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The Works in...
The beauty of concrete Why are buildings today austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented?
3 months ago
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...
9 months ago
81
9 months 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...
Quanta Magazine
How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics. The post How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Issue 18: Urbanism with Chinese characteristics Plus: Reducing the motherhood penalty by extending fertility, the steam networks of New York City,...
6 months ago
39
6 months ago
Plus: Reducing the motherhood penalty by extending fertility, the steam networks of New York City, and the rise and fall of the Hanseatic league.
Blog - Practical...
How the Hawaiian Power Grid Works [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In January of 2024, right on...
a year ago
130
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In January of 2024, right on the heels of a serious drought across the state, a major storm slammed into the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Kauai. Severe winds caused damage to buildings, and heavy rain flooded...
wadertales
Broad-billed Sandpiper: Now a Red-listed wader A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since...
9 months ago
92
9 months ago
A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since 1993. One of the focal species of their fieldwork is the secretive Broad-billed Sandpiper, an unusual taiga wader which nests on low-lying tussocks embedded in floating mats of...
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...
a year ago
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a year 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...
Asterisk
What Comes After COVID The next pandemic is coming. Is it possible to say when?
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
What Makes Life Tick? Mitochondria May Keep Time for Cells Every species develops at its own unique tempo, leaving scientist to wonder what governed their...
a year ago
45
a year ago
Every species develops at its own unique tempo, leaving scientist to wonder what governed their timing. A suite of new findings suggests that cells use basic metabolic processes as clocks. The post What Makes Life Tick? Mitochondria May Keep Time for Cells first...
Quanta Magazine
Will AI Ever Have Common Sense? Common sense has been viewed as one of the hardest challenges in AI. That said, ChatGPT4 has...
a year ago
89
a year ago
Common sense has been viewed as one of the hardest challenges in AI. That said, ChatGPT4 has acquired what some believe is an impressive sense of humanity. How is this possible? Listen to this week’s “The Joy of Why” with co-host Steven Strogatz. The post Will AI Ever...
The Roots of...
Four lenses on AI risks All powerful new technologies create both benefits and risks: cars, planes, drugs, radiation. AI is...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
All powerful new technologies create both benefits and risks: cars, planes, drugs, radiation. AI is on a trajectory to become one of the most powerful technologies we possess; in some scenarios, it becomes by far the most powerful. It therefore will create both extraordinary...
Quanta Magazine
How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science Manu Prakash works on the world’s most urgent problems and seemingly frivolous questions at the same...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
Manu Prakash works on the world’s most urgent problems and seemingly frivolous questions at the same time. They add up to a philosophy he calls “recreational biology.” The post How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science first appeared on Quanta...
Quanta Magazine
How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even after centuries of solar observations. The post How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Britain Sees Sunniest Spring on Record This spring was the warmest and sunniest on record in the U.K., a symptom of a rapidly warming...
3 months ago
9
3 months ago
This spring was the warmest and sunniest on record in the U.K., a symptom of a rapidly warming climate, weather officials say. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge How hard is it to prove that problems are hard to solve? Meta-complexity theorists have been asking...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
How hard is it to prove that problems are hard to solve? Meta-complexity theorists have been asking questions like this for decades. A string of recent results has started to deliver answers. The post Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge...
Inverted Passion
Notes from the book “Hooked” I re-read the book Hooked by Nir Eyal and these are my notes. 1/ The key question that the book...
a year ago
42
a year ago
I re-read the book Hooked by Nir Eyal and these are my notes. 1/ The key question that the book answers is: how to make habit-forming products. And its answer is a model that involves four stages: a) trigger; b) action; c) variable reward; d) investment 2/ Why should products be...
Probably...
Algorithmic Fairness This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com...
7 months ago
26
7 months ago
This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. This article is based on the Recidivism Case Study, which is about algorithmic fairness. The goal of the case study is to explain the statistical arguments...
Quanta Magazine
Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.” The post Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Where Do Scientists Think This Is All Going? We asked some of the world’s foremost experts an impossible question. Amazingly, they answered. ...
4 months ago
17
4 months ago
We asked some of the world’s foremost experts an impossible question. Amazingly, they answered. The post Where Do Scientists Think This Is All Going? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes Physicists hope that understanding the churning region near singularities might help them reconcile...
6 months ago
52
6 months ago
Physicists hope that understanding the churning region near singularities might help them reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. The post New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have made great strides toward building a “grand unified theory” of math. The post The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
How Do Machines ‘Grok’ Data? By apparently overtraining them, researchers have seen neural networks discover novel solutions to...
a year ago
98
a year ago
By apparently overtraining them, researchers have seen neural networks discover novel solutions to problems. The post How Do Machines ‘Grok’ Data? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Warming Doubled the Odds of Record Fires in South Korea Warming fueled the hot, dry, windy weather that gave rise to a spate of record-breaking fires in...
4 months ago
18
4 months ago
Warming fueled the hot, dry, windy weather that gave rise to a spate of record-breaking fires in South Korea in March, an analysis finds. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach. The post Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
A Year of Climate Extremes, In Photos From floods in Brazil to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, extreme weather exacted a devastating...
8 months ago
5
8 months ago
From floods in Brazil to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, extreme weather exacted a devastating toll in 2024. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Issue 11: Nuclear sandboxes Plus: Why Britain can’t seem to fix its housing market, gene-edited super-rice, and one weird trick...
over a year ago
102
over a year ago
Plus: Why Britain can’t seem to fix its housing market, gene-edited super-rice, and one weird trick to reverse climate change.
Beautiful Public...
Here’s All the Rocks We Hauled Back From the Moon The 12 human beings who walked on the Moon collected, catalogued and returned 842 pounds of lunar...
over a year ago
104
over a year ago
The 12 human beings who walked on the Moon collected, catalogued and returned 842 pounds of lunar rock and soil. Each sample has been meticulously documented in NASA's Lunar Sample Catalog.
Yale E360
Lightning Strikes the Arctic: What Will It Mean for the Far North? A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Scientists...
2 months ago
12
2 months ago
A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Scientists are now reporting a dramatic surge in lightning in the Far North and are scrambling to parse how this could affect wildfires, the chemistry of the atmosphere, and Arctic...
Asterisk
They May as Well Grow on Trees The Future of Genetically Engineered Livestock
over a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Climate Sensitivity and Confirmation Bias I love to follow kerfuffles between different experts and deep thinkers. It’s great for revealing...
a year ago
59
a year ago
I love to follow kerfuffles between different experts and deep thinkers. It’s great for revealing the subtleties of logic, science, and evidence. Recently there has been an interesting online exchange between a physicists science communicator (Sabine Hossenfelder) and some...
Yale E360
In Mexico’s ‘Avocado Belt,’ Villagers Stand Up to Protect Their Lands A boom in avocado production in Mexico has led to illegal deforestation and an influx of drug...
4 months ago
22
4 months ago
A boom in avocado production in Mexico has led to illegal deforestation and an influx of drug cartels dominating the lucrative trade. But Indigenous communities have fought back against the gangs and turned to traditional practices to grow avocados and save their forests.  Read...
Damn Interesting
There Once Was a Man Called Curley In the village of Bellewstown, about 15 miles north of Dublin, Ireland, they still talk about what...
a week ago
13
a week ago
In the village of Bellewstown, about 15 miles north of Dublin, Ireland, they still talk about what Barney Curley did back in 1975. It all happened during a horse race on the Hill of Crockafotha. It was just an amateur jockey race on a lazy summer day in a sleepy, remote town; it...
Quanta Magazine
How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories Quantum calculations amount to sophisticated estimates. But in 1931, Hans Bethe intuited precisely...
7 months ago
77
7 months ago
Quantum calculations amount to sophisticated estimates. But in 1931, Hans Bethe intuited precisely how a chain of particles would behave — an insight that had far-reaching consequences. The post How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories first appeared on...
Quanta Magazine
New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books....
7 months ago
86
7 months ago
The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal. The post New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection first appeared on Quanta...
Yale E360
With the Great Mussel Die-Off, Scientists Scramble for Answers One of the most endangered animals in the world, freshwater mussels are threatened by pollution,...
5 months ago
11
5 months ago
One of the most endangered animals in the world, freshwater mussels are threatened by pollution, climate change, habitat loss, and invasive species. But in the epicenter of their diversity — the Southeastern U.S. — the root cause of a catastrophic die-off remains a mystery.  Read...
Chris Grossack's...
Talk - Where Are The Open Sets? I was invited to give a talk at HoTTEST 2022, and was more than happy to accept! Ever since I was...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
I was invited to give a talk at HoTTEST 2022, and was more than happy to accept! Ever since I was first learning HoTT I was curious how we could be sure that theorems in HoTT give us corresponding theorems in “classical” homotopy theory. Earlier this summer I spent a lot of...
The Works in...
Womb for improvement Pregnancy can be painful and, for some women, impossible. New technology may allow more women to...
5 months ago
38
5 months ago
Pregnancy can be painful and, for some women, impossible. New technology may allow more women to have children and save the lives of prematurely born infants.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How to discover competitors' pricing, the legal way | Out-Of-Pocket Please don’t ask me about the illegal way…I’m not telling you
2 days ago
nanoscale views
How badly has NSF funding already been effectively cut? This NY Times feature lets you see how each piece of NSF's funding has been reduced this year...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
This NY Times feature lets you see how each piece of NSF's funding has been reduced this year relative to the normalized average spanning in the last decade.  Note: this fiscal year, thanks to the continuing resolution, the actual agency budget has not actually been cut like...
Quanta Magazine
How Chain-of-Thought Reasoning Helps Neural Networks Compute Large language models do better at solving problems when they show their work. Researchers are...
a year ago
62
a year ago
Large language models do better at solving problems when they show their work. Researchers are beginning to understand why. The post How Chain-of-Thought Reasoning Helps Neural Networks Compute first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Nuclear Reactor Lasers: from Fission to Photon Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no intermediate conversion steps.  We work out just how effective they can be, and how they stack up against conventional electrically-powered lasers. You might want to re-think your...
NeuroLogica Blog
The New TIGR-Tas Gene Editing System Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing...
6 months ago
48
6 months ago
Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing system which is faster and cheaper than anything that came before it? CRISPR is derived from bacterial systems which uses guide RNA to target a specific sequence on a DNA strand....
Quanta Magazine
Data Compression Drives the Internet. Here’s How It Works. One student’s desire to get out of a final exam led to the ubiquitous algorithm that shrinks data...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
One student’s desire to get out of a final exam led to the ubiquitous algorithm that shrinks data without sacrificing information. The post Data Compression Drives the Internet. Here’s How It Works. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
How Herbicide Drift from Farms Is Harming Trees in Midwest Researchers are starting to pay closer attention to the widespread damage wrought by agricultural...
4 months ago
15
4 months ago
Researchers are starting to pay closer attention to the widespread damage wrought by agricultural herbicides. Drifting sprays may not kill trees, shrubs, and other nontarget plants outright, but experts believe they are making them vulnerable to insects, fungi, and disease. Read...
Asterisk
Why We Shut Down In international development, it’s not enough to try to do good. We need the tools to tell if a...
a year ago
21
a year ago
In international development, it’s not enough to try to do good. We need the tools to tell if a project is really working — and the incentive to end it if it’s not.
The Roots of...
The American Information Revolution in Global Perspective In “What if they gave an Industrial Revolution and nobody came?” I reviewed The British Industrial...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
In “What if they gave an Industrial Revolution and nobody came?” I reviewed The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, by Robert Allen. In brief, Allen’s explanation for the Industrial Revolution is that Britain had high wages and cheap energy, which meant it was...
Yale E360
Foreign Trawlers Plunder Senegalese Waters, Driving Small Fishers to Migrate to Spain A foreign fleet of industrial trawlers is exhausting fish stocks in Senegal, driving artisanal...
4 months ago
38
4 months ago
A foreign fleet of industrial trawlers is exhausting fish stocks in Senegal, driving artisanal fishers to undertake a difficult, and sometimes deadly, migration to Spain. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
Russia’s War Has Destroyed Forest Twice the Size of New York City Ukraine lost roughly 600 square miles of forest in the first two years of its war with Russia, an...
6 months ago
7
6 months ago
Ukraine lost roughly 600 square miles of forest in the first two years of its war with Russia, an area of woodland twice the size of New York City. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
U.S. Wind and Solar Overtake Coal Power In a first, the U.S. saw wind and solar supply more power than coal last year, according to a new...
8 months ago
11
8 months ago
In a first, the U.S. saw wind and solar supply more power than coal last year, according to a new analysis. But even as renewables made gains, U.S. emissions stayed flat owing to rising demand for energy. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack? Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding...
a year ago
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a year ago
Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding the worst shape for packing the plane. The post Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack? first appeared on Quanta Magazine