tiny Physics Behind Immense Cosmic Eruptions A new theory describes how particle interactions fuel fast magnetic reconnection, the process behind...
a year ago
41
a year ago
A new theory describes how particle interactions fuel fast magnetic reconnection, the process behind solar flares and other astrophysical jets. The post The Tiny Physics Behind Immense Cosmic Eruptions first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Unending World A foretaste of Ch. 11 of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance on Books in Progress
2 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Cultural Blindness One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the...
a year ago
9
a year ago
One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the recognition that while the human brain is a powerful information processing machine, it also has many frailties. One of those frailties is perception – we do not perceive the world in...
Drew Ex Machina
USAF Project Able-1: The First Attempt to Reach the Moon In the years leading up to the beginning of the Space Age, there were many studies made in the West...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
In the years leading up to the beginning of the Space Age, there were many studies made in the West about lunar missions which gripped the […]
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, May 2023 This is a monthly feature. As usual, I’ve omitted recent blog posts and such, which you can find in...
a year ago
42
a year ago
This is a monthly feature. As usual, I’ve omitted recent blog posts and such, which you can find in my links digests. John Gall, The Systems Bible (2012), aka Systemantics, 3rd ed. A concise, pithy collection of wisdom about “systems”, mostly human organizations, projects, and...
Drew Ex Machina
Recollections of NASA’s Apollo 11 Mission Like a lot of kids who grew up during the ‘60s and ‘70s, I had a fascination with spaceflight. This...
5 months ago
48
5 months ago
Like a lot of kids who grew up during the ‘60s and ‘70s, I had a fascination with spaceflight. This interest started honestly enough back around […]
The Works in...
How America Made Machines Make Machines A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Across a Continent, Trees Sync Their Fruiting to the Sun European beech trees more than 1,500 kilometers apart all drop their fruit at the same time in a...
6 months ago
43
6 months ago
European beech trees more than 1,500 kilometers apart all drop their fruit at the same time in a grand synchronization event now linked to the summer solstice. The post Across a Continent, Trees Sync Their Fruiting to the Sun first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Have We Achieved General AI As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for...
a week ago
16
a week ago
As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for a long time before there is a consensus that we have. The latest round of this controversy comes from Vahid Kazemi from OpenAI. He posted on X: “In my opinion we have already...
Probably...
Another step toward a two-hour marathon This is an update to an analysis I run each time the marathon world record is broken. If you like...
a year ago
4
a year ago
This is an update to an analysis I run each time the marathon world record is broken. If you like this sort of thing, you will like my forthcoming book, Probably Overthinking It, which is available for preorder now. On October 8, 2023, Kelvin Kiptum ran the Chicago Marathon in...
Quantum Frontiers
The Book of Mark, Chapter 2 Late in the summer of 2021, I visited a physics paradise in a physical paradise: the Kavli Institute...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Late in the summer of 2021, I visited a physics paradise in a physical paradise: the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP). The KITP sits at the edge of the University of California, Santa Barbara like a bougainvillea bush at … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
The Next Step in Space Travel The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space...
a year ago
7
a year ago
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space capsule. This will be used initially for cargo, but then eventually for crew as well. They anticipate a maiden voyage in 2028. I think this is a positive development. It seems we are...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Future of (Unpaid) Work If we think of the top inventions that had a positive impact on human society and our quality of...
a year ago
25
a year ago
If we think of the top inventions that had a positive impact on human society and our quality of life most lists would contain things like the printing press, the wheel, or the computer. One invention that should be on everyone’s list but is easy to overlook is – the washing...
IEEE Spectrum
The Invention That Let Fiber Optics Span the Globe Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten:...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten: New Coke, “We Are the World,” the rise of desktop publishing. But one at-the-time obscure invention from that year has long eclipsed the frothy headlines of its time, because it...
Cremieux Recueil
High-Frequency Trading Is Good Sichuan Mala has written a guest post on one of the most unfairly maligned parts of the financial...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
Sichuan Mala has written a guest post on one of the most unfairly maligned parts of the financial industry
Blog - Practical...
Why There's a Legal Price for a Human Life [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] One of the very first...
a year ago
59
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] One of the very first documented engineering disasters happened in 27 AD in the early days of the Roman Empire. A freed slave named Atilius built a wooden amphitheater in a town called Fidenae outside of Rome....
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six (More) Healthcare Startup Ideas | Out-Of-Pocket In collaboration with The Generalist, one of the few newsletters I read end-to-end every time
a year ago
Math Is Still...
An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe Researchers prove that navigating certain systems of vectors is among the most complex computational...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Researchers prove that navigating certain systems of vectors is among the most complex computational problems. The post An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Podcast Pseudoscience A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for...
a week ago
13
a week ago
A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for ourselves. The BBC investigated the number one ranked UK podcast, Diary of a CEO with host Steven Bartlett, for the accuracy of the medical claims recently made on the show. While...
NeuroLogica Blog
Making Computers More Efficient An analysis in 2021 found that 10% of the world’s electricity production is used by computers,...
a year ago
5
a year ago
An analysis in 2021 found that 10% of the world’s electricity production is used by computers, including personal use, data centers, the internet and communication centers. The same analysis projected that this was likely to increase to 20% by 2025. This may have been an...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More 2022 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket A curation of your 2022 predictions
a year ago
Asterisk
China’s Silicon Future China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts will succeed is far from clear.
Math Is Still...
When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness to deal with the unknown. The post When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Earthrise from Apollo 8 – December 24, 1968 The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by...
12 months ago
40
12 months ago
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by the assassination of prominent public figures, violent protests […]
Interaction Magic -...
3 tips for co-designing with kids Designing future sports products with a group of 11 year olds.
a year ago
Asterisk
My Primal Scream of Rage: The Big Alcohol Study That Didn't Happen Five years ago, the National Institutes of Health cancelled the largest study on alcohol ever...
a year ago
1
a year ago
Five years ago, the National Institutes of Health cancelled the largest study on alcohol ever planned. Here’s why — and why you should be mad too.
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 3) Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of butterflies, and more.
Math Is Still...
Quantum Complexity Shows How to Escape Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a...
a year ago
5
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...
Drew Ex Machina
Accurate Characterization of 3D Winds Using Stereographic Observations from the Hurricane Hunter... The teams at Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA) and Canada Weather Analytics (CWA), where this author...
10 months ago
57
10 months ago
The teams at Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA) and Canada Weather Analytics (CWA), where this author is the Chief Scientist, had the honor of having our abstract […]
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Brain Size Deep thought is what distinguishes humans from other animals. The brain is the medium for thought;...
3 months ago
2
3 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...
The Roots of...
The Commission for Stopping Further Improvements On May 24, 1847, a bridge over the Dee River in Chester, England, collapsed. A passenger train...
a year ago
24
a year ago
On May 24, 1847, a bridge over the Dee River in Chester, England, collapsed. A passenger train plunged into the river; five people were killed and nine seriously injured. The subsequent investigation blamed the bridge’s cast iron girders. Cast iron, like concrete but unlike...
Drew Ex Machina
NASA’s Explorer 18: The First Interplanetary Monitoring Platform Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the characterization of Earth’s magnetic field and the discovery of what became […]
nanoscale views
Experimental techniques: bridge measurements When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss over the fact that there are specialized techniques for this - it's more than just hooking up a battery and an ammeter.  If you want to get high precision results, such as measuring...
Math Is Still...
How to Guarantee the Safety of Autonomous Vehicles As computer-driven cars and planes become more common, the key to preventing accidents, researchers...
11 months ago
35
11 months ago
As computer-driven cars and planes become more common, the key to preventing accidents, researchers show, is to know what you don’t know. The post How to Guarantee the Safety of Autonomous Vehicles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Showering at the South Pole Potable water, and not much of it.
a year ago
ToughSF
Starship Lite: from rapid Interplanetary to Interstellar Elon Musk stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary boost vehicle...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Elon Musk stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary boost vehicle able to push probes towards the farthest objects in our Solar System.  What other missions could the Starship ‘Lite’ do, and how quickly? Near SSTO Rockets performance scales...
Math Is Still...
New Proof Shows That ‘Expander’ Graphs Synchronize The proof establishes new conditions that cause connected oscillators to sway in sync. ...
a year ago
6
a year ago
The proof establishes new conditions that cause connected oscillators to sway in sync. The post New Proof Shows That ‘Expander’ Graphs Synchronize 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
28
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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Can patients be good healthcare shoppers? | Out-Of-Pocket Should their be limits to patient agency?
4 months ago
Andrew Fraknoi –...
A Movie about a Galaxy Far, Far Away & Long, Long Ago (from Webb Telescope) Explains a new movie of distant galaxies and remote time from the Webb Telescope. The post A Movie...
a year ago
4
a year ago
Explains a new movie of distant galaxies and remote time from the Webb Telescope. The post A Movie about a Galaxy Far, Far Away & Long, Long Ago (from Webb Telescope) appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
NeuroLogica Blog
How Humans Can Adapt to Space My recent article on settling Mars has generated a lot of discussion, some of it around the basic...
11 months ago
42
11 months ago
My recent article on settling Mars has generated a lot of discussion, some of it around the basic concept of how difficult it is for humans to live anywhere but a thin envelope of air hugging the surface of the Earth. This is undoubtedly true, as I have discussed before – we...
Math Is Still...
The Quest to Quantify Quantumness What makes a quantum computer more powerful than a classical computer? It’s a surprisingly subtle...
a year ago
3
a year ago
What makes a quantum computer more powerful than a classical computer? It’s a surprisingly subtle question that physicists are still grappling with, decades into the quantum age. The post The Quest to Quantify Quantumness first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Concrete Battery I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about...
6 months ago
56
6 months ago
I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about concrete, or potential version of concrete that is able to function as a battery. If we can get the technology to work this could an extremely useful item for a future of green...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How Much Info Should A Patient Get? | Out-Of-Pocket A discussion question
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and multiplication — and raises hopes for progress on the famous abc conjecture. The post Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making first appeared on...
Blog - Practical...
This Bridge Should Have Been Closed Years Before It Collapsed [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On January 28, 2022, about an...
6 months ago
60
6 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On January 28, 2022, about an hour before dawn, the four-lane Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, collapsed without warning. Five vehicles, including an articulating bus, fell with the bridge, and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Regret After Transitioning In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was...
a year ago
21
a year ago
In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was enough to trigger very specific feedback, often making erroneous scientific claims. Each claim requires a deep dive and article-length discussion. Even though the discussion that...
NeuroLogica Blog
Clickbait and Misinformation Which is worse – clickbaity headlines for news articles that are factually correct, but may be...
6 months ago
53
6 months ago
Which is worse – clickbaity headlines for news articles that are factually correct, but may be playing up a sensational angle, or straight-up misinformation? It depends on what you mean by “worse”. A new study tries to address this information, with some interesting findings....
brr
Cape Crozier A nearby field camp, and my first helicopter flight!
over a year ago
Many Worlds
The Makeup of Red Dwarf Solar Systems May Seriously Limit the Formation of Habitable Planets Jupiter is often described as the “big brother” planet of our solar system that made the formation...
a year ago
5
a year ago
Jupiter is often described as the “big brother” planet of our solar system that made the formation and evolution of Earth possible. In the early days of the solar system, massive Jupiter helped the planet grow rapidly while serving as a gravity well that shielded the planet from...
NeuroLogica Blog
Managing Plastic Waste The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is...
a month ago
19
a month ago
The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is recycled, while 25% is mismanaged or littered. About 1.7 million tons ends up in the ocean. This is not sustainable, but whose responsibility is it to deal with this issue? The debate...
Math Is Still...
Do We Need a New Theory of Gravity? Since Newton had his initial revelation about gravity, our understanding of this fundamental concept...
3 months ago
20
3 months ago
Since Newton had his initial revelation about gravity, our understanding of this fundamental concept has evolved in unexpected ways. In this week’s episode, theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham and co-host Janna Levin discuss the ways our current understanding of gravity needs...
Math Is Still...
Physicists Discover ‘Unobservable’ Phase Transition in Quantum Entanglement Measurement and entanglement both have a “spooky” nonlocal flavor to them. Now physicists are...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Measurement and entanglement both have a “spooky” nonlocal flavor to them. Now physicists are harnessing that nonlocality to probe the spread of quantum information and control it. The post Physicists Discover ‘Unobservable’ Phase Transition in Quantum Entanglement...
nanoscale views
Cavities and tuning physics I've written before about cavity quantum electrodynamics.  An electromagnetic cavity - a resonator...
a year ago
23
a year ago
I've written before about cavity quantum electrodynamics.  An electromagnetic cavity - a resonator of some kind, like your microwave oven chamber is for microwaves, or like an optical cavity made using nearly perfect mirrors - picks out what electromagnetic modes are allowed...
NeuroLogica Blog
Magnetohydrodynamic Drive – Silent Water Propulsion DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now working on developing a...
a year ago
25
a year ago
DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now working on developing a magnet-driven silent water propulsion system – the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) drive. The primary reason is to develop silent military naval craft. Imagine a nuclear submarine with an MHD drive,...
The Works in...
Fermenting revolution The Victorian fight against bad bread and its role in women’s liberation
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Superconductor Flap of 2023 If you are at all interested in science and technology news, you have probably heard that a team...
a year ago
2
a year ago
If you are at all interested in science and technology news, you have probably heard that a team from South Korea claims to have developed a material that is a superconductor at room temperature and ambient pressure. Interestingly, if you are someone who does not follow such...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, April 2023 A monthly feature. Note that I generally don’t include very recent writing here, such as the latest...
a year ago
20
a year ago
A monthly feature. Note that I generally don’t include very recent writing here, such as the latest blog posts (for those, see my Twitter digests); this is for my deeper research. AI First, various historical perspectives on AI, many of which were quite prescient: Alan Turing,...
Beautiful Public...
Visualizing Ship Movements with AIS Data Explore the beautiful, intricate paths of ships over a year—tracked from America's busiest ports to...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
Explore the beautiful, intricate paths of ships over a year—tracked from America's busiest ports to the open ocean via AIS marine tracking data.
Math Is Still...
Math That Connects Where We’re Going to Where We’ve Been Recursion builds bridges between ideas from across different math classes and illustrates the power...
9 months ago
37
9 months ago
Recursion builds bridges between ideas from across different math classes and illustrates the power of creative mathematical thinking. The post Math That Connects Where We’re Going to Where We’ve Been first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
APS March Meeting 2023, Day 2 I ended up spending more time catching up with people this afternoon than going to talks after my...
a year ago
24
a year ago
I ended up spending more time catching up with people this afternoon than going to talks after my session ended, but here are a couple of highlights: There was an invited session about the metal halide perovskites, and there were some interesting talks.  My faculty colleague...
Chris Grossack's...
A truly incredible fact about the number 37 So I was on math stackexchange the other day, and I saw a cute post looking for a book which lists,...
a year ago
5
a year ago
So I was on math stackexchange the other day, and I saw a cute post looking for a book which lists, for many many integers, facts that Ramanujan could have told Hardy if he’d taken a cab other than 1729. A few days ago OP answered their own question, saying that the book in...
NeuroLogica Blog
Meteostat-12 Meets Flat Earthers I know this wasn’t the purpose of sending up a €4.3bn satellite into geostationary orbit, but...
a year ago
43
a year ago
I know this wasn’t the purpose of sending up a €4.3bn satellite into geostationary orbit, but tweaking flat earthers is a fun side effect. European countries have collaborated on this project, having weather satellites in orbit since 1977. The latest iteration is Meteostat-12,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Diamond Batteries Again Why does news reporting of science and technology have to be so terrible at baseline? I know the...
a week ago
8
a week ago
Why does news reporting of science and technology have to be so terrible at baseline? I know the answers to this question – lack of expertise, lack of a business model to support dedicated science news infrastructure, the desire for click-bait and sensationalism – but it is still...
nanoscale views
Nanopasta, no, really Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun...
3 weeks ago
18
3 weeks 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...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Euclid Space Telescope Delivers Great Images The first images are coming in from the new Euclid Space Telescope and they are spectacular. The...
a year ago
5
a year ago
The first images are coming in from the new Euclid Space Telescope and they are spectacular. The post Euclid Space Telescope Delivers Great Images appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
nanoscale views
Seeing through your head - diffuse imaging From the medical diagnostic perspective (and for many other applications), you can understand why it...
2 weeks ago
16
2 weeks ago
From the medical diagnostic perspective (and for many other applications), you can understand why it might be very convenient to be able to perform some kind of optical imaging of the interior of what you'd ordinarily consider opaque objects.  Even when a wavelength range is...
The Works in...
Issue 16: I dream of genes Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and...
3 months ago
38
3 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.
Math Is Still...
Geometers Engineer New Tools to Wrangle Spacecraft Orbits Mathematicians think abstract tools from a field called symplectic geometry might help with planning...
8 months ago
34
8 months ago
Mathematicians think abstract tools from a field called symplectic geometry might help with planning missions to far-off moons and planets. The post Geometers Engineer New Tools to Wrangle Spacecraft Orbits first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
Woke Madness Why do more left-wing individuals tend to be more mentally ill?
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
Unfolding the Mysteries of Polygonal Billiards The surprisingly subtle geometry of a familiar game shows how quickly math gets complicated. ...
10 months ago
32
10 months ago
The surprisingly subtle geometry of a familiar game shows how quickly math gets complicated. The post Unfolding the Mysteries of Polygonal Billiards first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Don't Sink [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The essence of a bridge is not...
5 months ago
66
5 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The essence of a bridge is not just that it goes over something, but that there’s clear space underneath for a river, railway, or road. Maybe this is already obvious to you, but bridges present a unique...
Math Is Still...
Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain...
a year ago
15
a year ago
In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain whole underground ecosystems. The post Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 3 This is the third episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
47
a year ago
This is the third episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Gender Boxing Hubub Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at...
4 months ago
36
4 months ago
Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at the 2024 Olympics. This has caused a controversy because both boxers, according to reports, have some form of DSD – difference of sex development. This means they have been caught...
Beautiful Public...
The Army and Navy Style Guides These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed...
a year ago
Drew Ex Machina
Habitable Planet Reality Check: TOI-700e Discovered by NASA’s TESS Mission During a press conference held on January 6, 2020 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical...
a year ago
22
a year ago
During a press conference held on January 6, 2020 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Honolulu, Emily Gilbert (then a graduate […]
Math Is Still...
Can Psychedelics Improve Mental Health? Research suggests that psychedelic drugs can reopen critical periods of brain development to create...
6 months ago
45
6 months ago
Research suggests that psychedelic drugs can reopen critical periods of brain development to create opportunities for re-learning and psychological healing. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with Gül Dölen, a neuroscientist studying the therapeutic potential of...
Damn Interesting
Fifteen Years Forsaken Editor’s Note: This article contains quotations from contemporaneous accounts which might be...
over a year ago
6
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...
Probably...
The mean of a Likert scale? Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
7 months ago
48
7 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. likert_mean Likert scale analysis¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. I have collected data regarding how...
Casey Handmer's blog
We can Terraform the American West Why is there almost nothing on the left hand side of the USA? Water scarcity! We’re missing 300...
a month ago
2
a month ago
Why is there almost nothing on the left hand side of the USA? Water scarcity! We’re missing 300 million Americans. We’re missing  30 global cities west of 100 degrees longitude. We should do something about it! The western US is a parched opportunity to create millions of acres...
Explorations of an...
Río Bigal Biological Reserve - Pristine Foothill Forest In Eastern Ecuador "What has been your favourite country that you have visited?"  People often ask me various...
a year ago
7
a year ago
"What has been your favourite country that you have visited?"  People often ask me various iterations of this question when they hear about the traveling that Laura and I have been fortunate to have done. Sometimes I say Colombia, sometimes I say Peru, but usually I don't name a...
Uncharted...
Where Geniuses Hide Today Where are today’s Michelangelos?
2 weeks ago
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Plant Sounds My early adulthood coincided with the New Age movement and its belief in many discredited past...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
My early adulthood coincided with the New Age movement and its belief in many discredited past ideas, such as astrology. One New Age idea that seemed strange at the time was that talking to plants helped them to grow. What could be more New Age than a hippie chick talking to a...
nanoscale views
Moiré and making superlattices One of the biggest condensed matter trends in recent years has been the stacking of 2D materials and...
7 months ago
63
7 months ago
One of the biggest condensed matter trends in recent years has been the stacking of 2D materials and the development of moiré lattices.  The idea is, take a layer of 2D material and stack it either (1) on itself but with a twist angle, or (2) on another material with a slightly...
The Works in...
Getting people to donate their organs Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier?
8 months ago
Math Is Still...
The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it is, in fact, a hub of sensory and emotional processing in the brain. The post The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings first appeared on Quanta...
Damn Interesting
A Blight on Soviet Science On a hazy afternoon in March 1927, a Russian scientist was walking through the dense forests of...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
On a hazy afternoon in March 1927, a Russian scientist was walking through the dense forests of Abyssinia, ducking under low-hanging branches and stopping to inspect the wild coffee trees lining his path. Accompanied by a group of local guides, the young traveller had been hiking...
Quantum Frontiers
Identical twins and quantum entanglement “If I had a nickel for every unsolicited and very personal health question I’ve gotten at parties,...
a year ago
50
a year ago
“If I had a nickel for every unsolicited and very personal health question I’ve gotten at parties, I’d have paid off my medical school loans by now,” my doctor friend complained. As a physicist, I can somewhat relate. I occasionally … Continue reading →
wadertales
UK waders: “Into the Red” If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most conservation concern in the UK, they would probably not include Dunlin. Curlew may well be top of their lists, even though the most recent population estimate is 58,500 breeding pairs, but...
Math Is Still...
The Year in Biology Biologists used artificial intelligence to make discoveries about molecules and the brain, and...
4 days ago
3
4 days ago
Biologists used artificial intelligence to make discoveries about molecules and the brain, and overturned long-held assumptions about the immune system and RNA. The post The Year in Biology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s...
a year ago
24
a year ago
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
nanoscale views
Rice University Academy of Fellows postdoc opportunity, 2023 As I have posted in previous years, Rice has a university-wide endowed honorific postdoctoral...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
As I have posted in previous years, Rice has a university-wide endowed honorific postdoctoral program called the Rice Academy of Fellows.   Like all such things, it's very competitive. The new application listing has gone live here with a deadline of January 4, 2023. ...
NeuroLogica Blog
DNA Nanorobot Kill Switch for Cancer How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in question is: “A DNA robotic switch with regulated autonomous display of cytotoxic ligand nanopatterns.” The study is a proof of concept in an animal model, so we are still years away...
NeuroLogica Blog
Intuitive and Analytical Thinking Here is a relatively simple math problem:  A bat and a ball cost $1.10 combined. The bat costs $1...
a year ago
54
a year ago
Here is a relatively simple math problem:  A bat and a ball cost $1.10 combined. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? (I will provide the answer below the fold.) This problem is the basis of a large psychological literature on thinking systems in the...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six Healthcare Startup Ideas | Out-Of-Pocket In collaboration with The Generalist
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure....
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model. The post Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect first appeared on Quanta...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Perseid Meteor Shower Aug 12-13, 2023 We make suggestions for how best to see the 2023 Perseid meteor shower. The post Perseid Meteor...
a year ago
6
a year ago
We make suggestions for how best to see the 2023 Perseid meteor shower. The post Perseid Meteor Shower Aug 12-13, 2023 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Math Is Still...
She Tracks the DNA of Elusive Species That Hide in Harsh Places On Mount Everest and in the Peruvian Andes, Tracie Seimon uses DNA to study how species and...
a year ago
29
a year ago
On Mount Everest and in the Peruvian Andes, Tracie Seimon uses DNA to study how species and ecosystems respond to climate change, pathogens and other influences. The post She Tracks the DNA of Elusive Species That Hide in Harsh Places first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
What are "quantum oscillations"? For the first time in a couple of decades, I was visiting the Aspen Center for Physics, which is...
a year ago
20
a year ago
For the first time in a couple of decades, I was visiting the Aspen Center for Physics, which is always a fun, intellectually stimulating experience.  (Side note: I sure hope that the rapidly escalating costs of everything in the Aspen area don't make this venue untenable in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Trust in New Technology In an optimally rational person, what should govern their perception of risk? Of course, people are...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
In an optimally rational person, what should govern their perception of risk? Of course, people are generally not “optimally rational”. It’s therefore an interesting thought experiment – what would be optimal, and how does that differ from how people actually assess risk? Risk is...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird issues in value-based care | Out-Of-Pocket Thoughts on value-based care from people actually building in it
2 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
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
7
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...
Damn Interesting
To Hell With Facebook The earliest known version of the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” was written by the...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
The earliest known version of the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” was written by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury in 1677, though it was concerned with horses and feathers: “The last Dictate of the Judgement, concerning the Good or Bad, that may...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI and User Manuals About half of Americans, when asked, report that they don’t read the user manual for new technical...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
About half of Americans, when asked, report that they don’t read the user manual for new technical devices they acquire. Although I suspect that many people are like me – I read them sometimes, and then only partly. If there is a “quick user guide” I will often look at that....
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Green Ammonia Ammonia is an important industrial chemical with an estimated worldwide production exceeding 150...
5 months ago
1
5 months ago
Ammonia is an important industrial chemical with an estimated worldwide production exceeding 150 million metric tons. About 70% of ammonia is used to make nitrate fertilizers. Unfortunately, the production of ammonia is energy and it's a major source of carbon dioxide emission. ...
Sean Carroll
The Zombie Argument for Physicalism (Contra Panpsychism) The nature of consciousness remains a contentious subject out there. I’m a physicalist myself — as I...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
The nature of consciousness remains a contentious subject out there. I’m a physicalist myself — as I explain in The Big Picture and elsewhere, I think consciousness is best understood as weakly-emergent from the ordinary physical behavior of matter, without requiring any special...
Math Is Still...
Grad Students Find Inevitable Patterns in Big Sets of Numbers A new proof marks the first progress in decades on a problem about how order emerges from disorder. ...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
A new proof marks the first progress in decades on a problem about how order emerges from disorder. The post Grad Students Find Inevitable Patterns in Big Sets of Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
Kétévi Assamagan pays it forward Kétévi Assamagan's contributions to physics go beyond his research at the Large Hadron...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Kétévi Assamagan's contributions to physics go beyond his research at the Large Hadron Collider. Kétévi Assamagan first became interested in physics in high school—because he had to be. His school in Togo, in West Africa, required students to declare a major....
Eukaryote Writes...
Who invented knitting? The plot thickens Last time on Eukaryote Writes Blog: You learned about knitting history. You thought you were done...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Last time on Eukaryote Writes Blog: You learned about knitting history. You thought you were done learning about knitting history? You fool. You buffoon. I wanted to double check some things in the last post and found out that the origins of knitting are even weirder than I...
Cremieux Recueil
Eliminating Distractions in Longevity Research Longevity maximizers should invest in biotechnology, not modifiable lifestyle factors
2 months ago
Cremieux Recueil
The Worst Argument Against Ozempic Unfortunately, being skinny might require effort
3 months ago
Interaction Magic -...
The UX of LEGO Interface Panels LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I...
over a year ago
1
over a year ago
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I bought 52 of them from BrickLink to explore the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Views of Mars from NASA’s Mars Observer – July 27, 1993 Having enthusiastically followed NASA’s Viking mission to Mars as a teenager during the late-1970s,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Having enthusiastically followed NASA’s Viking mission to Mars as a teenager during the late-1970s, the lack of any new NASA missions to Mars during the 1980s […]
The Works in...
Links in Progress: Expanding the Mediterranean's busiest port Plus: New tunnels, monorails, canals, small modular reactors, and horseless carriages
a month ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Obstacles To Value-Based Care | Out-Of-Pocket taking on risk is easier said than done
a year ago
Math Is Still...
The Year in Math Landmark results in Ramsey theory and a remarkably simple aperiodic tile capped a year of...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Landmark results in Ramsey theory and a remarkably simple aperiodic tile capped a year of mathematical delight and discovery. The post The Year in Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Wanderingspace
URANUS FROM THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE This is not natural light, nothing is from Webb. The infrared image combines data from two filters...
a year ago
9
a year ago
This is not natural light, nothing is from Webb. The infrared image combines data from two filters which are shown in blue and orange,. The planet displays a blue hue in the resulting representative-color image which is similar to the planet’s actual color. But in reality Uranus...
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
9
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 →
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...
7 months ago
79
7 months 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Machine Vision, Robots, and Endoscopes with Matt Schwartz | Out-Of-Pocket When GI met AI
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, and Vaccines RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will...
a year ago
22
a year ago
RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will vehemently deny this, but I don’t buy it for a second. He is simply playing the, “I’m not anti-vaccine, I am pro-safe vaccine” gambit, which is disingenuous and always has been. We...
IEEE Spectrum
Why the Art of Invention Is Always Being Reinvented Every invention begins with a problem—and the creative act of seeing a problem where others might...
a month ago
24
a month ago
Every invention begins with a problem—and the creative act of seeing a problem where others might just see unchangeable reality. For one 5-year-old, the problem was simple: She liked to have her tummy rubbed as she fell asleep. But her mom, exhausted from working two jobs, often...
Math Is Still...
How Will We Know We’re Not Alone? The first planet beyond our solar system was identified just 30 years ago. Since then, thousands...
3 days ago
3
3 days ago
The first planet beyond our solar system was identified just 30 years ago. Since then, thousands have been found and characterized. As we look for more, exoplanet experts are also probing for signs of alien biospheres hundreds of light-years away. In this episode, co-host Janna...
nanoscale views
AI/ML and condensed matter + materials science Materials define the way we live.  That may sound like an exaggeration that I like to spout because...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Materials define the way we live.  That may sound like an exaggeration that I like to spout because I'm a condensed matter physicist, but it's demonstrably true.  Remember, past historians have given us terms like "Stone Age", "Bronze Age", and "Iron Age", and the "Information...
Blog - Practical...
How Different Spillway Gates Work [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In the heart of Minneapolis,...
a year ago
23
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In the heart of Minneapolis, Minnesota on the Mississippi River is the picturesque Upper Saint Anthony Falls Lock and Dam, which originally made it possible to travel upstream on the river past the falls...
Math Is Still...
He Seeks Mystery Magnetic Fields With His Quantum Compass Alex Sushkov is updating an old technology with new quantum tricks in hopes of sensing the magnetic...
7 months ago
60
7 months ago
Alex Sushkov is updating an old technology with new quantum tricks in hopes of sensing the magnetic influence of dark matter. The post He Seeks Mystery Magnetic Fields With His Quantum Compass first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more...
a week ago
15
a week ago
In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications. The post Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold first appeared on Quanta...
Light from Space
The Fossil Footprint Nebula A rarely imaged target as it is very dim. This image took me over 50h of total exposure time. Total...
11 months ago
28
11 months ago
A rarely imaged target as it is very dim. This image took me over 50h of total exposure time. Total exposure time: 52h 40' Image resolution: 4,490 × 4,552px (0.96″/px) Shot from my driveway near Tucson, AZ in late 2023 Telescope: William Optics RedCat
NeuroLogica Blog
Apologizing for Uri Geller A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed...
a year ago
26
a year ago
A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed spoon-bending magician, by simply telling a one-sided narrative. From my perspective as a skeptic, this was a terrible article that missed the real issue, glossed over glaring defects in...
The Roots of...
Neither EA nor e/acc is what we need to build the future Over the last few years, effective altruism has gone through a rise-and-fall story arc worthy of any...
a year ago
22
a year ago
Over the last few years, effective altruism has gone through a rise-and-fall story arc worthy of any dramatic tragedy. The pandemic made them look prescient for warning about global catastrophic risks, including biosafety. A masterful book launch put them on the cover of TIME....
nanoscale views
Some recent papers of interest A couple of recent papers that seem interesting and I need to read more closely: This paper in...
a year ago
34
a year ago
A couple of recent papers that seem interesting and I need to read more closely: This paper in Nature, a collaboration between folks at Ohio University and Argonne, is a neat combination of scanning tunneling microscopy and (synchrotron-enabled) resonant x-ray absorption.  The...
Math Is Still...
Doubts Grow About the Biosignature Approach to Alien-Hunting Recent controversies bode ill for the effort to detect life on other planets by analyzing the gases...
9 months ago
19
9 months ago
Recent controversies bode ill for the effort to detect life on other planets by analyzing the gases in their atmospheres. The post Doubts Grow About the Biosignature Approach to Alien-Hunting first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
The Nobels, physics and chemistry As you undoubtedly know, the 2023 Nobel in physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc...
a year ago
37
a year ago
As you undoubtedly know, the 2023 Nobel in physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L'Huillier, for the development of techniques associated with attosecond-scale optical pulses.  Here is the more popular write-up about this (including a good handwave...
Probably...
Too many bronze medals? In a recent video, Hank Green nerd-sniped me by asking a question I couldn’t not answer. At one...
4 months ago
53
4 months ago
In a recent video, Hank Green nerd-sniped me by asking a question I couldn’t not answer. At one point in the video, he shows “a graph of the last 20 years of Olympic games showing the gold, silver, and bronze medals from continental Europe. And it “shows continental Europe having...
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...
a year ago
53
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.)
Asterisk
How Not To Predict The Future Good forecasting thrives on a delicate balance of math, expertise, and…vibes.
9 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Localizing Hidden Consciousness What’s going on in the minds of people who appear to be comatose? This has been an enduring...
a year ago
19
a year ago
What’s going on in the minds of people who appear to be comatose? This has been an enduring neurological question from the beginning of neurology as a discipline. Recent technological advances have completely changed the game in terms of evaluating comatose patients, and now a...
NeuroLogica Blog
What Happened to the Atmosphere on Mars Of every world known to humans outside the Earth, Mars is likely the most habitable. We have not...
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
Of every world known to humans outside the Earth, Mars is likely the most habitable. We have not found any genuinely Earth-like exoplanets. They are almost sure to exist, but we just haven’t found any yet. The closest so far is Kepler 452-b, which is a super Earth, specifically...
The Works in...
Escape to the country What makes a successful New Town?
4 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
New Health Plans Need New Operating Systems with Flume Health | Out-Of-Pocket this claim is automatic, programmatic, hypnotic, funky fresh
a year ago
Probably...
Extremes, outliers, and GOATS The video from my PyData Global 2023 talk, Extremes, outliers, and GOATS, is available now: The...
10 months ago
17
10 months ago
The video from my PyData Global 2023 talk, Extremes, outliers, and GOATS, is available now: The slides are here. There are two Jupyter notebooks that contain the analysis I presented: Here’s the abstract: The fastest runners are much faster than we expect from a Gaussian...
nanoscale views
Chemical potential and banana waffles The concept of chemical potential is one that seems almost deliberately obscure to many.  I’ve...
a year ago
57
a year ago
The concept of chemical potential is one that seems almost deliberately obscure to many.  I’ve written about this here, and referenced this article.  What you may not realize is that the chemical potential, of water in particular, plays a crucial role in why my banana waffle...
Blog - Practical...
Merrimack Valley Gas Explosions: What Really Happened? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On September 13, 2018, a...
a year ago
52
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On September 13, 2018, a pipeline crew in the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts was hard at work replacing an aging cast iron natural gas line with a new polyethylene pipe. Located just north of Boston, the...
pcloadletter
Somewhere along the way we forgot about software craftsmanship "Ship it!" "We're agile now, baby. Move fast and break things!"" "We measure our engineers by the...
10 months ago
15
10 months ago
"Ship it!" "We're agile now, baby. Move fast and break things!"" "We measure our engineers by the impact they have!" Somewhere along the way, in the midst of the agilification of software, or the software engineer salary gold rush, we forgot about craftsmanship. I have been in...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
My investing theses | Out-Of-Pocket Hit up ya boi
a year ago
Light from Space
Bubble Nebula and Neighborhood The constellation of Cassiopeia is full of rich gas clouds and a myriad of different Nebulas and...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
The constellation of Cassiopeia is full of rich gas clouds and a myriad of different Nebulas and Star Clusters. Click or tap to enlarge/double-tap to zoom Total exposure time: 37h 20m (134,400s) Image resolution: 4,784 × 6,840px (1.919″/px) Shot from my driveway near
Math Is Still...
New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align. The post New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Light and Distance in an Expanding Universe Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that...
6 months ago
52
6 months ago
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that distant galaxy for 13 and a half billion years, which I assume is true, but this neither represents the original nor the current distance to that galaxy in terms of light years. I...
NeuroLogica Blog
Power-To-X and Climate Change Policy What is Power-to-X (PtX)? It’s just a fancy marketing term for green hydrogen – using green energy,...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
What is Power-to-X (PtX)? It’s just a fancy marketing term for green hydrogen – using green energy, like wind, solar, nuclear, or hydroelectric, to make hydrogen from water. This process does not release any CO2, just oxygen, and when the hydrogen is burned back with that oxygen...
Blog - Practical...
When Natural Gas Had No Smell [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Excitement and hope permeated...
5 months ago
59
5 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Excitement and hope permeated the crowds gathered in a dusty farm carved from the piney woods in east Texas. The rumor was that Columbus Joiner had struck oil. At 70 years old, Joiner had already won and lost...
NeuroLogica Blog
What Is a Grand Conspiracy? Ah, the categorization question again. This is an endless, but much needed, endeavor within human...
9 months ago
36
9 months ago
Ah, the categorization question again. This is an endless, but much needed, endeavor within human intellectual activity. We have the need to categorize things, if for no other reason than we need to communicate with each other about them. Often skeptics, like myself, talk about...
Explorations of an...
Uruguay Part 3: Lagoon Shorebirding February 28, 2023 Our first few days in Uruguay had been very successful. We had been able to...
a year ago
23
a year ago
February 28, 2023 Our first few days in Uruguay had been very successful. We had been able to experience a few days in the beautiful rural countryside, staying at a wonderful hacienda. We had found our first Uruguayan snake. And we had found most of the potential bird lifers that...
Blog - Practical...
How To Install a Pipeline Under a Railroad [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Union Pacific...
10 months ago
55
10 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Union Pacific Railroad’s Austin Subdivision in central Texas. It’s a busy corridor that moves both freight and passengers north and south between Austin and San Antonio… But it’s mostly freight....
pcloadletter
RSS is still pretty great I think a lot about information and information consumption. The way the Internet made information...
10 months ago
16
10 months ago
I think a lot about information and information consumption. The way the Internet made information readily available is phenomenal. Sadly, the signal-to-noise ratio here is pretty low. For me, consuming RSS feeds[1] offers the best way to read the kind of high-quality information...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 1: Introduction, Phoenix to Miller Canyon Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini...
3 months ago
18
3 months ago
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini vacations. Due to the variations in her work schedule, Laura had two blocks of time - a five-day chunk in early August, and six days in early September - and we wanted to make the...
The Works in...
Cheap ornament and status games Was modernism originally a way to signal taste instead of wealth?
2 months ago
The Works in...
Degrowth and the monkey's paw Fifteen years ago, when I worked in the “social innovation” field, there was a world-view that was...
a year ago
85
a year ago
Fifteen years ago, when I worked in the “social innovation” field, there was a world-view that was very popular among my colleagues about what was wrong with society and how to fix it. The idea was that people and governments needed to stop seeing economic growth as a good thing,...
Uncharted...
10 Other Places Where Geniuses Hide Groups, networks, the Internet, IQ, state sponsorship, and many more
a week ago
IEEE Spectrum
The Forgotten Story of How IBM Invented the Automated Fab In 1970, Bill Harding envisioned a fully automated wafer-fabrication line that would produce...
3 weeks ago
21
3 weeks ago
In 1970, Bill Harding envisioned a fully automated wafer-fabrication line that would produce integrated circuits in less than one day. Not only was such a goal gutsy 54 years ago, it would be bold even in today’s billion-dollar fabs, where the fabrication time of an advanced IC...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird health insurance concepts | Out-Of-Pocket Intercompany eliminations, copay shenanigans, and reference-based pricing
a month ago
Explorations of an...
2023 Part 4: Indonesia and Ecuador September The island of Sulawesi must be on the bucket list for any naturalist with a strong...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
September The island of Sulawesi must be on the bucket list for any naturalist with a strong interest in biogeography. Though Borneo is situated only a few hundred kilometers to the west, and the Moluccas are not far to the east, the species composition of Sulawesi is...
Wanderingspace
Colorized View of Perseverance Landing An artificially colorized view of Jezero Crater, showing the bird’s eye view of Perseverance...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
An artificially colorized view of Jezero Crater, showing the bird’s eye view of Perseverance screaming towards Mars’s surface. The above image was enhanced by Kevin Gill into full color, taking images captured by Perseverance’s Lander Vision System Camera just after the heat...
NeuroLogica Blog
Confidently Wrong How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and do you have a process for determining what your confidence level should be or do you just follow your gut feelings? Thinking about confidence is a form of metacognition – thinking...
Eukaryote Writes...
Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the...
8 months ago
69
8 months ago
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the moon.” The truth is that given a lot of power, a nuclear weapon, and a lot of extremely specific circumstances, we too might find ourselves thinking “I should nuke the moon.”
Sean Carroll
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a new book out! The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion is Volume One of a planned three-volume series. It grew out of the videos that I did in 2020, trying to offer...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Match Day and the Unmatched | Out-Of-Pocket an underutilized workforce?
a year ago
nanoscale views
Faculty positions at Rice - follow-up I had mentioned about 6 weeks ago that my department at Rice is searching in the quantum/AMO space...
a year ago
6
a year ago
I had mentioned about 6 weeks ago that my department at Rice is searching in the quantum/AMO space for experiment and theory.   Now I want to put the larger context of this out there - Rice has four quantum-related searches going on right now: Quantum theory (PHYA):...
Chris Grossack's...
$\mathsf{B}\text{Diff}(\Sigma)$ Classifies $\Sigma$-bundles I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the cobordism hypothesis,...
yesterday
4
yesterday
I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the cobordism hypothesis, and how to use $(\infty,n)$-categories. This is all in service of some stuff I’m doing with skein algebras (which are part of a “$3+1$ TQFT” often named after Crane–Yetter, but...
Math Is Still...
Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its...
a year ago
63
a year ago
There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its last surviving remnants. The post Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
Explorations of an...
From Yungas Forest To Desert January 17, 2023 (continued) Today was a day of contrasts. We began the morning with a successful...
a year ago
15
a year ago
January 17, 2023 (continued) Today was a day of contrasts. We began the morning with a successful search for the Rufous-throated Dipper in humid yungas forest on the east slope of the Andes. We then worked our way northwest over the course of the day and watched the landscape...
The Works in...
Does higher density cause lower birth rates? Assessing one recent claim that it does
7 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Genetic Engineering To Fight Malaria Despite robust efforts to fight it, malaria remains one of the most significant infectious diseases...
a year ago
8
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...
Math Is Still...
What Are Sheaves? These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics. The post...
5 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Scaling Organizations, Patient Payments, and Collections with Lora Rosenblum | Out-Of-Pocket Why am I getting bills 6 months later, Lora pls help
a year ago
Probably...
Bertrand’s Boxes An early draft of Probably Overthinking It included two chapters about probability. I still think...
7 months ago
76
7 months ago
An early draft of Probably Overthinking It included two chapters about probability. I still think they are interesting, but the other chapters are really about data, and the examples in these chapters are more like brain teasers — so I’ve saved them for another book. Here’s an...
Math Is Still...
To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the...
a year ago
3
a year ago
Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the cost of forgetting the path they took. A new result suggests that the trade-off may be inevitable. The post To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past...
Asterisk
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart AIs Are? Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the...
a year ago
1
a year ago
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the same mistakes with AI?
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Change Healthcare Debacle | Out-Of-Pocket what are clearinghouses and do we still need them?
9 months ago
Math Is Still...
A Century Later, New Math Smooths Out General Relativity Mathematicians prove a theorem that illuminates the geometry of universes with tiny amounts of mass....
a year ago
5
a year ago
Mathematicians prove a theorem that illuminates the geometry of universes with tiny amounts of mass. The post A Century Later, New Math Smooths Out General Relativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Piracy in Space is Possible Part II: Armed Merchants and Pirate Patrols There's more to piracy than just attacking a target and running away afterwards.  Put yourself in...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
There's more to piracy than just attacking a target and running away afterwards.  Put yourself in the shoes of a pirate, a merchant or the authorities. What would you do? Fighting back Pirates intercepting, attacking and ransoming a merchant crew should be...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Wave of Concierge Medicine | Out-Of-Pocket This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
5 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Living Under the Sea One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely...
a year ago
34
a year ago
One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely under a vast alien ocean. You have the advantage of advanced technology, but even then you are under constant threat of running out of oxygen, or having your habitat implode because...
Asterisk
California vs. Big Soda Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes work. But during the time it took to figure this out, enacting them...
6 months ago
1
6 months ago
Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes work. But during the time it took to figure this out, enacting them became much harder.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Canvas: A Bet On New EMRs | Out-Of-Pocket what if EMRs didn't totally suck?
a year ago
symmetry magazine
Searching for the matter that hides its shine Just because matter is visible doesn’t mean it’s easy to see.
a year 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...
a year ago
54
a year ago
If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected meat, my default assumption would be “we're in danger.” But a prion isn’t a virus. Why does that matter?
Wanderingspace
Apollo Lunar Rover Video Corrected Speed and Stabilized It is remarkable the difference watching this version where the time is corrected and camera...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
It is remarkable the difference watching this version where the time is corrected and camera stabilized.. The film restorer behind DutchSteamMachine used AI to stabilize shaky footage and generate new frames in NASA moon landing films; increasing the frame rate, smoothed the...
NeuroLogica Blog
How To Prove Prevention Works Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious...
10 months ago
19
10 months ago
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Thank you, dear. Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. Homer: Oh, how does it work? Lisa: It doesn’t work. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa:...
Drew Ex Machina
Pioneer 3: JPL’s First Moonshot Attempt With the new push by the United States and other space faring powers to renew the exploration of the...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
With the new push by the United States and other space faring powers to renew the exploration of the Moon, miniaturized spacecraft have been made part […]
Math Is Still...
Overexposure Distorted the Science of Mirror Neurons After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and...
8 months ago
25
8 months ago
After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and theory of mind are being refined and redefined. The post Overexposure Distorted the Science of Mirror Neurons first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Cool Facts About Health Insurance Enrollment with Aleka Gurel | Out-Of-Pocket Tis the season
a year ago
Math Is Still...
New Cell Atlases Reveal Untold Variety in the Brain and Beyond Recent efforts to map every cell in the human body have researchers floored by unfathomable...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Recent efforts to map every cell in the human body have researchers floored by unfathomable diversity, with many thousands of subtly different types of cells in the human brain alone. The post New Cell Atlases Reveal Untold Variety in the Brain and Beyond first...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI and Social Media to Measure Climate Change Denial A recent study finds that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in global climate change. This number is...
10 months ago
29
10 months ago
A recent study finds that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in global climate change. This number is roughly in line with what recent survey have found, such as this 2024 Yale study which put the figure at 16%. In 2009, by comparison, the figure was at 33% (although this was a...
Math Is Still...
Math’s ‘Bunkbed Conjecture’ Has Been Debunked It was intuitive, even obvious. It was also wrong. The post Math’s ‘Bunkbed Conjecture’...
a month ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet...
7 months ago
50
7 months ago
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet we know comparatively little about them. But in recent years phage research has taken off with renewed interest. This is partly driven by the availability of CRISPR-based tools for...
nanoscale views
What is a spin glass? As mentioned previously, structural glasses are materials in which there is no periodic lattice (no...
a year ago
44
a year ago
As mentioned previously, structural glasses are materials in which there is no periodic lattice (no long-range spatial order) and the building blocks get "stuck" in some configuration, kinetically unable to get to the true energetic minimum state which would almost certainly be a...
Math Is Still...
How Is Flocking Like Computing? Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In...
8 months ago
21
8 months ago
Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz interviews the evolutionary ecologist Iain Couzin about how and why collective behaviors arise. The post How Is Flocking Like...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Asteroid Probably Won’t Hit Earth NASA recently discovered a 50 meter wide asteroid whose orbit will come close to Earth. They...
a year ago
26
a year ago
NASA recently discovered a 50 meter wide asteroid whose orbit will come close to Earth. They estimate a close approach in 2046, which will likely bring the asteroid within 1.1 million miles of the Earth, about four times the distance of the moon. However, there is always...
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour Of Jamaica The Caribbean island of Jamaica is a naturalist’s paradise. Situated south of eastern Cuba, east of...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
The Caribbean island of Jamaica is a naturalist’s paradise. Situated south of eastern Cuba, east of Honduras and north of Colombia, Jamaica has an interesting assemblage of species with different origins. Jamaica was never connected to the mainland throughout its long geological...
nanoscale views
Disorganized thoughts on "Oppenheimer" I saw "Oppenheimer" today.  Spoiler warning, I suppose, though I think we all know how this story...
a year ago
6
a year ago
I saw "Oppenheimer" today.  Spoiler warning, I suppose, though I think we all know how this story ends.  Just in case you were wondering, there is no post-credit scene to set up the sequel.  (For the humor-impaired: that was a joke.) The movie was an excellent piece of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Deepfake Doctor Endorsements This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a recent BMJ study documents the scale of this fraud. The study focused on the UK, detailing instances of deepfakes of celebrity doctors endorsing dubious products. For example,...
Math Is Still...
Debate May Help AI Models Converge on Truth How do we know if a large language model is lying? Letting AI systems argue with each other may help...
a month ago
17
a month ago
How do we know if a large language model is lying? Letting AI systems argue with each other may help expose the truth. The post Debate May Help AI Models Converge on Truth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the...
a year ago
9
a year ago
In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the Apple II team, who had proposed that Apple Computer Inc. make a low-cost “appliance”-type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster. Mr. Raskin believed the computer he...
Chris Grossack's...
Life in Johnstone's Topological Topos 3 -- Bonus Axioms In the first post of the series, we talked about what the topological topos is, and how we can...
5 months ago
48
5 months ago
In the first post of the series, we talked about what the topological topos is, and how we can think about its objects (and, importantly, how we can relate computations in the topos $\mathcal{T}$ to computations with topological spaces in “the real world”). In part two, we...
Math Is Still...
Strangely Curved Shapes Break 50-Year-Old Geometry Conjecture Mathematicians have disproved a major conjecture about the relationship between curvature and shape....
7 months ago
80
7 months ago
Mathematicians have disproved a major conjecture about the relationship between curvature and shape. The post Strangely Curved Shapes Break 50-Year-Old Geometry Conjecture first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
Potrero de Yala - Dippers, Red-faced Guans And More Laura and I were up early to make the most of our morning at Potrero de Yala. As dawn broke, we...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Laura and I were up early to make the most of our morning at Potrero de Yala. As dawn broke, we slowly drove in along the entrance road, keeping an eye out for guans. We found quite a few guans on and around the road but none were our hoped-for Red-faced Guans; they were all...
Math Is Still...
She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and neurochemistry in one of the country's epicenters of substance use disorder and addiction. The post She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain first appeared...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Actually good 2024 healthcare predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
Marine Madness
Farming Fiasco: The world’s first commercial octopus breeding programme It seems ironic that shortly after an amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill stating...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
It seems ironic that shortly after an amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill stating octopuses to be ‘sentient beings’ capable of a range of human-like emotions such as joy, pleasure, excitement, as well as pain, distress, and harm, plans of the word’s first commercial...
Explorations of an...
2023 Part 2: Early March through April (Brazil) March On March 4, Laura and I landed in São Paulo. It was our first time in Brazil. Even though we...
12 months ago
9
12 months ago
March On March 4, Laura and I landed in São Paulo. It was our first time in Brazil. Even though we had planned to spend much of the next two months exploring Brazil, the country is so large that we could only see a small portion of it. We restricted our route to only include...
ToughSF
Nuclear Conversion for Starship There has been much discussion about converting the SpaceX Starship to use nuclear propulsion. It...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
There has been much discussion about converting the SpaceX Starship to use nuclear propulsion. It would allow for a great increase in specific impulse and a massive extension of mission capabilities. But is it actually worthwhile? The image above is modified from...
Math Is Still...
Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the...
10 months ago
24
10 months ago
The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the subterranean magma are saving lives. The post Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Ready for Testing It was six years ago that I first wrote about NASA’s X-59 QueSST project, contracted to Lockheed...
a year ago
28
a year ago
It was six years ago that I first wrote about NASA’s X-59 QueSST project, contracted to Lockheed Martin. Now the plane has finally been built and is ready for testing. At the time it was reported that NASA “had a design” for a quiet supersonic jet, one that would not create a...
Math Is Still...
Physicists Finally Find a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Can Do Researchers have shown that a problem relating to the energy of a quantum system is easy for quantum...
9 months ago
29
9 months ago
Researchers have shown that a problem relating to the energy of a quantum system is easy for quantum computers but hard for classical ones. The post Physicists Finally Find a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Can Do first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
2024 Healthcare Predictions, Out-Of-Pocket Style | Out-Of-Pocket I'm not a fortune teller, I'm a fortune, teller
a year ago
Explorations of an...
Parque Nacional Calilegua Parque Nacional Calilegua protects around 76,000 hectares of east-slope yungas forest, making it the...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Parque Nacional Calilegua protects around 76,000 hectares of east-slope yungas forest, making it the largest national park in northwestern Argentina. It would, therefore, feature prominently on our trip. Laura and I arrived in the general area during the afternoon of January 25,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Personalized Health Insurance and the Payer Stack | Out-Of-Pocket Stacks on stacks on stacks
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
How I didn’t become a philosopher (but wound up presenting a named philosophy lecture anyway) Many people ask why I became a theoretical physicist. The answer runs through philosophy—which I...
8 months ago
92
8 months ago
Many people ask why I became a theoretical physicist. The answer runs through philosophy—which I thought, for years, I’d left behind in college. My formal relationship with philosophy originated with Mr. Bohrer. My high school classified him as a religion … Continue reading →
Probably...
Density and Likelihood It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. If you get this post by email, the formatting might be broken — if so, you might want to read it on the site. likelihood Density and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Spotting Misinformation There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they...
7 months ago
72
7 months ago
There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they verify information they encounter in the news and on social media, and 96% of Americans say that we need to limit the spread of misinformation online. And yet, the spread of...
Blog - Practical...
Which Is Easier To Pull? (Railcars vs. Road Cars) [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Imagine the room you’re in...
a year ago
25
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Imagine the room you’re in right now was filled to the top with gravel. (I promise I’m headed somewhere with this.) I don’t know the size of the room you’re in, but if it’s anywhere near an average-sized...
Math Is Still...
The Brainstem Fine-Tunes Inflammation Throughout the Body The evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that controls breathing and heart rate also regulates...
6 months ago
41
6 months 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...
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
Sean Carroll
What I Look for in Podcast Guests People often suggest guests to appear on Mindscape — which I very much appreciate! Several of my...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
People often suggest guests to appear on Mindscape — which I very much appreciate! Several of my best conversations were with people I had never heard of before they were effectively suggested by someone. Suggestions could be made here (in comments below), or on the subreddit, or...
NeuroLogica Blog
Gene Editing Chickens to Resist Bird Flu There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat....
a year ago
6
a year ago
There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat. They are a high efficiency source of high quality protein. It’s the kind of thing we need to do if we want to feed 8 billion people. Similarly we have planted 4.62 billion acres of...
Math Is Still...
Novel Architecture Makes Neural Networks More Understandable By tapping into a decades-old mathematical principle, researchers are hoping that Kolmogorov-Arnold...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
By tapping into a decades-old mathematical principle, researchers are hoping that Kolmogorov-Arnold networks will facilitate scientific discovery. The post Novel Architecture Makes Neural Networks More Understandable first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Why Isn’t Solar Scaling in Africa? The World Bank designed the Scaling Solar program to set Africa on a course to sustainable energy....
10 months ago
1
10 months ago
The World Bank designed the Scaling Solar program to set Africa on a course to sustainable energy. Instead, it shed light on how a lack of transparency in the climate and development industry hampers progress.
Wanderingspace
Space-X Looking Like 2001 Space Odyssey Amazing shot. Looks like a movie.
a year ago
Probably...
Testing Percentiles Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. test_percentile Testing percentiles¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. I have two different samples (about 100...
The Works in...
The entrepreneurial state How state competition – through war – can drive institutional progress
11 months ago
Light from Space
Vaporwave Crescent Shooting space with a monochrome camera means using various filters—when choosing narrowband filters...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Shooting space with a monochrome camera means using various filters—when choosing narrowband filters (those with only a few nanometers of bandpass) one can limit the sensor capturing only very specific wavelengths of light, namely the emissions of certain gasses (basically,...
Cremieux Recueil
Trump Should Finish What He Started A guestpost calling for Trump to finish radically reforming the tax system
3 weeks ago
IEEE Spectrum
Tiny Exploding Houses Promoted 18th-Century Lightning Rods Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological...
a year ago
3
a year ago
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological concept to the general public. Done right, tech literacy might soar! A compelling visual example can really help people understand the applications and implications of new...
Math Is Still...
How Is Science Even Possible? How are scientists able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? How does math make the...
6 months ago
56
6 months ago
How are scientists able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? How does math make the complex cosmos understandable? In this episode, the physicist Nigel Goldenfeld and co-host Steven Strogatz explore the deep foundations of the scientific process. The...
Math Is Still...
Math That Goes On Forever but Never Repeats Simple math can help explain the complexities of the newly discovered aperiodic monotile. ...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Simple math can help explain the complexities of the newly discovered aperiodic monotile. The post Math That Goes On Forever but Never Repeats first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Wanderingspace
Phobos over mount Sharp Taken by the Curiosity rover. This is one of Mars tiny moons as seen from the ground. Impressive as...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Taken by the Curiosity rover. This is one of Mars tiny moons as seen from the ground. Impressive as it is only 14 long and you can actually see its shape from the surface. See Phobos below for reference.
nanoscale views
Very brief end of the year round-up It's hard to believe that it's already the end of 2023.  It's been a busy year for condensed matter;...
11 months ago
29
11 months ago
It's hard to believe that it's already the end of 2023.  It's been a busy year for condensed matter; it's unfortunate that two of the biggest stories (problems with high pressure superconductivity papers; the brief excitement about LK99, the not-actually-a-superconductor) were...
Wanderingspace
ISS Looks Like a Toy These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are...
over a year ago
24
over a year ago
These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are real. Each frame is taken with ground based amateur telescopes and then pieced together with common image software like Adobe Photoshop. It is incredible to me that there are people...
Math Is Still...
The Year in Physics From the smallest scales to the largest, the physical world provided no shortage of surprises this...
a year ago
9
a year ago
From the smallest scales to the largest, the physical world provided no shortage of surprises this year. The post The Year in Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
JWST Spots Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb...
a year ago
8
a year ago
Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpected abundance of the beasts. The post JWST Spots Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe first appeared on...
Math Is Still...
The Year in Physics Physicists discovered strange supersolids, constructed new kinds of superconductors, and continued...
5 days ago
6
5 days ago
Physicists discovered strange supersolids, constructed new kinds of superconductors, and continued to make the case that the cosmos is far weirder than anyone suspected. The post The Year in Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Foams! (or, why my split pea side dish boils over every Thanksgiving) Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.   Adapted from TOC figure of this...
3 weeks ago
9
3 weeks ago
Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.   Adapted from TOC figure of this paper Consider my shaving cream.  You might imagine that the (mostly water) material would just pool as a homogeneous liquid, since water molecules have a strong attraction for one...
Math Is Still...
The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could...
7 months ago
42
7 months ago
Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size. The post The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes first appeared on Quanta...
Math Is Still...
Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t...
a year ago
4
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
NeuroLogica Blog
Was Jesus a Con Artist? Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots of clarification. This was, however, the discussion here, while although poorly informed, does raise some interesting questions. This is a Tik Tok video of a popular podcast which...
The Works in...
The eye of the tiger What makes tigers different from one another?
a year ago
nanoscale views
APS March Meeting 2023, Day 4 + wrapup My last day at the March Meeting was a bit scattershot, but here are a few highlights: In a...
a year ago
21
a year ago
My last day at the March Meeting was a bit scattershot, but here are a few highlights: In a session about spin transport, the opening invited talk by Jiaming He was a clear discussion of recent experimental results on spin Seebeck effects in the magnetic insulator LuFeO3. The...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
AI in healthcare - defensibility, capabilities, and cost reduction | Out-Of-Pocket
7 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Role of Plausibility in Science I have been writing blog posts and engaging in science communication long enough that I have a...
a year ago
51
a year ago
I have been writing blog posts and engaging in science communication long enough that I have a pretty good sense how much engagement I am going to get from a particular topic. Some topics are simply more divisive than others (although there is an unpredictable element from social...
symmetry magazine
Creating the next 3D maps of the universe Scientists have proposed new instruments that would use spectroscopy to decode dark matter, dark...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Scientists have proposed new instruments that would use spectroscopy to decode dark matter, dark energy and cosmic inflation. Telescope images can tell us a whole lot about celestial objects: where they are located in the sky, how bright they are, how big they...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
6 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
BBC Gets Into UFOs Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become...
5 months ago
60
5 months ago
Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become fascinated with a topic, but eventually the novelty will wear thin and interest will fade. But the flame will be kept alive by the hardcore believers. Wait long enough, and...
brr
South Pole Signage Please close doors quietly!
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Out-Of-Pocket Game plan | Out-Of-Pocket How to build the on-boarding system for healthcare
a year ago
Drew Ex Machina
GOES Video of Solar Eclipse – October 14, 2023 Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14,...
a year ago
44
a year ago
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023 was no different. Unlike a total solar eclipse where the […]
Math Is Still...
A New Map of the Universe, Painted With Cosmic Neutrinos Physicists finally know where at least some of these high-energy particles come from, which helps...
a year ago
22
a year ago
Physicists finally know where at least some of these high-energy particles come from, which helps make the neutrinos useful for exploring fundamental physics. The post A New Map of the Universe, Painted With Cosmic Neutrinos first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
100 Billion Humans The world can carry them!
a month ago
Light from Space
The Dense & Dusty Orion Nebula Next to the Andromeda Galaxy, the Orion Nebula (also referred to as “Great Nebula in Orion” in older...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Next to the Andromeda Galaxy, the Orion Nebula (also referred to as “Great Nebula in Orion” in older texts) is likely the first target for any fledgling amateur astrophotographer in the Northern Hemisphere. It's so bright it actually appears to the naked eye essentially like a
Quantum Frontiers
What is the logical gate speed of a photonic quantum computer? Terry Rudolph, PsiQuantum & Imperial College London During a recent visit to the wild western town...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Terry Rudolph, PsiQuantum & Imperial College London During a recent visit to the wild western town of Pasadena I got into a shootout at high-noon trying to explain the nuances of this question to a colleague. Here is a more … Continue reading →
symmetry magazine
A call to cite Black women and gender minorities Theoretical astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein recently unveiled the Cite Black Women+ in...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Theoretical astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein recently unveiled the Cite Black Women+ in Physics and Astronomy Bibliography.
NeuroLogica Blog
Choosing our Representatives As we are in an election year in the US, there seems to be only one thing on which there is broad...
6 months ago
47
6 months ago
As we are in an election year in the US, there seems to be only one thing on which there is broad agreement – this upcoming election will be consequential. So allow me to share some of my musings about the process of electing our political representatives. Let me start by laying...
nanoscale views
New paper - plasmons, excitons, and steering energy We have a new paper out in Nano Letters (arxiv version here), and I wanted to explain a bit about it...
a year ago
9
a year ago
We have a new paper out in Nano Letters (arxiv version here), and I wanted to explain a bit about it and why I think it's a really cool result.    I've written before about the Purcell Effect.  When we study quantum mechanics, we learn that the rates of processes, like the...
Asterisk
A Field Guide to AI Safety AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a...
a year ago
1
a year ago
AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a decade still have strong disagreements.
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...
a year ago
5
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....
Math Is Still...
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...
2 months ago
16
2 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
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...
a year ago
76
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,...
Math Is Still...
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
8
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
Wanderingspace
Mars Express is Still Making Great Images 20 Years Later Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In one shot, you can see Mars as a half-lit disk, with Phobos, its tiny moon, hovering above. Right below Phobos is Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano, towering 22 km...
Quantum Frontiers
Colliding the familiar and the anti-familiar at CERN toise me at CERN was a box of chocolates. CERN is a multinational particle-physics collaboration....
11 months ago
60
11 months ago
toise me at CERN was a box of chocolates. CERN is a multinational particle-physics collaboration. Based in Geneva, CERN is famous for having “the world’s largest and most powerful accelerator,” according to its website. So a physicist will take for … Continue reading →
The Works in...
How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars - 2022, Ukraine Maintains A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Eukaryote Writes...
There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From 'dendro', the ancient Greek root for tree.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare in India | Out-Of-Pocket From the eyes of someone on the ground
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Elizabeth Holmes Going to Prison I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it...
a year ago
42
a year ago
I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it took 7 years to follow this story through to the end. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the company Theranos, was  convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to 11 years in prison....
IEEE Spectrum
Xerox Donates Legendary PARC Research Center Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI International. The subsidiary’s pioneering research in the 1970s helped give birth to the era of personal computing. Xerox says the move will allow it to focus on its core business. The...
Math Is Still...
The Astonishing Behavior of Recursive Sequences Some strange mathematical sequences are always whole numbers — until they’re not. The puzzling...
a year ago
8
a year ago
Some strange mathematical sequences are always whole numbers — until they’re not. The puzzling patterns have revealed ties to graph theory and prime numbers, awing mathematicians. The post The Astonishing Behavior of Recursive Sequences first appeared on Quanta...
IEEE Spectrum
Sci-fi and Hi-fi Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire...
9 months ago
35
9 months ago
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire companies around an idea introduced in a story they read, as the founders of Second Life and Meta did, working from the metaverse as imagined by Neal Stephenson in his seminal 1992...
nanoscale views
The future of the semiconductor industry, + The Mechanical Universe Three items of interest: This article is a nice review of present semiconductor memory...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Three items of interest: This article is a nice review of present semiconductor memory technology.  The electron micrographs in Fig. 1 and the scaling history in Fig. 3 are impressive. This article in IEEE Spectrum is a very interesting look at how some people think we will get...
nanoscale views
APS March Meeting 2024, Day 4 and wrap-up Because of the timing of my flight back to Houston, I really only went to one session today, in...
9 months ago
21
9 months ago
Because of the timing of my flight back to Houston, I really only went to one session today, in which my student spoke as did some collaborators.  It was a pretty interesting collection of contributed talks.   The work that's been done on spin transport in multiferroic...
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...
4 months ago
43
4 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 […]