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Borneo: Ridiculous Mothing At Trus Madi Entomology Camp When doing research on the few possible "lifer" birds that I could find on this trip to Sabah, and...
14th Dec 2024
46

Borneo: Ridiculous Mothing At Trus Madi Entomology Camp

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

14th Dec 2024
When doing research on the few possible "lifer" birds that I could find on this trip to Sabah, and in particular, looking for sites to find the Bornean Frogmouth, I read about the Trus Madi Entomology Camp. This piqued my interest, as there is almost nothing I like more than...
How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently...
10th Sep 2020
1

How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry

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

10th Sep 2020
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life. The post How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Common ROI mistakes in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket Plus some benchmark ROI numbers for you to think about
7th Jul 2025
35

Common ROI mistakes in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket

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

7th Jul 2025
Plus some benchmark ROI numbers for you to think about
The Soul of the Heart Nebula A spectacular emission Nebula, the Heart Nebula is one of the classics of Northern Hemisphere...
5th Nov 2022
57

The Soul of the Heart Nebula

from Light from Space [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Nov 2022
A spectacular emission Nebula, the Heart Nebula is one of the classics of Northern Hemisphere amateury astronomy. In the gallery below, I've highlighted 3 very different areas of the image: Left: Planetary Nebula WeBo-1 Middle: Melotte 15 in the... heart of the Heart...
Cambodian Forest Defenders at Risk for Exposing Illegal Logging The lush forests that have long sustained Cambodia’s Indigenous people have steadily fallen to...
2nd Jun 2025
6

Cambodian Forest Defenders at Risk for Exposing Illegal Logging

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

2nd Jun 2025
The lush forests that have long sustained Cambodia’s Indigenous people have steadily fallen to illicit logging. Now, community members face intimidation and risk arrest as they patrol their forests to document the losses and try to push the government to stop the cutting. Read...
Brian Fagan: We Are Not the First to Suffer Through Climate Change ### Catastrophic drought is coming back There are two kinds of historians, Brian Fagan says,...
10th Mar 2007
1

Brian Fagan: We Are Not the First to Suffer Through Climate Change

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

10th Mar 2007
### Catastrophic drought is coming back There are two kinds of historians, Brian Fagan says, parachutists and truffle hunters. Parachutists command an overview of the landscape, while truffle hunters dig deeply to uncover marvelous treasures. Fagan is a parachutist. In his talk...
Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3 Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3 The post Heads Up: Total...
25th Feb 2026
1

Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3

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

25th Feb 2026
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3 The post Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
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...
13th Apr 2024
123

Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon

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

13th Apr 2024
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.”
Yet More New Ideas and New Functions: Launching Version 14.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector...
31st Jul 2024
99
31st Jul 2024
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector Databases and Semantic Search RAGs and Dynamic Prompting for LLMs Connect to Your Favorite LLM Symbolic Arrays and Their Calculus Binomials and Pitchforks: Navigating Mathematical...
Borneo 2024: Introduction And Pre-Tour Birding About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for...
3rd Nov 2024
31

Borneo 2024: Introduction And Pre-Tour Birding

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

3rd Nov 2024
About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for Quest Nature Tours. I've always said that Borneo is one of my favourite tours that I run and even after three previous trips I was looking forward to returning. One of the main...
Mary Catherine Bateson: Live Longer, Think Longer ### Parenting Earth The birth of a first child is the most intense disruption that most adults...
10th Feb 2011
1

Mary Catherine Bateson: Live Longer, Think Longer

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

10th Feb 2011
### Parenting Earth The birth of a first child is the most intense disruption that most adults experience. Suddenly the new parents have no sleep, no social life, no sex, and they have to keep up with a child that changes from week to week. "Two ignorant adults learn from the...
Building Objects with Category Theory Typically category theory is useful for showing the uniqueness of certain objects by checking that...
20th Feb 2023
30

Building Objects with Category Theory

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

20th Feb 2023
Typically category theory is useful for showing the uniqueness of certain objects by checking that they satisfy some universal property. This makes them unique up to unique isomorphism. However, category theory can also be used in order to show that objects exist at all, usually...
Vortices everywhere The 2026 APS Oliver E. Buckley Prize in condensed matter physics was announced this week, and it's a...
8th Nov 2025
2

Vortices everywhere

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

8th Nov 2025
The 2026 APS Oliver E. Buckley Prize in condensed matter physics was announced this week, and it's a really interesting combination of topics that, to a lay person, may seem to be completely unrelated.   Fig. 1 from this follow-up PRB. On the one hand, John Reppy (at age 94!)...
Telepathy Tapes Promotes Pseudoscience I was away on vacation the last week, hence no posts, but am now back to my usual schedule. In fact,...
2nd Jun 2025
31

Telepathy Tapes Promotes Pseudoscience

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

2nd Jun 2025
I was away on vacation the last week, hence no posts, but am now back to my usual schedule. In fact, I hope to be a little more consistent starting this summer because (if you follow me on the SGU you already know this) I am retiring from my day job at Yale at the […] The post...
Weekend trivia: your process' memory is a file The underappreciated gem of /proc/ /mem
1st Jun 2026
1

Weekend trivia: your process' memory is a file

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

1st Jun 2026
The underappreciated gem of /proc/ /mem
Local warming Gas heating is bad for the environment. But home-built heat pumps aren’t perfect either.
21st Apr 2022
1

Local warming

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

21st Apr 2022
Gas heating is bad for the environment. But home-built heat pumps aren’t perfect either.
Tylenol and Autism: A Replication! A Japanese sibling control study, probabilistic sensitivity analysis, and negative control study...
3rd Oct 2025
1

Tylenol and Autism: A Replication!

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

3rd Oct 2025
A Japanese sibling control study, probabilistic sensitivity analysis, and negative control study all-in-one paper confirms there's no link!
No Retvrn An American tradition of embracing modernity.
4th Aug 2025
1

No Retvrn

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Aug 2025
An American tradition of embracing modernity.
The Math of Catastrophe Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to...
14th Oct 2025
1

The Math of Catastrophe

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

14th Oct 2025
Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to dry out, becoming the desert that we know today. Tipping points are moments in Earth’s history where gradual change suddenly becomes rapid and forms a new equilibrium. They’re one...
The Anticipated Future of the Moon When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day...
15th Feb 2021
31

The Anticipated Future of the Moon

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

15th Feb 2021
When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day was approximately five hours long. During the intervening billions of years, the dragging effect of the moon’s gravity slowed the Earth’s spin to the 24-hour day we now observe....
The call of the Whimbrel The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a...
6th Feb 2025
71

The call of the Whimbrel

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

6th Feb 2025
The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a long, dark winter. These wonderful waders are responding badly to recent changes to Iceland’s landscape, such as the ever-expanding areas of non-native forestry and power...
Walter Mischel: The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control ### Thinking hot and cool **In the 1960s, Mischel** and colleagues at Stanford launched a series of...
3rd May 2016
1

Walter Mischel: The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control

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

3rd May 2016
### Thinking hot and cool **In the 1960s, Mischel** and colleagues at Stanford launched a series of delayed-gratification experiments with young children using a method that later came to be known as “the marshmallow test.” A researcher whom the child knew and trusted, after...
How Randomness Improves Algorithms Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems. The...
3rd Apr 2023
74

How Randomness Improves Algorithms

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

3rd Apr 2023
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems. The post How Randomness Improves Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
How NOT To Think About Cells Are we all just running on molecular clockwork?
14th Oct 2022
22

How NOT To Think About Cells

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Oct 2022
Are we all just running on molecular clockwork?
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought ### Dispatches from Extremistan A "black swan," Taleb explained, is an event which is 1) Hard to...
5th Feb 2008
1
5th Feb 2008
### Dispatches from Extremistan A "black swan," Taleb explained, is an event which is 1) Hard to predict; 2) Highly consequential; 3) Wrongly retro-predicted. We pretend we know why the big event happened, and so entrench our inability to deal with the next world-changing...
Where Will AI Stocks Go from Here? Summer 2026 Dispatch
3rd Aug 2026
2

Where Will AI Stocks Go from Here?

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

3rd Aug 2026
Summer 2026 Dispatch
The evolution of bacteria Generations of microbes evolve in hours, not millennia. By speeding up Darwin’s clock, scientists...
5th Nov 2025
1

The evolution of bacteria

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

5th Nov 2025
Generations of microbes evolve in hours, not millennia. By speeding up Darwin’s clock, scientists have watched evolution happen in real time, and it’s changed how we understand natural selection.
Spencer Beebe: Very Long-term Very Large-scale Biomimicry ### The rainforests of home Spencer Beebe is founder and head of Ecotrust, the Portland-based...
12th Mar 2005
1

Spencer Beebe: Very Long-term Very Large-scale Biomimicry

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

12th Mar 2005
### The rainforests of home Spencer Beebe is founder and head of Ecotrust, the Portland-based organization that is setting in motion a permanently prosperous conservation economy for the entire Pacific Coast from San Francisco north to Alaska-- the temperate rain forest also...
Sea Monkeys, Jupiter, and the Mystery of Turbulence Turbulence is all around us: bumping our planes, roiling our rivers, swirling milk into our coffee....
a week ago
2

Sea Monkeys, Jupiter, and the Mystery of Turbulence

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

a week ago
Turbulence is all around us: bumping our planes, roiling our rivers, swirling milk into our coffee. These systems quickly become extremely chaotic and complex. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with contributing writer Stephen Ornes about a recent...
A Good Memory or a Bad One? One Brain Molecule Decides. When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will...
4th Jan 2023
1

A Good Memory or a Bad One? One Brain Molecule Decides.

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

4th Jan 2023
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will go. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Retro” by Wayne Jones.
Proving Another "Real Theorem" with Topos Theory Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol. Somebody asked whether...
25th Mar 2024
61

Proving Another "Real Theorem" with Topos Theory

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

25th Mar 2024
Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol. Somebody asked whether maximizing over a compact set is a continuous thing to do. That is, given a continuous function $f : K \times X \to \mathbb{R}$ is the function $x \mapsto \max_{k \in K} f(k,x)$...
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part III Part 3 Hi Steve, and thank you for your timely response, and for even considering hosting this...
6th Mar 2023
57

A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part III

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

6th Mar 2023
Part 3 Hi Steve, and thank you for your timely response, and for even considering hosting this debate. There has been, and continues to be a “blackout” on almost all discussion regarding the science behind climate change. If “The science” is truly “settled”, it is a pretty shaky...
Seth Lloyd: Quantum Computer Reality ### Quantum Computer Reality The 15th-century Renaissance was triggered, Lloyd began, by a flood of...
10th Aug 2016
1

Seth Lloyd: Quantum Computer Reality

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

10th Aug 2016
### Quantum Computer Reality The 15th-century Renaissance was triggered, Lloyd began, by a flood of new information which changed how people thought about everything, and the same thing is happening now. All of us have had to shift, just in the last couple decades, from hungry...
Where Do Those Undergraduate Divisibility Problems Come From? Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class or something...
16th Jan 2025
73

Where Do Those Undergraduate Divisibility Problems Come From?

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

16th Jan 2025
Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class or something similar, you’ll be shown problems of the form “prove that for $n^6 + n^3 + 2n^2 + 2n$ is a multiple of $6$ for every $n$”… But where do these problems come from? And have you ever...
The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks Investigations of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well...
11th Nov 2021
1

The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks

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

11th Nov 2021
Investigations of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well as insights into the nature of time itself. The post The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Margaret Levi: The Organized Pursuit of Knowledge The human quest to understand our world continues. The Director of Stanford’s [Center for Advanced...
18th Apr 2018
1

Margaret Levi: The Organized Pursuit of Knowledge

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

18th Apr 2018
The human quest to understand our world continues. The Director of Stanford’s [Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS)](http://casbs.stanford.edu/) discusses how academics and researchers have organized the study of human action, society, and institutions...
The Lofstrom Loop: A Bridge to Space Imagine you could take a train ride to space. Tracks that slope up into the sky, higher and higher,...
9th Dec 2023
1

The Lofstrom Loop: A Bridge to Space

from ToughSF [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Dec 2023
Imagine you could take a train ride to space. Tracks that slope up into the sky, higher and higher, until you reach a plateau above the planet where it’s a straight line up to orbital velocity. That’s what’s possible with a Lofstrom Loop. But sending you into orbit is just one...
In an Already Broiling Summer, El Niño Is About to Turn Up the Heat El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe,...
3rd Aug 2026
1
3rd Aug 2026
El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization. The forecast comes as blistering heat shatters temperature records from Europe to Asia. Read more on E360 →
How TV learned to sell itself Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
11th Mar 2026
1

How TV learned to sell itself

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

11th Mar 2026
Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
Iqbal Quadir: Technology Empowers the Poorest ### Making Money WITH the Poor When Iqbal Quadir applied to US colleges from his home town in...
22nd May 2008
1

Iqbal Quadir: Technology Empowers the Poorest

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

22nd May 2008
### Making Money WITH the Poor When Iqbal Quadir applied to US colleges from his home town in Bangladesh he was surprised to discover that not all American universities were found in Washington, DC. That's how it was in Bangladesh, where everything of importance was centralized...
What’s Special about Life? Bulk Orchestration and the Rulial Ensemble in Biology and Beyond Towards a Theory of Bulk Orchestration It’s a key feature of living systems, perhaps even in some...
11th Nov 2025
1
11th Nov 2025
Towards a Theory of Bulk Orchestration It’s a key feature of living systems, perhaps even in some ways the key feature: that even right down to a molecular scale, things are orchestrated. Molecules (or at least large ones) don’t just move around randomly, like in a liquid or a...
The Data Reveals Top Patent Portfolios Eight years is a long time in the world of patents. When we last published what we then called the...
1st Jun 2025
26

The Data Reveals Top Patent Portfolios

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

1st Jun 2025
Eight years is a long time in the world of patents. When we last published what we then called the Patent Power Scorecard, in 2017, it was a different technological and social landscape—Google had just filed a patent application on the transformer architecture, a momentous...
The Soviet Zond 3 Lunar Flyby: Revealing the Rest of the Far Side Naturally, the early history of space exploration is filled with firsts. Just six decades ago at...
18th Jul 2025
44

The Soviet Zond 3 Lunar Flyby: Revealing the Rest of the Far Side

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

18th Jul 2025
Naturally, the early history of space exploration is filled with firsts. Just six decades ago at this time, the world watched as NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft […]
How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars - 2022, Ukraine Maintains A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
2nd Nov 2023
69

How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars - 2022, Ukraine Maintains

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

2nd Nov 2023
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
"Nutrition Science's Most Preposterous Result" is False There's no mysterious health benefit to eating ice cream
2nd Apr 2026
1

"Nutrition Science's Most Preposterous Result" is False

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

2nd Apr 2026
There's no mysterious health benefit to eating ice cream
American Elections Are Unfair Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
5th Nov 2024
47

American Elections Are Unfair

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

5th Nov 2024
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
The ultimate horse Selective breeding has pushed horses to the limits of biology. But at what cost?
5th Aug 2026
1

The ultimate horse

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

5th Aug 2026
Selective breeding has pushed horses to the limits of biology. But at what cost?
The Rube’s Dilemma It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly...
28th Oct 2022
44

The Rube’s Dilemma

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

28th Oct 2022
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly colored ribbon tied around the crown. Originally popularized by gondoliers in Venice, this jaunty accessory had reached the height of American couture by the turn of the 20th century....
Brr Wants A Job 8 months post-ice, it's time for something new!
22nd Jul 2024
102

Brr Wants A Job

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Jul 2024
8 months post-ice, it's time for something new!
Externalizing Some Simple Topos Statements Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done...
13th Dec 2022
32

Externalizing Some Simple Topos Statements

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

13th Dec 2022
Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done math in any serious capacity for almost the past month. It’s been a lot of hard work trying to get fair contracts out of the UC, but I had a lot of travel plans this December to...
Interaction20 Round-up Summary of all the amazing, curious and challenging ideas from last week's IXDA Interaction 20...
13th Feb 2020
22

Interaction20 Round-up

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

13th Feb 2020
Summary of all the amazing, curious and challenging ideas from last week's IXDA Interaction 20 conference.
The road from serfdom Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful...
16th Feb 2024
1

The road from serfdom

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

16th Feb 2024
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful opposition took a remarkable approach that let peasants vote themselves into freedom.
Potentially undervalued companies I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies...
30th Aug 2024
40

Potentially undervalued companies

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

30th Aug 2024
I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies developing them. 90% of the time, my answer is “I don’t know” but it continues to concern me that aspects of technical feasibility are evidently not legible to financial types (and...
Why Are There No Short Arch Dams? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Flaming Gorge Dam rises from...
5th Aug 2025
38

Why Are There No Short Arch Dams?

from Blog - Practical Engineering [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Aug 2025
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Flaming Gorge Dam rises from the Green River in northern Utah like a concrete wedge driven into the canyon, anchored against the sheer rock walls that flank it. It’s quintessential, in a way. It’s what we...
Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the...
2nd Apr 2025
56

Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

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

2nd Apr 2025
A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and evolution. The post Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Annual Nobel speculation thread It’s that time of year again.  The physics Nobel will be announced next Tuesday, and the chemistry...
1st Oct 2025
1

Annual Nobel speculation thread

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

1st Oct 2025
It’s that time of year again.  The physics Nobel will be announced next Tuesday, and the chemistry prize on Wednesday.  Who will it be this time?  Please speculate in the comments.  As is my annual futile tradition, I will put forward that the physics prize could...
2015 Meta Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I...
11th Jan 2016
35

2015 Meta

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

11th Jan 2016
Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I published a paltry six full essays this year. Don't get me wrong: I'm proud of them. But still, six. It would be… Read more ›
Four one-sided test of significance (FOST). Dear reader, does this make sense? In this blog post I propose a four one-sided test of significance (FOST) that can be used to test...
24th May 2024
1
24th May 2024
In this blog post I propose a four one-sided test of significance (FOST) that can be used to test whether an effect is smaller than OR larger than OR equivalent to the smallest effect size of interest. I lay out the general setup and interpretation of FOST, and ask readers to...
Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent...
2nd Jan 2025
83

Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life

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

2nd Jan 2025
Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent home inside another. For the first time, biologists made it happen in the lab. The post Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life first appeared...
A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance...
1st Apr 2021
1

A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life

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

1st Apr 2021
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes. The post A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Flipping the switch on far-UVC We’ve known about far-UVC’s promise for a decade. Why isn't it everywhere?
10th Mar 2025
47

Flipping the switch on far-UVC

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

10th Mar 2025
We’ve known about far-UVC’s promise for a decade. Why isn't it everywhere?
The world of tomorrow When the future arrived, it felt… ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow?
2nd Jun 2025
26

The world of tomorrow

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

2nd Jun 2025
When the future arrived, it felt… ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow?
Organisms Are Not Made Of Atoms Individuality is a process.
12th Feb 2022
23

Organisms Are Not Made Of Atoms

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Feb 2022
Individuality is a process.
AI After Drug Development Coming up with drug candidates isn’t the bottleneck on finding new treatments. Can AI help with the...
1st Jan 1970
1

AI After Drug Development

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jan 1970
Coming up with drug candidates isn’t the bottleneck on finding new treatments. Can AI help with the things that are?
Ed Moses: Clean Fusion Power This Decade ### Imminent fusion power All the light we see from the sky, Moses pointed out, comes from fusion...
17th Jun 2010
1

Ed Moses: Clean Fusion Power This Decade

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

17th Jun 2010
### Imminent fusion power All the light we see from the sky, Moses pointed out, comes from fusion power burning hydrogen, the commonest element in the universe---3/4 of all mass. A byproduct of the cosmic fusion is the star-stuff that we and the Earth are made of. On Earth, 4...
Life as a physical process It’s always hard to define life. Everyone has their favorite definition – some describe it as a...
4th Jun 2025
47

Life as a physical process

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

4th Jun 2025
It’s always hard to define life. Everyone has their favorite definition – some describe it as a struggle against entropy, while others describe it as an emergent property of chemicals. Countless books have been written on the topic, yet we’re far from a consensus. Against the...
Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: Some Thoughts about the Calendar This year February will have an extra day -- we discuss why? The post Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: ...
12th Feb 2024
34

Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: Some Thoughts about the Calendar

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

12th Feb 2024
This year February will have an extra day -- we discuss why? The post Enjoy the Coming Leap Day: Some Thoughts about the Calendar appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Interspecies Hybrids Play a Vital Role in Evolution Hybrids, once treated as biological misfits, play a vital role in the evolution of many animal...
18th Jan 2018
1

Interspecies Hybrids Play a Vital Role in Evolution

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

18th Jan 2018
Hybrids, once treated as biological misfits, play a vital role in the evolution of many animal species. Now conservationists are trying to reconcile that truth with policies. The post Interspecies Hybrids Play a Vital Role in Evolution first appeared on Quanta...
Do AI Models Agree On How They Encode Reality? In the allegory of Plato’s cave, prisoners see the world only through shadows. Extending this...
3rd Feb 2026
1

Do AI Models Agree On How They Encode Reality?

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

3rd Feb 2026
In the allegory of Plato’s cave, prisoners see the world only through shadows. Extending this metaphor to AI, AI models are the prisoners and the shadows are streams of data. Are all models converging on a singular representation of reality? On this week’s episode of The Quanta...
A Whimbrel’s year There’s a lot to fit into twelve months if you’re a Whimbrel. In the last paper from his PhD, Camilo...
22nd Sep 2022
65

A Whimbrel’s year

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Sep 2022
There’s a lot to fit into twelve months if you’re a Whimbrel. In the last paper from his PhD, Camilo Carneiro assesses whether Icelandic Whimbrel can always manage to complete the annual cycle of migrate-breed-fatten-migrate-moult-fatten in just 365 days. What happens if a pair...
The first non-opioid painkiller For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally...
6th Oct 2025
1

The first non-opioid painkiller

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

6th Oct 2025
For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally made something better.
Trademark Design Codes The United States Patent and Trademark Office has a system of 1,400 descriptive "design codes"...
9th Apr 2024
130

Trademark Design Codes

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

9th Apr 2024
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has a system of 1,400 descriptive "design codes" allowing you to search for trademarks with “Rickshaws”, “Centaurs” or “Mechanical women”.
Are All the Good Men Married? Why do married men earn so much? Is it because the good men get married, or does marriage make men...
13th Sep 2025
1

Are All the Good Men Married?

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

13th Sep 2025
Why do married men earn so much? Is it because the good men get married, or does marriage make men good?
Plastic archeology The history, science and engineering of Lego bricks, on the cusp between trash and treasure.
20th Nov 2023
38

Plastic archeology

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

20th Nov 2023
The history, science and engineering of Lego bricks, on the cusp between trash and treasure.
Lessons in frustration Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken.  I was a master’s student in...
17th Feb 2025
64

Lessons in frustration

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

17th Feb 2025
Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken.  I was a master’s student in the Perimeter Scholars International program at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Perimeter trotted in world experts to lecture about modern physics. Many … Continue...
Neal Stephenson: Polostan Neal Stephenson, visionary speculative fiction author and long-time friend of Long Now, joined us...
14th Nov 2024
1

Neal Stephenson: Polostan

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

14th Nov 2024
Neal Stephenson, visionary speculative fiction author and long-time friend of Long Now, joined us for a conversation with journalist Charles C. Mann on the research behind his new novel _Polostan_ , the dawn of the Atomic Age, and the craft of historical storytelling....
Timothy Ferriss: Accelerated Learning in Accelerated Times ### Learning to learn fast To acquire "the meta-skill of acquiring skills," Ferriss recommends...
15th Sep 2011
1

Timothy Ferriss: Accelerated Learning in Accelerated Times

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

15th Sep 2011
### Learning to learn fast To acquire "the meta-skill of acquiring skills," Ferriss recommends approaching any subject with some contrarian analysis: "What if I try the opposite of best practices?" Some conventional wisdom---"children learn languages faster than adults" (no they...
Will AI Make Work Redundant? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
6th Nov 2023
33

Will AI Make Work Redundant?

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

6th Nov 2023
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional wisdom, but I’m not so sure. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted that AI would “make paid work redundant.” I encountered the same opinion watching the latest season of...
Risk-Adjusted Return What are we afraid of?
15th Apr 2026
1

Risk-Adjusted Return

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

15th Apr 2026
What are we afraid of?
Brief items - Static electricity, quantum geometry, Hubbard model, + news It's been a busy time that has cut into my blogging, but I wanted to point out some links from the...
8th Aug 2025
1

Brief items - Static electricity, quantum geometry, Hubbard model, + news

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

8th Aug 2025
It's been a busy time that has cut into my blogging, but I wanted to point out some links from the past couple of weeks. Physics Today has a cover article this past issue about what is colloquially known as static electricity, but what is more technically described as...
The most steampunk qubit I never imagined that an artist would update me about quantum-computing research. Last year,...
25th May 2025
47

The most steampunk qubit

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

25th May 2025
I never imagined that an artist would update me about quantum-computing research. Last year, steampunk artist Bruce Rosenbaum forwarded me a notification about a news article published in Science. The article reported on an experiment performed in physicist Yiwen Chu’s … Continue...
Ray Kurzweil: Kurzweil's Law ### Escape velocity Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of...
24th Sep 2005
1

Ray Kurzweil: Kurzweil's Law

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

24th Sep 2005
### Escape velocity Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of imagining that the pace of the future is like the pace of the past. Pondering the next ten years, we usually begin by studying the last ten years. He recommends studying the last...
San Diego Photologs from the 1970s A collection of beautiful, high-resolution photolog scans reveals a colorful world of pastel-colored...
23rd Jun 2026
1

San Diego Photologs from the 1970s

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

23rd Jun 2026
A collection of beautiful, high-resolution photolog scans reveals a colorful world of pastel-colored cars and whimsical signage.
Watch men Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the...
2nd Dec 2025
1

Watch men

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

2nd Dec 2025
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
370 | Daniel Akerib on a Faint Hint of Dark Matter One reason it's been so hard to directly detect the dark matter is that we're not sure what it is....
a week ago
1

370 | Daniel Akerib on a Faint Hint of Dark Matter

from Sean Carroll [alt+shift+b] in science

a week ago
One reason it's been so hard to directly detect the dark matter is that we're not sure what it is. […]
OSIRIS-REX Leaves Bennu The OSIRIS-REX mission in on a two year trajectory back to Earth after capturing fragments of the...
12th May 2021
41

OSIRIS-REX Leaves Bennu

from Wanderingspace [alt+shift+b] in science

12th May 2021
The OSIRIS-REX mission in on a two year trajectory back to Earth after capturing fragments of the near Earth asteroid Bennu after successfully executing a sample touchdown last fall. [LINK] The sampling of of the asteroid’s surface is shown above.
Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the...
18th Aug 2021
45

Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno

from Wanderingspace [alt+shift+b] in science

18th Aug 2021
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the rest are thought to be active volcanos on the Io surface. The moons are not a primary target of the Juno mission, but they do occasionally take a peek to try and monitor such...
A.I., Wine, and Beer There have been many studies using scientific instrumentation, mostly gas chromatography, in...
10th Jun 2024
26

A.I., Wine, and Beer

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

10th Jun 2024
There have been many studies using scientific instrumentation, mostly gas chromatography, in attempts to find what distinguishes a superb wine from an inexpensive house wine. A typical wine can contain more than 800 different aroma compounds. One study examined two Australian...
Tim Flannery: Here on Earth ### Wallace beats Darwin The great insight of natural selection was published simultaneously by...
4th May 2011
1

Tim Flannery: Here on Earth

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

4th May 2011
### Wallace beats Darwin The great insight of natural selection was published simultaneously by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace in 1858, Flannery pointed out, but their interpretations of the insight then diverged. Darwin's harsh view of "survival of the fittest" led...
Notes on Progress: A winter's tale Melting snow can make the season easier
4th May 2023
55

Notes on Progress: A winter's tale

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

4th May 2023
Melting snow can make the season easier
Clay Shirky: Making Digital Durable: What Time Does to Categories ### Categories go nova It is fortunate that the leading thinker in "social software" is one of the...
15th Nov 2005
1

Clay Shirky: Making Digital Durable: What Time Does to Categories

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

15th Nov 2005
### Categories go nova It is fortunate that the leading thinker in "social software" is one of the best speakers in the high-tech world, a hot ticket at any conference that can get him. Clay Shirky gave one of his dazzling presentations Monday, Nov. 14, examining a new dimension...
Fusion without Fissiles: Superbombs and Wilderness Orion Fusion technology today relies on expensive, building-sized equipment for ignition, or the help of...
25th Mar 2022
1

Fusion without Fissiles: Superbombs and Wilderness Orion

from ToughSF [alt+shift+b] in science

25th Mar 2022
Fusion technology today relies on expensive, building-sized equipment for ignition, or the help of an already powerful fission detonation. What if we could do away with both? Fusion power without the need for fissiles, but also small enough to be launched into space. It is...
Coming Up: Einstein without Tears; Religion and Extraterrestrial Life Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The...
29th Sep 2024
78

Coming Up: Einstein without Tears; Religion and Extraterrestrial Life

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

29th Sep 2024
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State Presents: A non-technical, 6-week class with Professor Andrew Fraknoi Einstein without Tears Tuesdays from 12:30 to 2:30...
Foundations of Biological Evolution: More Results & More Surprises This is a follow-on to Why Does Biological Evolution Work? A Minimal Model for Biological Evolution...
5th Dec 2024
124

Foundations of Biological Evolution: More Results & More Surprises

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

5th Dec 2024
This is a follow-on to Why Does Biological Evolution Work? A Minimal Model for Biological Evolution and Other Adaptive Processes [May 3, 2024]. Even More from an Extremely Simple Model A few months ago I introduced an extremely simple “adaptive cellular automaton” model that...
Mike Kuniavsky: Our Future in Algorithm Farming Everything will be connected to the network, even things that shouldn’t be. From automobiles to egg...
1st Mar 2018
1

Mike Kuniavsky: Our Future in Algorithm Farming

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

1st Mar 2018
Everything will be connected to the network, even things that shouldn’t be. From automobiles to egg timers, Kuniavsky explains all these devices will try to get our attention and prove their value. They’ll also attempt to predict the future—at least the immediate future of our...
DOE experimental condensed matter PI meeting, + other items This week I am attending the every-two-years DOE Experimental Condensed Matter Physics PI meeting. ...
8th Sep 2025
1

DOE experimental condensed matter PI meeting, + other items

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

8th Sep 2025
This week I am attending the every-two-years DOE Experimental Condensed Matter Physics PI meeting.  Previously I have written up highlights of these meetings (see here, here, here, here, here), though two years I was unable to do so because I was attending virtually.  I will do...
What Is an Electronic Sackbut? If you, like me, think of musical synthesizers as an artifact of 1970s rock and disco, then you,...
1st Feb 2024
105

What Is an Electronic Sackbut?

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

1st Feb 2024
If you, like me, think of musical synthesizers as an artifact of 1970s rock and disco, then you, like me, will be surprised to learn that the first electronic synthesizer predates those genres by several decades In 1945, Hugh Le Caine, a physicist at Canada’s National Research...
Escape to the country What makes a successful New Town?
1st Aug 2024
79

Escape to the country

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

1st Aug 2024
What makes a successful New Town?
Rachel Sussman: The World's Oldest Living Organisms ### The Missing Science of Biological Longevity Creative photographer Sussman showed beautiful...
16th Nov 2010
1

Rachel Sussman: The World's Oldest Living Organisms

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

16th Nov 2010
### The Missing Science of Biological Longevity Creative photographer Sussman showed beautiful slides of very elderly organisms. The captions were as crucial as the images---naming the species, the place, and the approximate age. You can see many of them here:...
Peter Schwartz: The Art Of The Really Long View ### The art of the really long view For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going...
13th Dec 2003
1

Peter Schwartz: The Art Of The Really Long View

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

13th Dec 2003
### The art of the really long view For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going on in the Seminar Thursday night. The topic was "The Art of the Really Long View." Peter Schwartz chatted through his slides for tonight's lecture, then the discussion waded in....
A Natural History of Beauty A mashup of ideas from David Deutsch, Geoffrey Miller, and Richard Prum, with a little César Hidalgo...
30th Oct 2018
47

A Natural History of Beauty

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

30th Oct 2018
A mashup of ideas from David Deutsch, Geoffrey Miller, and Richard Prum, with a little César Hidalgo thrown in for good measure. —— Of all the problems that can plague a discussion of beauty — and there are several — perhaps… Read more ›
Jesse Ausubel: Nature is Rebounding ### Why nature is rebounding Over the last 40 years, in nearly every field, human productivity has...
14th Jan 2015
1

Jesse Ausubel: Nature is Rebounding

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

14th Jan 2015
### Why nature is rebounding Over the last 40 years, in nearly every field, human productivity has _decoupled_ from resource use, Ausubel began. Even though our prosperity and population continue to increase, the trends show _decreasing_ use of energy, water, land, material...
Storks Take Orders From the State Pronatal benefits and economic booms lead to greater numbers of births
2nd May 2025
39

Storks Take Orders From the State

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

2nd May 2025
Pronatal benefits and economic booms lead to greater numbers of births
Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 4 ### Gas Stations, Not Flowers The fourth incarnation of _Lost Landscapes of San Francisco_ played...
5th Dec 2009
1

Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 4

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

5th Dec 2009
### Gas Stations, Not Flowers The fourth incarnation of _Lost Landscapes of San Francisco_ played to a sold out house at the Herbst Theater with the chanteuse Suzanne Ramsey opening the evening with a selection of historical San Francisco songs including the 01926 gem [Masculine...
How to build a lunar mass driver Casey Handmer May 2026 What? Elon has recently (late 2025, early 2026) been talking about building...
8th May 2026
1

How to build a lunar mass driver

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

8th May 2026
Casey Handmer May 2026 What? Elon has recently (late 2025, early 2026) been talking about building many terawatts of orbital AI compute and launching some components from Moon factories with a mass driver. This is an old idea, enabled by …
Trust and Well-Being In a previous article, I claimed that Young adults are not very happy. Now the World Happiness...
3rd Apr 2026
1

Trust and Well-Being

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

3rd Apr 2026
In a previous article, I claimed that Young adults are not very happy. Now the World Happiness Report 2026 has confirmed that young people in North America and Western Europe are less happy than they were fifteen years ago, and less happy than previous generations. In this...
Where Geniuses Hide Today Where are today’s Michelangelos?
6th Dec 2024
49

Where Geniuses Hide Today

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

6th Dec 2024
Where are today’s Michelangelos?
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
3rd Jun 2024
125

Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket

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

3rd Jun 2024
The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
Weekend projects: Chicken Squisher 3000 If it clucks like a duck...
14th Oct 2025
1

Weekend projects: Chicken Squisher 3000

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

14th Oct 2025
If it clucks like a duck...
Notes on doing science and research I know it’s been awfully quiet here. I’ve not posted for a while. But I’ve been writing prolifically...
23rd Oct 2025
28

Notes on doing science and research

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

23rd Oct 2025
I know it’s been awfully quiet here. I’ve not posted for a while. But I’ve been writing prolifically somewhere else. Earlier this year, I started an AI lab called Lossfunk and that is what has kept me (happily) busy. We have a newsletter there called Lossfunk Letters where I...
What I’ve been reading, March 2023 A new monthly feature, let me know what you think. Books Matt Ridley, How Innovation Works (2020)....
9th Mar 2023
61

What I’ve been reading, March 2023

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

9th Mar 2023
A new monthly feature, let me know what you think. Books Matt Ridley, How Innovation Works (2020). About halfway through, lots of interesting case studies, very readable. Vaclav Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century (2005). I read the first chapter; saving the rest of it for when...
What If We Had Bigger Brains? Imagining Minds beyond Ours Cats Don’t Talk We humans have perhaps 100 billion neurons in our brains. But what if we had many...
21st May 2025
1

What If We Had Bigger Brains? Imagining Minds beyond Ours

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

21st May 2025
Cats Don’t Talk We humans have perhaps 100 billion neurons in our brains. But what if we had many more? Or what if the AIs we built effectively had many more? What kinds of things might then become possible? At 100 billion neurons, we know, for example, that compositional...
What I’ve been reading, October 2023 A ~monthly feature. Last month was busy for me with a lot of travel and a lot of focus on The Roots...
11th Oct 2023
101

What I’ve been reading, October 2023

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

11th Oct 2023
A ~monthly feature. Last month was busy for me with a lot of travel and a lot of focus on The Roots of Progress as a nonprofit organization, so I haven’t had as much time as I prefer for research and writing. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find...
Gavin Newsom & Stewart Brand: Cities and Time ### Sustainable Cities Mayor Newsom began with how moved he was by hosting the UN's World...
9th Apr 2009
1

Gavin Newsom & Stewart Brand: Cities and Time

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

9th Apr 2009
### Sustainable Cities Mayor Newsom began with how moved he was by hosting the UN's World Environment Day in San Francisco in 2005. For that event, which was called "Green Cities - Plan for the Planet!", he invited 120 mayors from around the world. Days of intense discussion...
A Nice (Almost Total) Eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27 How to get information about viewing the eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27 The post A Nice (Almost Total)...
22nd Aug 2026
2

A Nice (Almost Total) Eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27

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

22nd Aug 2026
How to get information about viewing the eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27 The post A Nice (Almost Total) Eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Estimating a Difference of Products Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last quick analysis trick....
28th Aug 2023
30

Estimating a Difference of Products

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

28th Aug 2023
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last quick analysis trick. But I’ve been itching to write more blog posts lately, and I thought that something quick and easy like this would be a good way to get back into it without the kind of effort...
Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still...
2nd Dec 2024
67

Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too?

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

2nd Dec 2024
The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well. The post Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Alexander Rose, Brian Eno, & Stewart Brand: Long Finance: The Enduring Value Conference ### Enduring Value In February 02010, [Brian Eno](../../../../people/board/prospect4/), [Stewart...
1st Feb 2010
1
1st Feb 2010
### Enduring Value In February 02010, [Brian Eno](../../../../people/board/prospect4/), [Stewart Brand](../../../../people/board/sb1/), and [Alexander Rose](../../../../people/staff/zander/) spoke at the [Long Finance...
Energy storage in the internal states of molecules - old and new A science story first, then a US research ecosystem story later. When we think about using molecules...
2nd May 2026
1

Energy storage in the internal states of molecules - old and new

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

2nd May 2026
A science story first, then a US research ecosystem story later. When we think about using molecules to store energy, it's usually in the context of food or fuel, so that chemical reactions take place - bonds are broken and remade, and in an exothermic reaction, the products end...
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a...
12th Apr 2018
1

A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer

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

12th Apr 2018
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors. The post A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The failure of the land value tax Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But...
13th Mar 2025
1

The failure of the land value tax

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

13th Mar 2025
Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But implementing them in early 1900s Britain destroyed the then-dominant Liberal Party.
The bad science behind expensive nuclear How a dubious theory of radiation damage based on fruit flies and a secretive weapons testing...
27th May 2025
1

The bad science behind expensive nuclear

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

27th May 2025
How a dubious theory of radiation damage based on fruit flies and a secretive weapons testing program came to be – and why its time may now be up.
Outbreak Harry Stevens at The Washington Post recently published a very elegant simulation of how a disease...
17th Mar 2020
47

Outbreak

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

17th Mar 2020
Harry Stevens at The Washington Post recently published a very elegant simulation of how a disease like COVID-19 spreads. If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking it out. Today I want to follow up with something I've been working… Read more ›
Fixing my heating system The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm...
3rd May 2024
76

Fixing my heating system

from Willem Pennings [alt+shift+b] in science

3rd May 2024
The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm water to the underfloor heating system of about a dozen apartments, including mine. During the warm summer months, the system supplies cool water instead. The heat pumps figure out...
Making The Most Of Winter The winter of 2025-2026 is shaping up to be a proper one. Since basically the start of December we...
4th Feb 2026
1

Making The Most Of Winter

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

4th Feb 2026
The winter of 2025-2026 is shaping up to be a proper one. Since basically the start of December we have experienced below average temperatures and an abundance of snow. We haven't had much respite from the cold, other than a brief warm spell in January quickly followed by an...
The Spirit We Lost, part 1 Previously: The Unlimited Horizon, part 1 and part 2. On a fine day late in May, 1883, hundreds of...
30th Sep 2025
1

The Spirit We Lost, part 1

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

30th Sep 2025
Previously: The Unlimited Horizon, part 1 and part 2. On a fine day late in May, 1883, hundreds of thousands of people gathered along the East River in New York City for a grand celebration.1 Perhaps a hundred thousand came from outside the city: by train, by boat, by wagon from...
How Covid brought the future back Crises upend plans, force people to re-evaluate their priorities, and bring into focus new goals....
8th Feb 2021
1

How Covid brought the future back

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

8th Feb 2021
Crises upend plans, force people to re-evaluate their priorities, and bring into focus new goals. Financial markets give us hints of what we can expect from the aftermath of Covid-19.
Rose McDermott: Ideology in our Genes: The Biological Basis for Political Traits While traditionally social factors have been considered to have primary influence on political...
1st Dec 2017
1
1st Dec 2017
While traditionally social factors have been considered to have primary influence on political behaviors and preferences, more recent research shows that there's also a strong heritable component to ideological attitudes. Rose McDermott, professor of International Relations at...
How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too Computer scientists have come up with a bounded algorithm that can fairly divide a cake among any...
10th Nov 2016
1

How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too

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

10th Nov 2016
Computer scientists have come up with a bounded algorithm that can fairly divide a cake among any number of people. The post How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Alexander Rose: Millennial Precedent Alexander Rose, Long Now Executive Director and project manager for the Clock of the Long Now,...
6th Apr 2011
1

Alexander Rose: Millennial Precedent

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

6th Apr 2011
Alexander Rose, Long Now Executive Director and project manager for the Clock of the Long Now, discussed lessons learned in multi-millennial site design. Rose covers his trip to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault as well as other sites and precedents like the Mormon Genealogical...
Weird health insurance concepts | Out-Of-Pocket Intercompany eliminations, copay shenanigans, and reference-based pricing
6th Nov 2024
69

Weird health insurance concepts | Out-Of-Pocket

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

6th Nov 2024
Intercompany eliminations, copay shenanigans, and reference-based pricing
Life beyond the screen Since early 2020, I've been teaching courses in Interaction Technologies and Prototyping. Switches,...
15th Jul 2021
25

Life beyond the screen

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

15th Jul 2021
Since early 2020, I've been teaching courses in Interaction Technologies and Prototyping. Switches, light, gesture, motion, sound, haptics: this is all about exploring life beyond the screen.
Sound Invisible and relentless, sound is seemingly just there, traveling through our surroundings to carry...
18th Oct 2022
73

Sound

from Bartosz Ciechanowski [alt+shift+b] in science

18th Oct 2022
Invisible and relentless, sound is seemingly just there, traveling through our surroundings to carry beautiful music or annoying noises. In this article I’ll explain what sound is, how it’s created and propagated. Throughout this presentation you will be hearing different sounds,...
NASA Is Worth Saving Casey Handmer June 2025 Download a printable PDF. NASA was founded in 1958 in response to Sputnik...
12th Jun 2025
1

NASA Is Worth Saving

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

12th Jun 2025
Casey Handmer June 2025 Download a printable PDF. NASA was founded in 1958 in response to Sputnik and the emerging necessity of a robust, government supported space exploration and technology development program to safeguard US interests in space. NASA embodies the US ideals of...
How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler...
3rd Sep 2024
64

How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles

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

3rd Sep 2024
In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler explains that the origin of mass in the universe has a lot to do with music. The post How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles first appeared on...
Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe's First Stars Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space...
12th Apr 2023
1

Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe's First Stars

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

12th Apr 2023
Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
$F_2 \times F_2$ is Incoherent -- A Polite Spectral Sequence Computation Yesterday I watched my friend Jialin Wang defend her thesis, and as part of her background section...
3rd Sep 2025
39

$F_2 \times F_2$ is Incoherent -- A Polite Spectral Sequence Computation

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

3rd Sep 2025
Yesterday I watched my friend Jialin Wang defend her thesis, and as part of her background section she mentioned that the group $F_2 \times F_2$ is incoherent in the sense that it has a subgroup that’s finitely generated and not finitely presented. I was curious how one might...
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...
2nd Jul 2023
44

Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story

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

2nd Jul 2023
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...
Congratulations, class of 2025! Words from a new graduate Editor’s note (Nicole Yunger Halpern): Jade LeSchack, the Quantum Steampunk Laboratory’s first...
10th Jun 2025
36

Congratulations, class of 2025! Words from a new graduate

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

10th Jun 2025
Editor’s note (Nicole Yunger Halpern): Jade LeSchack, the Quantum Steampunk Laboratory’s first undergraduate, received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland this spring. Kermit the Frog presented the valedictory address, but Jade gave the following speech at the...
I guess we’re doing Moon factories now A quick note collating a list of blogs I’ve written on the topic. I’ll update it with good third...
10th Feb 2026
2

I guess we’re doing Moon factories now

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

10th Feb 2026
A quick note collating a list of blogs I’ve written on the topic. I’ll update it with good third party write ups as I become aware of them. Context: SpaceX announced a refocus on lunar development. My best explanation for this is that SpaceX wants to accelerate human occupation...
The Promise of MIDAS: The First Experimental Early Warning Satellites Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile...
19th Jul 2023
63

The Promise of MIDAS: The First Experimental Early Warning Satellites

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

19th Jul 2023
Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile launches anywhere on the planet and quickly determine whether it […]
Edith Clarke: Architect of Modern Power Distribution Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career...
10th Jul 2024
123

Edith Clarke: Architect of Modern Power Distribution

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

10th Jul 2024
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career at General Electric in 1922, she was determined to develop stable, more reliable power grids. During her first years at GE she invented what came to be known as the Clarke...
Eight basic rules for causal inference In this blog post I will describe eight basic rules that govern the relationship between causal...
13th Aug 2024
1

Eight basic rules for causal inference

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

13th Aug 2024
In this blog post I will describe eight basic rules that govern the relationship between causal mechanisms in the real world and associations/correlations we can observe in data. To make each rule as easy as possible to understand, I will describe each rule both in words and in...
Alaska Wolf Found With Record Amount of Mercury, a Sign of Growing Contamination When Alaska’s wolves began eating sea otters, it looked like a story of adaptation. Then they...
2nd Jan 2026
1
2nd Jan 2026
When Alaska’s wolves began eating sea otters, it looked like a story of adaptation. Then they started getting sick. Read more on E360 →
First Pictures: View of the Earth from NASA’s Explorer 6 – August 14, 1959 Today we take for granted that we can instantly access images of almost any part of the Earth taken...
14th Aug 2024
113
14th Aug 2024
Today we take for granted that we can instantly access images of almost any part of the Earth taken from space using an ever growing collection […]
Rust in Numbers Why do manure spreaders have life cycles?
6th May 2026
1

Rust in Numbers

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

6th May 2026
Why do manure spreaders have life cycles?
Dominican Republic, October 2025: Mountain Endemics At Zapotén Zapotén is a legendary birding area in southwestern Dominican Republic quite close to the Haiti...
1st Nov 2025
10

Dominican Republic, October 2025: Mountain Endemics At Zapotén

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

1st Nov 2025
Zapotén is a legendary birding area in southwestern Dominican Republic quite close to the Haiti border, and it is a must-visit site for any birder on Hispaniola. This rough track climbs high into the Sierra de Bahoruco, a beautiful mountain range cloaked in pine and broadleaf...
Sunset Hunkering down for the winter!
9th Apr 2023
66

Sunset

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

9th Apr 2023
Hunkering down for the winter!
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...
7th Jun 2023
38
7th Jun 2023
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...
Why count shorebirds? A tale from Portugal The Sado Estuary is one of Portugal’s most important wetlands – a key link in the chain of sites...
14th Feb 2023
56

Why count shorebirds? A tale from Portugal

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

14th Feb 2023
The Sado Estuary is one of Portugal’s most important wetlands – a key link in the chain of sites connecting Africa and the Arctic, on the East Atlantic Flyway. In a paper in Waterbirds, João Belo and colleagues analyse changes in numbers of waders wintering in this estuary over...
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s...
6th Feb 2023
99

The United States Frequency Allocation Chart

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

6th Feb 2023
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
Who invented knitting? The plot thickens Last time on Eukaryote Writes Blog: You learned about knitting history. You thought you were done...
4th Feb 2023
66

Who invented knitting? The plot thickens

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

4th Feb 2023
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...
UK waders: “Into the Red” If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most...
4th Oct 2022
55

UK waders: “Into the Red”

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Oct 2022
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...
Generative AI will probably make blogs better Generative AI will probably make blogs better. Have you ever searched for something on Google and...
30th May 2025
28

Generative AI will probably make blogs better

from pcloadletter [alt+shift+b] in science

30th May 2025
Generative AI will probably make blogs better. Have you ever searched for something on Google and found the first one, two, or three blog posts to be utter nonsense? That's because these blog posts have been optimized not for human consumption, but rather to entertain the search...
WaderTales blogs in 2022 Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped...
22nd Dec 2022
59

WaderTales blogs in 2022

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Dec 2022
Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped the blogs into sections; problems with trees, more research from Iceland, Curlews, news from the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, tracking and updates. As ever, I am grateful to...
How the 'Diamond of the Plant World' Helped Land Plants Evolve Structural studies of the robust material called sporopollenin reveal how it made plants hardy...
9th Nov 2022
1

How the 'Diamond of the Plant World' Helped Land Plants Evolve

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

9th Nov 2022
Structural studies of the robust material called sporopollenin reveal how it made plants hardy enough to reproduce on dry land. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Redwood Trail” by Audionautix.
Brain Chemical Helps Signal to Neurons When to Start a Movement Dopamine, a neurochemical often associated with reward behavior, also seems to help organize...
6th Jul 2022
1

Brain Chemical Helps Signal to Neurons When to Start a Movement

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

6th Jul 2022
Dopamine, a neurochemical often associated with reward behavior, also seems to help organize precisely when the brain initiates movements. It’s the latest revelation about the power of neuromodulators. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
Andy Weir: The Red Planet for Real Before Andy Weir's self-published novel _The Martian_ became a _New York Times_ bestseller and a...
9th Jun 2017
1

Andy Weir: The Red Planet for Real

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

9th Jun 2017
Before Andy Weir's self-published novel _The Martian_ became a _New York Times_ bestseller and a blockbuster film, it began as a series of blog posts. Those posts, and the online conversation they sparked, reflect Andy's lifelong love of space and his detailed research into how...
Monoidal Monoidoidoids So I was on the nlab the other day, and I saw a fantastic joke: A 2-category is “just” a monoidal...
21st Aug 2022
33

Monoidal Monoidoidoids

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

21st Aug 2022
So I was on the nlab the other day, and I saw a fantastic joke: A 2-category is “just” a monoidal monoidoidoid! Here’s a screenshot in case the nlab page for 2-categories changes someday: There’s a thing called the Category Theorist’s “Just”, which describes the joy that many...
The Art of Asking Questions Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other...
1st Dec 2024
43

The Art of Asking Questions

from Asterisk [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Dec 2024
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other inaccuracies. We all use them anyway. How can we ask them better?
A Debate Over the Physics of Time According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to...
8th Sep 2016
1

A Debate Over the Physics of Time

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

8th Sep 2016
According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to pass. The post A Debate Over the Physics of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate New algorithms show how swarms of very simple robots can be made to work together as a group. ...
27th Sep 2018
1

Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate

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

27th Sep 2018
New algorithms show how swarms of very simple robots can be made to work together as a group. The post Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
My very busy week I’m not sure who scheduled ODSC and PyConUS during the same week, but I am unhappy with their...
22nd May 2025
53

My very busy week

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

22nd May 2025
I’m not sure who scheduled ODSC and PyConUS during the same week, but I am unhappy with their decisions. Last Tuesday I presented a talk and co-presented a workshop at ODSC, and on Thursday I presented a tutorial at PyCon. If you would like to follow along with my very busy week,...
Renée DiResta: Disinformation Technology: How Online Propaganda Campaigns Are Influencing Us Clandestine influence campaigns are rampant on social media. Whether pushing Russian agitprop or...
6th Apr 2020
1
6th Apr 2020
Clandestine influence campaigns are rampant on social media. Whether pushing Russian agitprop or lies about vaccines, they can impact policy and make us question what is true. A technologist, Wall Street veteran, and citizen advisor to Congress, DiResta told us how bad it is and...
Jimmy Wales: Vision: Wikipedia and the Future of Free Culture ### Community-built content rules Vision is one of the most powerful forms of long-term thinking....
15th Apr 2006
1

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

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

15th Apr 2006
### Community-built content rules Vision is one of the most powerful forms of long-term thinking. Jimmy Wales, founder and president of the all-embracing online encyclopedia Wikipedia, examines how vision drives and defines that project and its strategy-- and how it fits into...
From MANUALS to YOUTUBE A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
14th Aug 2023
62

From MANUALS to YOUTUBE

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

14th Aug 2023
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Preprint -- The RAAG Functor as a Categorical Embedding After almost a year of sitting on my hard drive, I finally had time in August to finish revising my...
5th Oct 2023
30

Preprint -- The RAAG Functor as a Categorical Embedding

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

5th Oct 2023
After almost a year of sitting on my hard drive, I finally had time in August to finish revising my new preprint on Right Angled Artin Groups (Raags). And in September I had time to put it on the arxiv for people to see! Within 24 hours I had an email from somebody who had...
The Fossil Footprint Nebula A rarely imaged target as it is very dim. This image took me over 50h of total exposure time. Total...
12th Jan 2024
72

The Fossil Footprint Nebula

from Light from Space [alt+shift+b] in science

12th Jan 2024
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
Stewart Brand: Reviving Extinct Species ### De-extinction begins The new tools of synthetic biology, I began, are about to liberate...
22nd May 2013
1

Stewart Brand: Reviving Extinct Species

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

22nd May 2013
### De-extinction begins The new tools of synthetic biology, I began, are about to liberate conservation in a spectacular way. It is becoming possible to bring some extinct species back to life. A project within Long Now called “Revive & Restore” is pushing to make...
Esoteric Languages Challenge Coders to Think Way Outside the Box Have you ever tried programming with a language that uses musical notation? What about a language...
4th Sep 2025
37

Esoteric Languages Challenge Coders to Think Way Outside the Box

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

4th Sep 2025
Have you ever tried programming with a language that uses musical notation? What about a language that never runs programs the same way? What about a language where you write code with photographs? All exist, among many others, in the world of esoteric programming languages, and...
Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy Susan Clark is helping to unravel the mysterious workings of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, a...
1st Jul 2024
102

Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy

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

1st Jul 2024
Susan Clark is helping to unravel the mysterious workings of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, a critical missing piece of the galactic puzzle. The post Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Bad Drugs Get Pulled Fast Safety issues usually get identified and acted on quickly
3rd Aug 2025
1

Bad Drugs Get Pulled Fast

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

3rd Aug 2025
Safety issues usually get identified and acted on quickly
16th Jan 2025
How do wader chicks respond to being handled? Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they...
5th Oct 2024
95

How do wader chicks respond to being handled?

from wadertales [alt+shift+b] in science

5th Oct 2024
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they are studying. Given that most shorebird species are in trouble or causing concern, conservation science is a tricky balancing act between ‘need to understand’ and ‘disturbance’. In...
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs ### Ignore confident forecasters "What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?" From his...
27th Jan 2007
1

Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs

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

27th Jan 2007
### Ignore confident forecasters "What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?" From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time...
Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because...
4th Jun 2020
1

Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures

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

4th Jun 2020
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes. The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine
OMB proposed rule changes - act now For non-US folks, feel free to skip.  For US folks:  The Office of Management and Budget, which for...
6th Jul 2026
1

OMB proposed rule changes - act now

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

6th Jul 2026
For non-US folks, feel free to skip.  For US folks:  The Office of Management and Budget, which for much of its history has been a comparatively uncontroversial element of the executive branch, has set rules and guidelines for how many executive-branch agencies conduct business...
Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
2nd Aug 2022
44

Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards

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

2nd Aug 2022
Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
The Monty Hall Problem, a side-by-side simulation I saw a cool version of the Monty Hall game here recently: https://monty.donk.systems. This is...
1st Jan 2026
1

The Monty Hall Problem, a side-by-side simulation

from pcloadletter [alt+shift+b] in science

1st Jan 2026
I saw a cool version of the Monty Hall game here recently: https://monty.donk.systems. This is really cool! But I had an itch I wanted to scratch: rather than manually test out the probabilities, I wanted to run two games side-by-side: one where a switch happened and one where a...
What Actually Causes Lightning? Thunderstorms have captivated humanity for millennia, and yet their inner workings remain deeply...
2nd Jun 2026
1

What Actually Causes Lightning?

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

2nd Jun 2026
Thunderstorms have captivated humanity for millennia, and yet their inner workings remain deeply mysterious. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, guest host and Quanta senior editor Hannah Waters speaks with staff writer Charlie Wood about the new technologies that are helping...
It is our responsibility to develop a healthy relationship with our technology Many technologies can be used in both healthy and unhealthy ways. You can indulge in food to the...
6th Nov 2025
1

It is our responsibility to develop a healthy relationship with our technology

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

6th Nov 2025
Many technologies can be used in both healthy and unhealthy ways. You can indulge in food to the point of obesity, or even make it the subject of anxiety. Media can keep us informed, but it can also steal our focus and drain our energy, especially social media. AI can help...
Links and short notes, 2025-12-19 The links digest is back, baby! I got so busy writing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto this year that...
20th Dec 2025
1

Links and short notes, 2025-12-19

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

20th Dec 2025
The links digest is back, baby! I got so busy writing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto this year that after May I stopped doing the links digest and my monthly reading updates. I’m bringing them back now (although we’ll see what frequency I can keep up). This one covers the last two...
Showering at the South Pole Potable water, and not much of it.
4th Feb 2023
56

Showering at the South Pole

from brr [alt+shift+b] in science

4th Feb 2023
Potable water, and not much of it.
Simpson’s What? I like Simpson’s paradox so much I wrote three chapters about it in Probably Overthinking It. In...
16th Oct 2025
23

Simpson’s What?

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

16th Oct 2025
I like Simpson’s paradox so much I wrote three chapters about it in Probably Overthinking It. In fact, I like it so much I have a Google alert that notifies me when someone publishes a new example (or when the horse named Simpson’s Paradox wins a race). So I was initially excited...
The Art of Teaching Math and Science The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational...
26th Jan 2017
1

The Art of Teaching Math and Science

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

26th Jan 2017
The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational theory. What can we learn from the best teachers on the front lines? The post The Art of Teaching Math and Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Will We Ever Be Able To Forecast Volcanic Eruptions Like Weather? Volcano forecasting can save countless lives. But most of the time warnings are more like educated...
7th Jul 2026
2

Will We Ever Be Able To Forecast Volcanic Eruptions Like Weather?

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

7th Jul 2026
Volcano forecasting can save countless lives. But most of the time warnings are more like educated guesses. How close are we to forecasting volcano behavior the way we forecast the weather? On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Hannah Waters speaks with writer and volcano...
The Problem With Richard Dawkins How should we view The Selfish Gene 50 years on?
22nd Apr 2023
32

The Problem With Richard Dawkins

from SubAnima [alt+shift+b] in science

22nd Apr 2023
How should we view The Selfish Gene 50 years on?
George P. Shultz: Perspective Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than...
2nd Aug 2018
1

George P. Shultz: Perspective

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

2nd Aug 2018
Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than George Shultz, now 97. (Henry Kissinger is only 95.) Secretary Shultz was a US Marine Captain in World War II. After becoming an economics professor at MIT and the University of...
What is the Aharonov-Bohm effect? After seeing this latest extremely good video from Veritasium, and looking back through my posts, I...
1st Feb 2026
2

What is the Aharonov-Bohm effect?

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

1st Feb 2026
After seeing this latest extremely good video from Veritasium, and looking back through my posts, I realized that while I've referenced it indirectly, I've never explicitly talked about the Aharonov-Bohm effect.  The video is excellent, and that wikipedia page is pretty good, but...
A look at Britain’s new DARPA ARIA is the UK’s visionary new scientific funding body. It has £800m and the freedom to make big...
10th Feb 2023
1

A look at Britain’s new DARPA

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

10th Feb 2023
ARIA is the UK’s visionary new scientific funding body. It has £800m and the freedom to make big bold bets on the scientific trajectories it thinks will benefit Britain – and change the future. We interviewed chief executive Ilan Gur and chairman Matt Clifford, to better...
Why Did Life Move to Land? For the View The ancient creatures who first crawled onto land may have been lured by the informational benefit...
6th Apr 2017
1

Why Did Life Move to Land? For the View

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

6th Apr 2017
The ancient creatures who first crawled onto land may have been lured by the informational benefit that comes from seeing through air. The post Why Did Life Move to Land? For the View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Daniel Suarez: Daemon: Bot-mediated Reality ### Bot-dominated Reality [Daniel Suarez, originally published as Leinad Zaurus, delivered a talk...
9th Aug 2008
1

Daniel Suarez: Daemon: Bot-mediated Reality

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

9th Aug 2008
### Bot-dominated Reality [Daniel Suarez, originally published as Leinad Zaurus, delivered a talk on the themes developed in his (originally self published) book __Daemon__. The book is now scheduled to be released in hard cover in January 02009 by Dutton.] Forget about...
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