Math Is Still...
The Geometric Tool That Solved Einstein’s Relativity Problem
Tensors are used all over math and science to reveal hidden geometric truths. What are they? ...
4 months ago
Tensors are used all over math and science to reveal hidden geometric truths. What are they?
The post The Geometric Tool That Solved Einstein’s Relativity Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Introducing Gentle Density
A new series from Works in Progress
a year ago
A new series from Works in Progress
Beautiful Public...
Utah Highway LiDAR Scans
Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces...
over a year ago
Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces and area surrounding 15,000 miles of its roads.
NeuroLogica Blog
About Those Lab Leak Documents
It was recently revealed that the House subcommittee probing the origins of COVID-19 accidentally...
a year ago
It was recently revealed that the House subcommittee probing the origins of COVID-19 accidentally released a “trove” of documents related to their investigations. The documents include e-mails and internal communications among the scientists and experts who put together the first...
Explorations of an...
Tour Extension to Halmahera In The North Moluccas
Del and Marcie joined me for a four-day extension to the nearby island of Halmahera, located in the...
a year ago
Del and Marcie joined me for a four-day extension to the nearby island of Halmahera, located in the North Moluccas. We were now on the east side of the deep-water trench informally known as Weber’s Line and the avifauna was even more in line with New Guinea and Australia....
NeuroLogica Blog
Is the AI Singularity Coming?
Like it or not, we are living in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Recent advances in large...
9 months ago
Like it or not, we are living in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Recent advances in large language models, like ChatGPT, have helped put advanced AI in the hands of the average person, who now has a much better sense of how powerful these AI applications can be (and...
Probably...
The World Population Singularity
One of the exercises in Modeling and Simulation in Python invites readers to download estimates of...
a year ago
One of the exercises in Modeling and Simulation in Python invites readers to download estimates of world population from 10,000 BCE to the present, and to see if they are well modeled by any simple mathematical function. Here’s what the estimates look like (aggregated on...
NeuroLogica Blog
Gradient Nanostructured Steel
Science fiction writers, who have to think deeply about the possible nature of future technology,...
a year ago
Science fiction writers, who have to think deeply about the possible nature of future technology, often invent new sci-fi materials in order to make their future technology seem plausible. They seem to understand the critical role that material science plays in advancing...
NeuroLogica Blog
Everything Will Evaporate
What will be the ultimate fate of our universe? There are a number of theories and possibilities,...
a year ago
What will be the ultimate fate of our universe? There are a number of theories and possibilities, but at present the most likely scenario seems to be that the universe will continue to expand, most mass will eventually find its way into a black hole, and those black holes will...
Willem Pennings
ClockSquared improvements
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply...
a year ago
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply called the “Birthday word clock”. I haven’t spent much time on the project in recent years, but I’ve upgraded the internals a while ago and finally felt like writing a post about it....
The Works in...
Issue 16: I dream of genes
Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and...
3 months ago
Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and how America's favourite type of coffee got really, really good.
nanoscale views
Scientific travel
Particularly in these post-pandemic, climate-change-addled, zoom-enabled times, I appreciate the...
a year ago
Particularly in these post-pandemic, climate-change-addled, zoom-enabled times, I appreciate the argument that it's always worth asking, "Is this trip really necessary?" We are in the age of remote work and zoom seminars that are attended by people from all over the world. Is...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare, but funny | Out-Of-Pocket
US healthcare is a joke. Let's make it funny.
a year ago
US healthcare is a joke. Let's make it funny.
Math Is Still...
The S-Matrix Is the Oracle Physicists Turn To in Times of Crisis
Particle physicists in search of the next theory of reality are consulting a mathematical structure...
7 months ago
Particle physicists in search of the next theory of reality are consulting a mathematical structure that they know will never fail: a table of possibilities known as the S-matrix.
The post The S-Matrix Is the Oracle Physicists Turn To in Times of Crisis first appeared...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Placebos Are Getting Stronger | Out-Of-Pocket
Should we incorporate them into clinical practice?
a year ago
Should we incorporate them into clinical practice?
Asterisk
Artificial Wombs When?
What to expect when you’re expecting in 2050.
5 months ago
What to expect when you’re expecting in 2050.
Asterisk
Growing Up Overnight
A look at the past few years of LLM progress.
a year ago
A look at the past few years of LLM progress.
Math Is Still...
My Fantastic Voyage at Quanta Magazine
Founding editor-in-chief Thomas Lin looks back at a decade of Quanta journalism and forward to...
8 months ago
Founding editor-in-chief Thomas Lin looks back at a decade of Quanta journalism and forward to what’s next for the magazine.
The post My Fantastic Voyage at Quanta Magazine first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Light from Space
The Path to the Pillars of Creation
Famously photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, here's my first look at the Pillars of Creation...
over a year ago
Famously photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, here's my first look at the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16).
Total exposure time: 16h 5m
Shot from my driveway near Tucson, AZ in April & May 2022
Telescope: William Optics RedCat 51 (250mm focal length ƒ
Blog - Practical...
How Do Fish Ladders Work?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Building a dam imparts a...
8 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Building a dam imparts a stupendous change to the environment, and as with any change, there are winners and losers. The winners are usually us, people, through hydropower generation, protection from flooding,...
IEEE Spectrum
How Engineers at Digital Equipment Corp. Saved Ethernet
I’ve enjoyed reading magazine articles about Ethernet’s 50th anniversary, including one in the The...
8 months ago
I’ve enjoyed reading magazine articles about Ethernet’s 50th anniversary, including one in the The Institute. Invented by computer scientists Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs, Ethernet has been extraordinarily impactful. Metcalfe, an IEEE Fellow, received the 1996 IEEE Medal of...
Quantum Frontiers
Identical twins and quantum entanglement
“If I had a nickel for every unsolicited and very personal health question I’ve gotten at parties,...
a year ago
“If I had a nickel for every unsolicited and very personal health question I’ve gotten at parties, I’d have paid off my medical school loans by now,” my doctor friend complained. As a physicist, I can somewhat relate. I occasionally … Continue reading →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Out-Of-Pocket 2021 Predictions | Out-Of-Pocket
the future is easy to predict right
a year ago
the future is easy to predict right
Math Is Still...
How (Nearly) Nothing Might Solve Cosmology’s Biggest Questions
By measuring the universe’s emptiest spaces, scientists can study how matter clumps together and how...
a year ago
By measuring the universe’s emptiest spaces, scientists can study how matter clumps together and how fast it flies apart.
The post How (Nearly) Nothing Might Solve Cosmology’s Biggest Questions first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Smoking Causes Cancer
In the preface of Probably Overthinking It, I wrote: Sometimes interpreting data is easy. For...
a year ago
In the preface of Probably Overthinking It, I wrote: Sometimes interpreting data is easy. For example, one of the reasons we know that smoking causes lung cancer is that when only 20% of the population smoked, 80% of people with lung cancer were smokers. If you are a doctor who...
Math Is Still...
A Mutation Turned Ants Into Parasites in One Generation
A new genetics study of ant “social parasites” shows how complex sets of features can emerge rapidly...
a year ago
A new genetics study of ant “social parasites” shows how complex sets of features can emerge rapidly and potentially split species.
The post A Mutation Turned Ants Into Parasites in One Generation first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Marine Madness
Book Club: ‘The Island of Sea Women’ by Lisa See
Little is known about Jeju- a Korean island- occupied by brutal Japanese troops in the 1930s and...
over a year ago
Little is known about Jeju- a Korean island- occupied by brutal Japanese troops in the 1930s and ’40s, later liberated by US forces and turned over to the even more barbarous Korean regime whose wrongdoings were overlooked by both American and U.N. occupiers. Lisa See travels...
Blog - Practical...
Philadelphia I-95 Bridge Collapse Explained
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On Jun 11, 2023, a fuel tanker...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On Jun 11, 2023, a fuel tanker truck caught fire on an exit underneath Interstate 95 in Northeast Philadelphia. The fire severely damaged the northbound bridge, eventually causing it to collapse. Sadly, the...
nanoscale views
Meetings this week
This week is the 2023 DOE experimental condensed matter physics PI meeting - in the past I’ve...
a year ago
This week is the 2023 DOE experimental condensed matter physics PI meeting - in the past I’ve written up highlights of these here (2021), here (2019), here (2017), here (2015), and here (2013). This year, I am going to have to present remotely, however, because I am giving a...
Cremieux Recueil
Food Deserts Are Not Real
They're more like bad habit neighborhoods
3 months ago
They're more like bad habit neighborhoods
Uncharted...
How to Beat Cancer with Viruses: An Interview with Beata Halassy
How viruses kill cancers, which viruses to use, how many injections, at what stage of the cancer,...
2 months ago
How viruses kill cancers, which viruses to use, how many injections, at what stage of the cancer, and much more
Explorations of an...
Heading East Across The Chaco
I’ve written about the Chaco region before – that vast dry, scrubby area south of the Amazon which...
a year ago
I’ve written about the Chaco region before – that vast dry, scrubby area south of the Amazon which happens to cover much of central and northern Argentina. Laura and I had skirted the edge of the Chaco earlier in the trip, including near Laguna Salinas Grande and in the Salta...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Plant Sounds
My early adulthood coincided with the New Age movement and its belief in many discredited past...
4 months ago
My early adulthood coincided with the New Age movement and its belief in many discredited past ideas, such as astrology. One New Age idea that seemed strange at the time was that talking to plants helped them to grow. What could be more New Age than a hippie chick talking to a...
Blog - Practical...
How Railroad Crossings Work
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
If you’ve ever ridden a bike,...
11 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
If you’ve ever ridden a bike, driven a car, or operated pretty much any other vehicle on earth, there’s a fact you’ve probably taken for granted: you can see farther than it takes to stop. Within the span...
IEEE Spectrum
When IBM Built a War Room for Executives
Computer History Museum’s collection has a biography of sorts—a life before CHM, a tale about how it...
a week ago
Computer History Museum’s collection has a biography of sorts—a life before CHM, a tale about how it came to us, and a life within the museum. The chapters of that biography include the uses made of it, and the historical and interpretive stories it can be made to tell. This then...
Confessions of a...
Impacts of climate change on marine communities, seagrass dieback, and a trip to the Abrolhos...
You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks. No holiday for me though, here’s a...
over a year ago
You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks. No holiday for me though, here’s a quick taste of some of the other stuff I’ve been up to! Impact of climate change on marine coastal ecosystems – A masterclass with Nuria Marbá I was lucky enough to be invited along...
Asterisk
Silicon Valley’s Gold Rush Roots
Silicon Valley, purveyor of disruptive technologies, likes to think of itself as sui generis. But...
8 months ago
Silicon Valley, purveyor of disruptive technologies, likes to think of itself as sui generis. But there’s a clear line from tech’s knowledge economy to the Bay Area’s first economy: gold mining.
Confessions of a...
A first step into the unknown world of academia…….
At the beginning of this blog I did promise to include some writings that would at least be...
over a year ago
At the beginning of this blog I did promise to include some writings that would at least be semi-useful (hopefully!) to future students hoping to move into a career in marine science; so here it goes! From today I am beginning a year long Postgraduate Teaching Internship at UWA....
NeuroLogica Blog
Have Current AI Reached Their Limit?
We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications,...
a year ago
We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications, specifically the large language models and so-called “transformers” like Chat GPT. Transformers are a deep learning model that use self-attention to differentially weight the...
Math Is Still...
The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community
Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on...
11 months ago
Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on their species but on the roles they play.
The post The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past
Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the...
a year ago
Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the cost of forgetting the path they took. A new result suggests that the trade-off may be inevitable.
The post To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past...
Math Is Still...
‘The Rest of the World Disappears’: Claire Voisin on Mathematical Creativity
The recipient of the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics discusses math as art, math as language, and...
9 months ago
The recipient of the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics discusses math as art, math as language, and math as abstract thought.
The post ‘The Rest of the World Disappears’: Claire Voisin on Mathematical Creativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight
Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made...
3 months ago
Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made the world ring. Finding its cause took 68 scientists and an assist by the Danish military.
The post The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight first...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Sleep health is getting interesting | Out-Of-Pocket
The consumer and clinical worlds of sleep are colliding
a month ago
The consumer and clinical worlds of sleep are colliding
Math Is Still...
The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View
Astronomers are reveling in the James Webb Space Telescope’s discoveries about the formative epoch...
2 months ago
Astronomers are reveling in the James Webb Space Telescope’s discoveries about the formative epoch of cosmic history.
The post The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory
Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists...
a year ago
Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists reimagined their whole field.
The post The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
May I have this dance?
This July, I came upon a museum called the Haus der Musik in one of Vienna’s former palaces. The...
a year ago
This July, I came upon a museum called the Haus der Musik in one of Vienna’s former palaces. The museum contains a room dedicated to Johann Strauss II, king of the waltz. The room, dimly lit, resembles a twilit gazebo. … Continue reading →
Blog - Practical...
How Engineers Straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Long ago, maybe upwards of 1-2...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Long ago, maybe upwards of 1-2 million years ago, a river in the central part of what’s now Italy, emptied into what’s now the Ligurian Sea. It still does, by the way, but it did back then too. As the sea rose...
Probably...
Testing Percentiles
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
7 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. test_percentile Testing percentiles¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. I have two different samples (about 100...
Quantum Frontiers
Beyond NISQ: The Megaquop Machine
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a...
a week ago
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a transcript of my remarks. The slides I presented are here. NISQ and beyond I’m honored to be back at Q2B for … Continue reading →
Asterisk
Sins of the Children
The circle of life on Chelicer 14d.
5 months ago
The circle of life on Chelicer 14d.
Probably...
Download the World in Data
Our World in Data recently announced that they are providing APIs to access their data....
4 weeks ago
Our World in Data recently announced that they are providing APIs to access their data. Coincidentally, I am using one of their datasets in my workshop on time series analysis at PyData Global 2024. So I took this opportunity to update my example using the new API – this notebook...
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
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...
Math Is Still...
How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection
Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to...
3 months ago
Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of mind such as mood, pleasure and fear.
The post How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection first appeared on...
Probably...
Probably Overthinking It Notebooks
To celebrate one month since the launch of Probably Overthinking It, I’m releasing the Jupyter...
11 months ago
To celebrate one month since the launch of Probably Overthinking It, I’m releasing the Jupyter notebooks I used to create the book. There’s one per chapter, and they contain all of the code I used to do the analysis and generate the figures. So if you are curious about the...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, May 2023
This is a monthly feature. As usual, I’ve omitted recent blog posts and such, which you can find in...
a year ago
This is a monthly feature. As usual, I’ve omitted recent blog posts and such, which you can find in my links digests.
John Gall, The Systems Bible (2012), aka Systemantics, 3rd ed. A concise, pithy collection of wisdom about “systems”, mostly human organizations, projects, and...
Damn Interesting
Capital, Punished
Located 350 km (217 miles) southeast of Puerto Rico, the British island of Montserrat is sometimes...
over a year ago
Located 350 km (217 miles) southeast of Puerto Rico, the British island of Montserrat is sometimes called ‘The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean’ for its verdancy and early Irish settlers. However, far from a paradise, Montserrat also boasts an unfortunate history, and not just...
Math Is Still...
What Causes Alzheimer’s? Scientists Are Rethinking the Answer. (Pt 2)
If plaques of amyloid protein in the brain aren’t the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease, what is?...
a year ago
If plaques of amyloid protein in the brain aren’t the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease, what is? Researchers investigating alternative possibilities have faced resistance from the biomedical establishment for decades, but intriguing theories about the role of defects in protein...
The Works in...
The San Diego infinite housing glitch
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
2 months ago
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
The Works in...
Unending World
A foretaste of Ch. 11 of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance on Books in Progress
2 months ago
A foretaste of Ch. 11 of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance on Books in Progress
NeuroLogica Blog
Predicting Outcome in Severe Brain Injury
One of the most difficult situations that a person can face is to have a loved-one in a critical...
7 months ago
One of the most difficult situations that a person can face is to have a loved-one in a critical medical condition and have to make life-or-death medical decisions for them. I have been in this situation many times as the consulting neurologist, and I have seen how weighty this...
Math Is Still...
A Triplet Tree Forms One of the Most Beautiful Structures in Math
The Markov numbers reveal the secrets of irrational numbers and the patterns of the Fibonacci...
a year ago
The Markov numbers reveal the secrets of irrational numbers and the patterns of the Fibonacci sequence. But there’s one question about them that has resisted proof for over a century.
The post A Triplet Tree Forms One of the Most Beautiful Structures in Math first...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
New Health Plans Need New Operating Systems with Flume Health | Out-Of-Pocket
this claim is automatic, programmatic, hypnotic, funky fresh
a year ago
this claim is automatic, programmatic, hypnotic, funky fresh
The Works in...
How to write for Works in Progress
We're looking for new authors and article pitches.
5 months ago
We're looking for new authors and article pitches.
Math Is Still...
The New Quest to Control Evolution
Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it. ...
a year ago
Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it.
The post The New Quest to Control Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Wanderingspace
OSIRIS-REX Leaves Bennu
The OSIRIS-REX mission in on a two year trajectory back to Earth after capturing fragments of the...
over a year ago
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.
Math Is Still...
Cells Across the Tree of Life Exchange ‘Text Messages’ Using RNA
Cells across the tree of life can swap short-lived messages encoded by RNA — missives that resemble...
3 months ago
Cells across the tree of life can swap short-lived messages encoded by RNA — missives that resemble a quick text rather than a formal memo on letterhead.
The post Cells Across the Tree of Life Exchange ‘Text Messages’ Using RNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How Data Transformed Small Group Underwriting | Out-Of-Pocket
Paper forms be gone, now we anonymize and risk it all (literally).
5 months ago
Paper forms be gone, now we anonymize and risk it all (literally).
nanoscale views
Foams! (or, why my split pea side dish boils over every Thanksgiving)
Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.
Adapted from TOC figure of this...
3 weeks ago
Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.
Adapted from TOC figure of this paper
Consider my shaving cream. You might imagine that the (mostly water) material would just pool as a homogeneous liquid, since water molecules have a strong attraction for one...
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Rails Shaped Like That?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Maybe more than any other type...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Maybe more than any other type of infrastructure, railways have a contingent of devoted enthusiasts. “Railfans” as they call themselves; Or should say “ourselves”? Maybe it's the nostalgia of an earlier era or...
Math Is Still...
The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy
Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics. ...
a year ago
Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics.
The post The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
Memories of Project RAMOS (Russian American Observation Satellites) 1991 – 2004
During the course of my professional career, one of the more important projects I had the pleasure...
a year ago
During the course of my professional career, one of the more important projects I had the pleasure to work on was the joint US/Russian Federation (RF) […]
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Designed Drugs
On a recent SGU live streaming discussion someone in the chat asked – aren’t frivolous AI...
8 months ago
On a recent SGU live streaming discussion someone in the chat asked – aren’t frivolous AI applications just toys without any useful output? The question was meant to downplay recent advances in generative AI. I pointed out that the question is a bit circular – aren’t frivolous...
Math Is Still...
Merging Fields, Mathematicians Go the Distance On Old Problem
Mathematicians have illuminated what sets of points can look like if the distances between them are...
8 months ago
Mathematicians have illuminated what sets of points can look like if the distances between them are all whole numbers.
The post Merging Fields, Mathematicians Go the Distance On Old Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
My favorite rocket scientist
Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is...
5 months ago
Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is a researcher at Princeton University, and she showed me her lab this June. When I first met Jamie, she was testing instruments to … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
The Conversation Gets it Wrong on GMOs
Even high quality media outlets will get it wrong from time to time. I notice this tends to happen...
a year ago
Even high quality media outlets will get it wrong from time to time. I notice this tends to happen when there is a mature and sophisticated propaganda campaign that has had enough time and reach to essentially gaslight a major portion of the public, and further where a particular...
Math Is Still...
Number of Distances Separating Points Has a New Bound
Mathematicians have struggled to prove Falconer’s Conjecture, a simple, but far-reaching, hypothesis...
8 months ago
Mathematicians have struggled to prove Falconer’s Conjecture, a simple, but far-reaching, hypothesis about the distances between points. They’re finally getting close.
The post Number of Distances Separating Points Has a New Bound first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
The future of the semiconductor industry, + The Mechanical Universe
Three items of interest:
This article is a nice review of present semiconductor memory...
8 months ago
Three items of interest:
This article is a nice review of present semiconductor memory technology. The electron micrographs in Fig. 1 and the scaling history in Fig. 3 are impressive.
This article in IEEE Spectrum is a very interesting look at how some people think we will get...
NeuroLogica Blog
Let’s Talk About Cement
Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production...
6 months ago
Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production (25%) and transportation (28%). We talk a lot about transportation and energy, but industrial carbon is a harder nut to crack. Also, the 23% is direct carbon release from industrial...
NeuroLogica Blog
Solution Aversion Fallacy
I like to think deeply about informal logical fallacies. I write about them a lot, and even have an...
a year ago
I like to think deeply about informal logical fallacies. I write about them a lot, and even have an occasional segment of the SGU dedicated to them. They are a great way to crystalize our thinking about the many ways in which logic can go wrong. Formal logic deals with arguments...
Blog - Practical...
What’s the Deal with Base Plates?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
A lot of engineering focuses...
2 weeks ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
A lot of engineering focuses on structural members. How wide is this beam? How tall is this column? But some of the most important engineering decisions are in how to connect those members together. Take a...
Math Is Still...
Mollusk Eyes Reveal How Future Evolution Depends on the Past
The visual systems of an obscure group of mollusks provide a rare natural example of path-dependent...
9 months ago
The visual systems of an obscure group of mollusks provide a rare natural example of path-dependent evolution, in which a critical fork in the creatures’ past determined their evolutionary futures.
The post Mollusk Eyes Reveal How Future Evolution Depends on the Past...
NeuroLogica Blog
First Mission To Remove Space Debris
I know you don’t need one more thing to worry about, but I have already written about the growing...
a year ago
I know you don’t need one more thing to worry about, but I have already written about the growing problem of space debris. At least this update is about a mission to help clear some of that debris – ClearSpace-1. This is an ESA mission which they contracted out to a Swiss...
Quantum Frontiers
To thermalize, or not to thermalize, that is the question.
If Hamlet had been a system of noncommuting charges, his famous soliloquy may have gone like this…...
8 months ago
If Hamlet had been a system of noncommuting charges, his famous soliloquy may have gone like this… To thermalize, or not to thermalize, that is the question:Whether ’tis more natural for the system to sufferThe large entanglement of thermalizing dynamics,Or … Continue reading →
Drew Ex Machina
Epsilon Indi’s Super Jovian Exoplanet – Background & New Observations by JWST
On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max...
4 months ago
On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max Plank Institute for Astronomy, announced that they had used […]
Math Is Still...
The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities
New modeling work suggests why nature is more diverse than niche-based ecological theory predicts. ...
a year ago
New modeling work suggests why nature is more diverse than niche-based ecological theory predicts.
The post The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Wanderingspace
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...
over a year ago
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...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 3: Hunter Canyon to Portal
September 2, 2024
We awoke to another beautiful sunrise in the Huachuca Mountains. I could get used...
2 months ago
September 2, 2024
We awoke to another beautiful sunrise in the Huachuca Mountains. I could get used to this view.
View from Beatty's Guest Ranch - Miller Canyon, Cochise County, Arizona
This was our final morning in this region; we had plans to make the long drive eastwards...
Damn Interesting
This is Dang Interesting
Happy New Year! This has nothing to do with the new year.
We at this website know, reluctantly, that...
a year ago
Happy New Year! This has nothing to do with the new year.
We at this website know, reluctantly, that “d*mn” is not always a welcome word. Additionally, we are aware that we have a few articles sporting even saltier vocabularies (settle down, Colonel Sanders!). Countless school...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Earthrise from Apollo 8 – December 24, 1968
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by...
12 months ago
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by the assassination of prominent public figures, violent protests […]
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How Healthcare Payments Work with Candid Health | Out-Of-Pocket
A walkthrough of how money flows between payers and providers
a year ago
A walkthrough of how money flows between payers and providers
Asterisk
The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google
Over the past two decades, Google has hosted two different internal platforms for predictions. Why...
a month ago
Over the past two decades, Google has hosted two different internal platforms for predictions. Why did the first one fail — and will the other endure?
Light from Space
Vaporwave Crescent
Shooting space with a monochrome camera means using various filters—when choosing narrowband filters...
over a year ago
Shooting space with a monochrome camera means using various filters—when choosing narrowband filters (those with only a few nanometers of bandpass) one can limit the sensor capturing only very specific wavelengths of light, namely the emissions of certain gasses (basically,...
Math Is Still...
What Happens in the Brain to Cause Depression?
Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now...
7 months ago
Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now the spotlight is turning to other aspects of brain chemistry. In this episode, the neuropharmacologist John Krystal shares findings that are overturning our understanding of...
Math Is Still...
JWST Spots Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe
Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb...
a year ago
Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpected abundance of the beasts.
The post JWST Spots Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe first appeared on...
Marine Madness
Book club: ‘Being Salmon Being Human’ by Martin Lee Mueller
Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild Norwegian and Pacific Northwest salmon industries...
over a year ago
Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild Norwegian and Pacific Northwest salmon industries remain largely overlooked and Martin Lee Mueller cleverly weaves the stories of artificially inseminated and reared salmon to highlight the long-standing notion of human...
Math Is Still...
All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet LUCA.
The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively...
a month ago
The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively complex organism living 4.2 billion years ago, a time long considered too harsh for life to flourish.
The post All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet...
symmetry magazine
IceCube and NANOGrav open new windows onto the universe
New results from a neutrino telescope and a gravitational-wave observatory show how astronomers use...
a year ago
New results from a neutrino telescope and a gravitational-wave observatory show how astronomers use different forms of messengers to study the cosmos.
nanoscale views
Getting light out of plasmonic tunnel junctions - the sequel
A couple of years ago I wrote about our work on "above threshold" light emission in planar metal...
over a year ago
A couple of years ago I wrote about our work on "above threshold" light emission in planar metal tunnel junctions. In that work, we showed that in a planar tunnel junction, you can apply a bias voltage \(V\) and get lots of photons out at energies quite a bit greater than...
ToughSF
Thermal Decomposition of CO2 with Nuclear Heat
A lot of
effort must and will be put into combating climate change. We can however
directly attack...
over a year ago
A lot of
effort must and will be put into combating climate change. We can however
directly attack the root cause of it by reducing the amount of CO2 that we have released
into the atmosphere.
We can enlist the help of
ultra-high-temperature nuclear reactors to do this rapidly...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: Too much money in digital health? | Out-Of-Pocket
Here's what some of you had to say
a year ago
Here's what some of you had to say
Explorations of an...
HWY 101 - Forest Birding Near Iguazú
Highway 101 is the main corridor that runs east-west along the top end of Misiones Province in...
a year ago
Highway 101 is the main corridor that runs east-west along the top end of Misiones Province in Argentina. Though this road looks like a major artery on Google Maps, in practice it is nothing more than a clay track that receives very little traffic - mainly, just a few locals...
pcloadletter
RSS is still pretty great
I think a lot about information and information consumption. The way the Internet made information...
10 months ago
I think a lot about information and information consumption. The way the Internet made information readily available is phenomenal. Sadly, the signal-to-noise ratio here is pretty low. For me, consuming RSS feeds[1] offers the best way to read the kind of high-quality information...
Quantum Frontiers
Explorations in Quantum TiqTaqToe
Several years ago, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across a video of Paul Rudd playing...
a year ago
Several years ago, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across a video of Paul Rudd playing something called “Quantum Chess.” I had no idea what it was, nor did I know that it would become one of the most gloriously … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
A Discussion about Biological Sex
At CSICON this year I gave talk about topics over which skeptics have and continue to disagree with...
a month ago
At CSICON this year I gave talk about topics over which skeptics have and continue to disagree with each other. My core theme was that these are the topics we absolutely should be discussing with each other, especially at skeptical conferences. Nothing should be taboo or too...
nanoscale views
Some interesting recent papers - lots to ponder
As we bid apparent farewell to LK99, it's important to note that several other pretty exciting...
a year ago
As we bid apparent farewell to LK99, it's important to note that several other pretty exciting things have been happening in the condensed matter/nano world. Here are a few papers that look intriguing (caveat emptor: I have not had a chance to read these in any real depth, so...
The Works in...
Upzoning New Zealand
How a small country started building a lot of homes
10 months ago
How a small country started building a lot of homes
Quantum Frontiers
Crossing the quantum chasm: From NISQ to fault tolerance
On December 6, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2023 Conference in Silicon Valley. Here is a...
a year ago
On December 6, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2023 Conference in Silicon Valley. Here is a transcript of my remarks. Toward quantum value The theme of this year’s Q2B meeting is “The Roadmap to Quantum Value.” I … Continue reading →
Asterisk
AI Isn’t Coming for Tech Jobs—Yet
LLMs can make a developer’s job easier and faster. When might they make them obsolete?
a year ago
LLMs can make a developer’s job easier and faster. When might they make them obsolete?
Stephen Wolfram...
On the Nature of Time
The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is...
2 months ago
The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is it? In traditional scientific accounts it’s often represented as some kind of coordinate much like space (though a coordinate that for some reason is always systematically...
Asterisk
Want Growth? Kill Small Businesses
The central question of development economics is simple: how can poor countries become rich? The...
5 months ago
The central question of development economics is simple: how can poor countries become rich? The answer is neither small-scale, targeted interventions nor broad generalizations about growth. Instead, we should focus on firms.
nanoscale views
Wind-up nanotechnology
When I was a kid, I used to take allowance money and occasionally buy rubber-band-powered balsa wood...
7 months ago
When I was a kid, I used to take allowance money and occasionally buy rubber-band-powered balsa wood airplanes at a local store. Maybe you've seen these. You wind up the rubber band, which stretches the elastomer and stores energy in the elastic strain of the polymer, as in...
NeuroLogica Blog
Dog Soundboards
I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have...
3 months ago
I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have been. They pick up on subtle body language and non-verbal cues, they seem to understand specific words, and they are capable of successfully communicating their wants and desires....
Math Is Still...
Andreas Wagner Pursues the Secrets to Evolutionary Success
Why did mammals, grasses and some other groups of organisms explode in diversity only after millions...
a year ago
Why did mammals, grasses and some other groups of organisms explode in diversity only after millions of years? The evolutionary biologist Andreas Wagner plumbs the secrets of those “sleeping beauties.”
The post Andreas Wagner Pursues the Secrets to Evolutionary...
Melting Asphalt
Outbreak
Harry Stevens at The Washington Post recently published a very elegant simulation of how a disease...
over a year ago
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 ›
IEEE Spectrum
50 Years Later, We’re Still Living in the Xerox Alto’s World
I’m sitting in front of a computer, looking at its graphical user interface with overlapping windows...
a year ago
I’m sitting in front of a computer, looking at its graphical user interface with overlapping windows on a high-resolution screen. I interact with the computer by pointing and clicking with a mouse and typing on a keyboard. I’m using a word processor with the core features and...
Math Is Still...
Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound
Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways...
2 weeks ago
Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.
The post Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Sean Carroll
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion
Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a...
over a year ago
Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a new book out! The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion is Volume One of a planned three-volume series. It grew out of the videos that I did in 2020, trying to offer...
The Roots of...
Can we “cure” cancer?
In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes:
Ask most biologists...
a year ago
In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes:
Ask most biologists about the cure for cancer, and they will tell you it doesn’t exist: cancer is many diseases that are mostly unrelated to each other, and that all have to be cured one at a...
Math Is Still...
How Math Achieved Transcendence
Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to...
a year ago
Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to understand them.
The post How Math Achieved Transcendence first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
The concept of sustainment
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Math Is Still...
Invisible ‘Demon’ Discovered in Odd Superconductor
Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all...
a year ago
Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all but invisible. Now physicists have spotted these “demon modes.”
The post Invisible ‘Demon’ Discovered in Odd Superconductor first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Behind Closed Doors
In 2020, we worried that COVID lockdowns might lead to an increase in domestic violence. Instead,...
a year ago
In 2020, we worried that COVID lockdowns might lead to an increase in domestic violence. Instead, the opposite occurred. Why did this happen — and why was it so hard to figure out?
NeuroLogica Blog
Unifying Cognitive Biases
Are you familiar with the “lumper vs splitter” debate? This refers to any situation in which there...
a year ago
Are you familiar with the “lumper vs splitter” debate? This refers to any situation in which there is some controversy over exactly how to categorize complex phenomena, specifically whether or not to favor the fewest categories based on similarities, or the greatest number of...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Let’s Talk About Obesity Drugs | Out-Of-Pocket
we're entering a new era for these treatments
a year ago
we're entering a new era for these treatments
Blog - Practical...
How Do You Steer a Drill Below The Earth?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In December 2019, the City of...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In December 2019, the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida experienced a series of catastrophic ruptures in a critical wastewater transmission line, releasing raw sewage into local waterways and neighborhoods....
Math Is Still...
A New Map of the Universe, Painted With Cosmic Neutrinos
Physicists finally know where at least some of these high-energy particles come from, which helps...
a year ago
Physicists finally know where at least some of these high-energy particles come from, which helps make the neutrinos useful for exploring fundamental physics.
The post A New Map of the Universe, Painted With Cosmic Neutrinos first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Breaking Down Electronic Data Interchange, X12, and Stedi | Out-Of-Pocket
7 months ago
Asterisk
The Misery Bomb
Children across the Western world are getting less happy. If we can’t find a way to reverse the...
5 months ago
Children across the Western world are getting less happy. If we can’t find a way to reverse the trend, it might have an outsized impact on their future.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
An update about Out-Of-Pocket | Out-Of-Pocket
lemme sell some of your attention plz
a year ago
lemme sell some of your attention plz
NeuroLogica Blog
Elizabeth Holmes Going to Prison
I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it...
a year ago
I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it took 7 years to follow this story through to the end. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the company Theranos, was convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to 11 years in prison....
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Cement for Energy Storage
Imagine if every house, every building, came with 1-2 days (or possibly more) of energy storage....
a year ago
Imagine if every house, every building, came with 1-2 days (or possibly more) of energy storage. What if every wind turbine could store a day’s worth of the energy it produces on average? How beneficial would it be if the most common building material the world could be used to...
IEEE Spectrum
Smellovision Gets a Refresh
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE...
a year ago
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore.
Modern virtual reality is a feast for the eyes and ears—but coming in a distant fourth (behind haptic touch technologies), smell has been nearly completely ignored.
Earlier this...
Math Is Still...
Can Psychedelics Improve Mental Health?
Research suggests that psychedelic drugs can reopen critical periods of brain development to create...
6 months ago
Research suggests that psychedelic drugs can reopen critical periods of brain development to create opportunities for re-learning and psychological healing. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with Gül Dölen, a neuroscientist studying the therapeutic potential of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Nobel Prize for Attosecond Physics
One attosecond (as) is 1×10−18 seconds. An attosecond is to one second what one second is to the age...
a year ago
One attosecond (as) is 1×10−18 seconds. An attosecond is to one second what one second is to the age of the universe. It is an extremely tiny slice of time. This year’s Nobel Prize in physics goes to three scientists, Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier, whose...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
My investing theses | Out-Of-Pocket
Hit up ya boi
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
Discoveries at the Dibner
This past summer, our quantum thermodynamics research group had the wonderful opportunity to visit...
10 months ago
This past summer, our quantum thermodynamics research group had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Dibner Rare Book Library in D.C. Located in a small corner of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, tucked away behind flashier exhibits, the Dibner is … Continue...
Math Is Still...
How Is Science Even Possible?
How are scientists able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? How does math make the...
6 months ago
How are scientists able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? How does math make the complex cosmos understandable? In this episode, the physicist Nigel Goldenfeld and co-host Steven Strogatz explore the deep foundations of the scientific process.
The...
Blog - Practical...
The Wild Story of the Taum Sauk Dam Failure
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Early in the morning of...
2 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Early in the morning of December 14, 2005, pumps were nearly finished filling the upper reservoir at the Taum Sauk power station, marking the end of the daily cycle. Water rose to the top of the rockfill...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Dec. 21 is Winter Solstice — Why We Have Seasons on Earth
Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with...
3 days ago
Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with which we mark the beginning of the winter season in the Earth’s northern hemisphere. It’s interesting to note that the planets Venus and Jupiter do not have seasons like the...
The Works in...
New York’s long road to congestion pricing
The decades of work that went into getting the policy very, very close to the finish line
4 months ago
The decades of work that went into getting the policy very, very close to the finish line
Blog - Practical...
Every Type of Railcar Explained in 15 Minutes
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
A train is a simple thing at...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
A train is a simple thing at first glance: a locomotive (or several) pull a string of cars along a railroad. But not all those railcars are equal, and there are some fascinating details if you take minute to...
Math Is Still...
The ‘Accidental Activist’ Who Changed the Face of Mathematics
Throughout her 60-year career, Lenore Blum has developed new perspectives on logic and computation...
11 months ago
Throughout her 60-year career, Lenore Blum has developed new perspectives on logic and computation while championing women in mathematics and computer science. Now consciousness is on her mind.
The post The ‘Accidental Activist’ Who Changed the Face of Mathematics...
Interaction Magic -...
Think outside the screen
Nobody likes stroking a pane of glass, so why do we love touchscreens so much? Let's build...
over a year ago
Nobody likes stroking a pane of glass, so why do we love touchscreens so much? Let's build distributed interfaces that work.
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 5
This is the fifth and final episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
This is the fifth and final episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
Explorations of an...
Day Five And Six At Río Bigal - The Last Hurrah
November 6, 2023
Somehow, it was already my final full day at Río Bigal. I am not sure where the...
a year ago
November 6, 2023
Somehow, it was already my final full day at Río Bigal. I am not sure where the time all went, but now the end was in sight. Hoping to maximize my final day, I arranged for a packed lunch and planned for an earlier breakfast so that I could hit the trails ahead...
The Works in...
The duplication crisis: the other replication crisis
How bad publishing incentives hinder long-term thinking in computational biology research
3 months ago
How bad publishing incentives hinder long-term thinking in computational biology research
Many Worlds
The Evolving Science of Technosignatures
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began decades ago as an effort to pick up radio...
a year ago
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began decades ago as an effort to pick up radio signals from distant civilizations. The effort was centered at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia and was by today’s standards quite rudimentary. A much broader search...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Asteroid Probably Won’t Hit Earth
NASA recently discovered a 50 meter wide asteroid whose orbit will come close to Earth. They...
a year ago
NASA recently discovered a 50 meter wide asteroid whose orbit will come close to Earth. They estimate a close approach in 2046, which will likely bring the asteroid within 1.1 million miles of the Earth, about four times the distance of the moon. However, there is always...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Thinking like a dog
How dog brains could save us from dementia
over a year ago
How dog brains could save us from dementia
NeuroLogica Blog
Living a Hybrid Life
The cultural effects of the COVID pandemic can still be felt reverberating through society. One of...
4 months ago
The cultural effects of the COVID pandemic can still be felt reverberating through society. One of the positive effects, in my opinion, was the sudden boost to remote technology – connecting remotely for meetings and other uses through Zoom or a similar application. This...
Math Is Still...
A Rosetta Stone for Mathematics
In 1940 André Weil wrote a letter to his sister, Simone, outlining his vision for translating...
7 months ago
In 1940 André Weil wrote a letter to his sister, Simone, outlining his vision for translating between three distinct areas of mathematics. Eighty years later, it still animates many of the most exciting developments in the field.
The post A Rosetta Stone for...
nanoscale views
Some interesting links - useful lecture notes, videos
Proposal writing, paper writing, and course prep are eating a lot of my bandwidth right now, but I...
a year ago
Proposal writing, paper writing, and course prep are eating a lot of my bandwidth right now, but I wanted to share a few things:
David Tong at Cambridge is a gifted educator and communicator who has written lecture notes that span a wide swath of the physics curriculum, from...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six Healthcare Startup Ideas | Out-Of-Pocket
In collaboration with The Generalist
a year ago
In collaboration with The Generalist
IEEE Spectrum
The Tremendous VR and CG Systems—of the 1960s
Ivan Sutherland has blazed a truly unique trail through computing over the past six decades. One of...
a year ago
Ivan Sutherland has blazed a truly unique trail through computing over the past six decades. One of the most influential figures in the story of computing, he helped to open new pathways for others to explore and dramatically extend: interactive computer graphics, virtual...
Math Is Still...
Unfolding the Mysteries of Polygonal Billiards
The surprisingly subtle geometry of a familiar game shows how quickly math gets complicated. ...
10 months ago
The surprisingly subtle geometry of a familiar game shows how quickly math gets complicated.
The post Unfolding the Mysteries of Polygonal Billiards first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
When Infrastructure Gets Hacked
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is a water tower, or as...
3 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is a water tower, or as the pros would say, an elevated storage tank. Pretty common here in the US, especially in flatter areas where there’s no nearby hillside to build a ground-level tank. I have a whole...
IEEE Spectrum
The Story Behind Pixar’s RenderMan CGI Software
Watching movies and TV series that use digital visual effects to create fantastical worlds lets...
9 months ago
Watching movies and TV series that use digital visual effects to create fantastical worlds lets people escape reality for a few hours. Thanks to advancements in computer-generated technology used to produce films and shows, those worlds are highly realistic. In many cases, it can...
Asterisk
How Long Until Armageddon?
Scientists, generals, and politicians all failed to accurately predict when the Soviets would get...
a year ago
Scientists, generals, and politicians all failed to accurately predict when the Soviets would get the bomb. Could they have done any better?
NeuroLogica Blog
Tesla Demonstrated its Optimus Robot
At a recent event Tesla showcased the capabilities of its humanoid autonomous robot, Optimus. The...
2 months ago
At a recent event Tesla showcased the capabilities of its humanoid autonomous robot, Optimus. The demonstration has come under some criticism, however, for not being fully transparent about the nature of the demonstration. We interviewed robotics expert, Christian Hubicki, on the...
Asterisk
How to Make a Great Government Website
Do lots of user research, travel to every county in California, iterate constantly, and troubleshoot...
7 months ago
Do lots of user research, travel to every county in California, iterate constantly, and troubleshoot on Reddit. And maybe take Political Economy of Industrial Societies 100.
NeuroLogica Blog
Regret After Transitioning
In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was...
a year ago
In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was enough to trigger very specific feedback, often making erroneous scientific claims. Each claim requires a deep dive and article-length discussion. Even though the discussion that...
Quantum Frontiers
The spirit of relativity
One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a...
over a year ago
One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a university I visited this month. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, by Natasha Pulley, features a budding scientist named Grace Carrow. Grace attends Oxford as … Continue reading →
IEEE Spectrum
Who Really Invented the Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery?
Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value....
a year ago
Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value. It’s used in billions of laptops, cellphones, power tools, and cars. Global sales top US $45 billion a year, on their way to more than $100 billion in the coming decade.
The first...
Explorations of an...
2023 Part 4: Indonesia and Ecuador
September
The island of Sulawesi must be on the bucket list for any naturalist with a strong...
11 months ago
September
The island of Sulawesi must be on the bucket list for any naturalist with a strong interest in biogeography. Though Borneo is situated only a few hundred kilometers to the west, and the Moluccas are not far to the east, the species composition of Sulawesi is...
Probably...
Comparing Distributions
This is the second is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
a month ago
This is the second is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 8, which is about representing distribution using PMFs and CDFs. This section explains why I think CDFs are often better for plotting...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Future of (Unpaid) Work
If we think of the top inventions that had a positive impact on human society and our quality of...
a year ago
If we think of the top inventions that had a positive impact on human society and our quality of life most lists would contain things like the printing press, the wheel, or the computer. One invention that should be on everyone’s list but is easy to overlook is – the washing...
IEEE Spectrum
The Sneaky Standard
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the...
7 months ago
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the end of the long tail.
Personal computing has changed a lot in the past four decades, and one of the biggest changes, perhaps the most unheralded, comes down to compatibility. These...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Tikalon Blog Archive
Tikalon Blog is now in archive mode. Here's a directory of links to easily printed and saved...
3 months ago
Tikalon Blog is now in archive mode. Here's a directory of links to easily printed and saved articles. If you're willing to wait a while for the download, a zip file of all the blog articles can be found at the link below. Note, however, that these articles are copyrighted and...
Math Is Still...
How Do Merging Supermassive Black Holes Pass the Final Parsec?
The giant holes in galaxies’ centers shouldn’t be able to merge, yet merge they do. Scientists...
2 months ago
The giant holes in galaxies’ centers shouldn’t be able to merge, yet merge they do. Scientists suggest that an unusual form of dark matter may be the solution.
The post How Do Merging Supermassive Black Holes Pass the Final Parsec? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Eukaryote Writes...
Book Review: Cuisine and Empire
Things people nigh-universally like to eat: salt, fat, sugar, starch, sauces, meat, drugs...
11 months ago
Things people nigh-universally like to eat: salt, fat, sugar, starch, sauces, meat, drugs...
The Works in...
How America Made Machines Make Machines
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Out-of-Pocket Blog
SWORD Health And Virtual Musculoskeletal Care | Out-Of-Pocket
A first person account
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare in India | Out-Of-Pocket
From the eyes of someone on the ground
a year ago
From the eyes of someone on the ground
The Roots of...
Quote quiz: “drifting into dependence”
Quote quiz: who said this? (No fair looking it up). I have modified the original quotation slightly,...
a year ago
Quote quiz: who said this? (No fair looking it up). I have modified the original quotation slightly, by making a handful of word substitutions to bring it up to date:
It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all power to AI. But we are...
Marine Madness
Fear factor: How sensationalised shark documentaries undermine conservation efforts
Experts explain why misleading documentaries about sharks can be problematic. When Brendon Sing...
over a year ago
Experts explain why misleading documentaries about sharks can be problematic. When Brendon Sing first encountered sharks he was as a young boy behind the safety of aquarium glass in his native South Africa. Like many children of his generation, Brendon’s limited knowledge about...
Light from Space
The Helping Hand of LDN 1355
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark...
over a year ago
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark dust obscuring the reflection nebula behind it.
Total exposure time: 58h 50' (211,800s)
Image resolution: 5,216 × 3,909px (1.924″/px)
Shot from my driveway
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Artificial flavoring
"Artificial" didn't scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare us now?
a year ago
"Artificial" didn't scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare us now?
The Roots of...
Do we get better or worse at adapting to change?
Verner Vinge, in a classic 1993 essay, described “the Singularity” as an era where progress becomes...
a year ago
Verner Vinge, in a classic 1993 essay, described “the Singularity” as an era where progress becomes “an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control.”
The idea that technological change might accelerate to a pace faster than we can keep up with is a common concern. Almost three...
Blog - Practical...
The Most Confusing Part of the Power Grid
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In March of 1989, Earth...
6 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In March of 1989, Earth experienced one of its strongest geomagnetic storms in modern history. It all started when scientists observed a cluster of sunspots—active, magnetic areas on the sun's surface—emerging...
Blog - Practical...
This Bridge Should Have Been Closed Years Before It Collapsed
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On January 28, 2022, about an...
6 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On January 28, 2022, about an hour before dawn, the four-lane Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, collapsed without warning. Five vehicles, including an articulating bus, fell with the bridge, and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Categorization and What’s In a Name
Categorization is critical in science, but it is also very tricky, often deceptively so. We need to...
11 months ago
Categorization is critical in science, but it is also very tricky, often deceptively so. We need to categorize things to help us organize our knowledge, to understand how things work and relate to each other, and to communicate efficiently and precisely. But categorization can...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using CRISPR To Treat HIV
CRISPR has been big scientific news since it was introduced in 2012. The science actually goes back...
9 months ago
CRISPR has been big scientific news since it was introduced in 2012. The science actually goes back to 1987, but the CRISPR/Cas9 system was patented in 2012, and the developers won the Noble Prize in Chemistry in 2020. The system gives researchers the ability to quickly and...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More 2022 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket
A curation of your 2022 predictions
a year ago
A curation of your 2022 predictions
Math Is Still...
‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules
Simple rules in simple settings continue to puzzle mathematicians, even as they devise intricate...
9 months ago
Simple rules in simple settings continue to puzzle mathematicians, even as they devise intricate tools to analyze them.
The post ‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
Borneo, October 2022
Borneo, the third largest island in the world behind Greenland and New Guinea, is home to some of...
a year ago
Borneo, the third largest island in the world behind Greenland and New Guinea, is home to some of the planet’s oldest rainforests, containing a stunning array of biodiversity. The conditions in Borneo forests have stimulated the evolution of many different organisms that are...
NeuroLogica Blog
Light and Distance in an Expanding Universe
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that...
6 months ago
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that distant galaxy for 13 and a half billion years, which I assume is true, but this neither represents the original nor the current distance to that galaxy in terms of light years. I...
Math Is Still...
How the Brain Protects Itself From Blood-Borne Threats
To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is...
a year ago
To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is built into the brain’s blood vessels.
The post How the Brain Protects Itself From Blood-Borne Threats first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
Pioneer 3: JPL’s First Moonshot Attempt
With the new push by the United States and other space faring powers to renew the exploration of the...
over a year ago
With the new push by the United States and other space faring powers to renew the exploration of the Moon, miniaturized spacecraft have been made part […]
symmetry magazine
Vera C. Rubin Observatory brings the universe to everyone
The Rubin Observatory is making education and outreach a top priority.
a year ago
The Rubin Observatory is making education and outreach a top priority.
The Works in...
Rust never sleeps
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Math Is Still...
A Multitalented Scientist Seeks the Origins of Multicellularity
The pathbreaking geneticist Cassandra Extavour pursues the secrets of multicellular life while...
10 months ago
The pathbreaking geneticist Cassandra Extavour pursues the secrets of multicellular life while balancing careers in both science and singing.
The post A Multitalented Scientist Seeks the Origins of Multicellularity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
The Political Gender Gap is Not Growing
In a previous article, I used data from the General Social Survey (GSS) to see if there is a growing...
10 months ago
In a previous article, I used data from the General Social Survey (GSS) to see if there is a growing gender gap among young people in political alignment, party affiliation, or political attitudes. So far, the answer is no. Ryan Burge has done a similar analysis with data from...
Math Is Still...
In New Paradox, Black Holes Appear to Evade Heat Death
The puzzling behavior of black hole interiors has led researchers to propose a new physical law: the...
a year ago
The puzzling behavior of black hole interiors has led researchers to propose a new physical law: the second law of quantum complexity.
The post In New Paradox, Black Holes Appear to Evade Heat Death first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum computing vs. Grubhub
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my...
a year ago
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my eyebrows. I’d be participating in a panel discussion with Mike Evans, the founder of Grubhub? But I hadn’t created an app that’s a household name. I … Continue reading →
nanoscale views
Experimental techniques: bridge measurements
When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss...
4 months ago
When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss over the fact that there are specialized techniques for this - it's more than just hooking up a battery and an ammeter. If you want to get high precision results, such as measuring...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Two Eclipses of the Sun Coming to North America 2023-24
Two eclipses of the Sun will be visible in North America during the 2023-24 school year.
The post...
a year ago
Two eclipses of the Sun will be visible in North America during the 2023-24 school year.
The post Two Eclipses of the Sun Coming to North America 2023-24 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Asterisk
What I Won’t Eat
A reflection on ethics, animal cognition, and chocolate cake.
a year ago
A reflection on ethics, animal cognition, and chocolate cake.
NeuroLogica Blog
Podcast Pseudoscience
A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for...
a week ago
A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for ourselves. The BBC investigated the number one ranked UK podcast, Diary of a CEO with host Steven Bartlett, for the accuracy of the medical claims recently made on the show. While...
The Works in...
Issue 10: One word—plastics.
Plus: France's baby bust, why we empathise with animals, building infrastructure faster, and more.
a year ago
Plus: France's baby bust, why we empathise with animals, building infrastructure faster, and more.
Math Is Still...
Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts
By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking...
9 months ago
By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking agreement with their standard theoretical model of how the universe evolves.
The post Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predicts first appeared on Quanta...
Math Is Still...
What Your Brain Is Doing When You’re Not Doing Anything
When your mind is wandering, your brain’s “default mode” network is active. Its discovery 20 years...
10 months ago
When your mind is wandering, your brain’s “default mode” network is active. Its discovery 20 years ago inspired a raft of research into networks of brain regions and how they interact with each other.
The post What Your Brain Is Doing When You’re Not Doing Anything...
Quantum Frontiers
My experimental adventures in quantum thermodynamics
Imagine a billiard ball bouncing around on a pool table. High-school level physics enables us to...
9 months ago
Imagine a billiard ball bouncing around on a pool table. High-school level physics enables us to predict its motion until the end of time using simple equations for energy and momentum conservation, as long as you know the initial conditions … Continue reading →
Wanderingspace
Apollo Lunar Rover Video Corrected Speed and Stabilized
It is remarkable the difference watching this version where the time is corrected and camera...
over a year ago
It is remarkable the difference watching this version where the time is corrected and camera stabilized.. The film restorer behind DutchSteamMachine used AI to stabilize shaky footage and generate new frames in NASA moon landing films; increasing the frame rate, smoothed the...
Chris Grossack's...
A truly incredible fact about the number 37
So I was on math stackexchange the other day, and I saw a cute post
looking for a book which lists,...
a year ago
So I was on math stackexchange the other day, and I saw a cute post
looking for a book which lists, for many many integers, facts that Ramanujan
could have told Hardy if he’d taken a cab other than 1729. A few days ago
OP answered their own question, saying that the book in...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 5: The Marañón Valley (February 7, 2024)
February 7, 2024
The Marañón Valley is one of the most important biogeographical boundaries in the...
8 months ago
February 7, 2024
The Marañón Valley is one of the most important biogeographical boundaries in the Andes. Situated in northwestern Peru, the valley follows the Marañón River which flows northward across plateaus in the Andes. After cutting through a very deep, heavily eroded...
Math Is Still...
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...
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
Probably...
Elements of Data Science
I’m excited to announce the launch of my newest book, Elements of Data Science. As the subtitle...
5 months ago
I’m excited to announce the launch of my newest book, Elements of Data Science. As the subtitle suggests, it is about “Getting started with Data Science and Python”. Order now from Lulu.com and get 20% off! I am publishing this book myself, which has one big advantage: I can...
Explorations of an...
The Iberá Wetlands
The national and provincial parks of Iberá form the largest protected area in Argentina. These parks...
a year ago
The national and provincial parks of Iberá form the largest protected area in Argentina. These parks protect a portion of the Iberá Wetlands, which is the second largest wetland complex in South America after Brazil's Pantanal. The Iberá Wetlands is a vitally important area for...
NeuroLogica Blog
Oxygen As A Technosignature
This is one of the biggest thought experiments in science today – as we look for life elsewhere in...
11 months ago
This is one of the biggest thought experiments in science today – as we look for life elsewhere in the universe, what should we be looking for, exactly? Other stellar systems are too far away to examine directly, and even our most powerful telescopes can only resolve points of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Cities on Fire
Most major cities in the US experienced a major fire sometime between 1860 and 1920. Actually these...
5 months ago
Most major cities in the US experienced a major fire sometime between 1860 and 1920. Actually these fires, called conflagrations, have been occurring since colonial times and into the middle of the 20th century, but saw a peak in the late 19th and early 20th century. Many cities...
IEEE Spectrum
Robert Kahn: The Great Interconnector
In the mid-1960s, Robert Kahn began thinking about how computers with different operating systems...
8 months ago
In the mid-1960s, Robert Kahn began thinking about how computers with different operating systems could talk to each other across a network. He didn’t think much about what they would say to one another, though. He was a theoretical guy, on leave from the faculty of the...
IEEE Spectrum
Assistive Tech at the End of Sight
Seeing his words on the printed page is a big deal to Andrew Leland—as it is to all writers. But the...
a year ago
Seeing his words on the printed page is a big deal to Andrew Leland—as it is to all writers. But the sight of his thoughts in written form is much more precious to him than to most scribes. Leland is gradually losing his vision due to a congenital condition called retinitis...
Damn Interesting
Hunting For Kobyla
On a January day in 1964, something remarkable happened: Simon Wiesenthal took the afternoon off. He...
over a year ago
On a January day in 1964, something remarkable happened: Simon Wiesenthal took the afternoon off. He parked himself at a table on the terrace of Tel Aviv’s Café Roval, soaking up the sunshine as if he wished to bottle it. The friend he’d come to meet was late, but Wiesenthal had...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How To Self-Publish A Children's Book and How Much You Can Expect To Make | Out-Of-Pocket
spoiler: you will make very little lol
a year ago
spoiler: you will make very little lol
Math Is Still...
The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes
A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about...
2 months ago
A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about the threads of the space-time fabric.
The post The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
Grading the World's Shortest Manifesto
It gets an F and the student has earned the death penalty
a week ago
It gets an F and the student has earned the death penalty
NeuroLogica Blog
Another UFO Whistleblower
How seriously should we take the claims of David Grusch? He is an airforce veteran and former member...
a year ago
How seriously should we take the claims of David Grusch? He is an airforce veteran and former member of the UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) task force, which is enough to at least hear him out. He gave an exclusive interview to journalist Ross Coulthart from NewsNation, part...
Math Is Still...
The Mathematician Who Finds the Poetry in Math and the Math in Poetry
The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now...
11 months ago
The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now turning a mathematical eye to literature.
The post The Mathematician Who Finds the Poetry in Math and the Math in Poetry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
"We Should Sell To Self-Insured Employers" | Out-Of-Pocket
Six Stages Of Health Tech Grief Pt. 2
a year ago
Six Stages Of Health Tech Grief Pt. 2
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Should we charge for patient messaging? | Out-Of-Pocket
guess I'm texting my resident friends
a year ago
guess I'm texting my resident friends
Explorations of an...
Chaco Birding, And A Rare Monjita
The Gran Chaco (or simply, "Chaco"), is a sparsely populated plain in central South America, known...
a year ago
The Gran Chaco (or simply, "Chaco"), is a sparsely populated plain in central South America, known for its hot, semi-arid environment. It doesn't refer to one particular ecosystem, but rather, it includes a number of different types of forest, scrub, savannah and grassland. Most...
Chris Grossack's...
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...
a year ago
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...
Math Is Still...
Quantum Complexity Shows How to Escape Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox
Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a...
a year ago
Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a group of young physicists think they have resolved the conflict by appealing to the central pillar of the new century — the physics of quantum information.
The post...
Damn Interesting
A Taste of Italy
In the mid-1800s, Italy was consumed by two parallel fights: one to rid itself of Austrian...
over a year ago
In the mid-1800s, Italy was consumed by two parallel fights: one to rid itself of Austrian domination (a holdover from the Holy Roman Empire) and the other for unification. At the time, Europe’s boot was a curious conglomeration of separate states, not all of which got along....
NeuroLogica Blog
RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, and Vaccines
RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will...
a year ago
RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will vehemently deny this, but I don’t buy it for a second. He is simply playing the, “I’m not anti-vaccine, I am pro-safe vaccine” gambit, which is disingenuous and always has been. We...
Math Is Still...
Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption
The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the...
10 months ago
The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the subterranean magma are saving lives.
The post Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The Hardware Demands of AI
I am of the generation that essentially lived through the introduction and evolution of the personal...
a year ago
I am of the generation that essentially lived through the introduction and evolution of the personal computer. I have decades of experience as an active user and enthusiast, so I have been able to notice some patterns. One pattern is the relationship between the power of...
nanoscale views
Lots to read, including fab for quantum and "Immaterial Science"
Sometimes there are upticks in the rate of fun reading material. In the last few days:
A...
3 months ago
Sometimes there are upticks in the rate of fun reading material. In the last few days:
A Nature paper has been published by a group of authors predominantly from IMEC in Belgium, in which they demonstrate CMOS-compatible manufacturing of superconducting qubit hardware...
Probably...
Another step toward a two-hour marathon
This is an update to an analysis I run each time the marathon world record is broken. If you like...
a year ago
This is an update to an analysis I run each time the marathon world record is broken. If you like this sort of thing, you will like my forthcoming book, Probably Overthinking It, which is available for preorder now. On October 8, 2023, Kelvin Kiptum ran the Chicago Marathon in...
Wanderingspace
Webb’s Jupiter
So this is “false color” becuase it is infrared (like all Webb images) and made from only two...
over a year ago
So this is “false color” becuase it is infrared (like all Webb images) and made from only two filters orange and cyan. However, the detail is incredible. That dot is tiny Amalthea at the left and— yes… that is Jupiter’s elusive ring. According to researcher Thierry Fouchet, “This...
pcloadletter
Write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am
The older I get, the more I dislike clever code. This is not a controversial take; it is pretty-well...
7 months ago
The older I get, the more I dislike clever code. This is not a controversial take; it is pretty-well agreed upon that clever code is bad.
But I particularly like the on-call responsiblity framing: write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am.
If you have never...
Math Is Still...
Most Life on Earth is Dormant, After Pulling an ‘Emergency Brake’
Many microbes and cells are in deep sleep, waiting for the right moment to activate. Biologists...
6 months ago
Many microbes and cells are in deep sleep, waiting for the right moment to activate. Biologists discovered a widespread protein that abruptly shuts down a cell’s activity — and turns it back on just as fast.
The post Most Life on Earth is Dormant, After Pulling an...
NeuroLogica Blog
Flooding is Increasing
Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm...
3 months ago
Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm was intense enough to cause flash flooding, which washed out roads and bridges and shut down traffic in many areas. The epicenter of the rainfall was in Oxford, CT (where my...
The Works in...
The Power of the Earth
On the future of geothermal energy
10 months ago
On the future of geothermal energy
IEEE Spectrum
100 Years Ago, IBM Was Born
Happy birthday, IBM! You’re 100 years old! Or are you?
It’s true that the businesses that formed IBM...
10 months ago
Happy birthday, IBM! You’re 100 years old! Or are you?
It’s true that the businesses that formed IBM began in the late 1800s. But it’s also true that a birth occurred in February 1924, with the renaming of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. as the International Business...
IEEE Spectrum
The Do-or-Die Moments That Determined the Fate of the Internet
CES) and the Game Developers Conference have become regular features of the digital world.
ARPANET...
a year ago
CES) and the Game Developers Conference have become regular features of the digital world.
ARPANET in 1972, or the mid-1980s conferences now known as Interop, alerted experts to new technologies, and, in some cases, altered the balance between competing approaches.
Packet...
Eukaryote Writes...
[UPDATE to most recent post]
I edited the post “A point of clarification on infohazard terminology” in response to a good point...
over a year ago
I edited the post “A point of clarification on infohazard terminology” in response to a good point of feedback, and changed a terminology proposal. I’m writing a separate update in case the old unedited version is still lodged in your RSS feed. Read the new one instead! It’s the...
Light from Space
The Cat's Paw
Located very close to the Lobster Nebula in the southern constellation of Scorpius, the Cat's Paw...
over a year ago
Located very close to the Lobster Nebula in the southern constellation of Scorpius, the Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC 6334) does indeed have a striking resemblance to a feline footprint.
It's quite low in the sky here from Tucson (at a maximum of about 22º above
Probably...
We Have a Book!
My copy of Probably Overthinking It has arrived! If you want a copy for yourself, you can get a 30%...
a year ago
My copy of Probably Overthinking It has arrived! If you want a copy for yourself, you can get a 30% discount if you order from the publisher and use the code UCPNEW. You can also order from Amazon or, if you want to support independent bookstores, from Bookshop.org. The official...
Math Is Still...
How Do Machines ‘Grok’ Data?
By apparently overtraining them, researchers have seen neural networks discover novel solutions to...
8 months 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
symmetry magazine
Whatever happened to the theory of everything?
A theory of everything was all the rage in the 1980s. So where did it go?
It is...
a year ago
A theory of everything was all the rage in the 1980s. So where did it go?
It is only the optimists who achieve anything in this world—theorist John Ellis once read this adage on a candy wrapper. It stuck with him, so much so that in 1986 he referenced this...
Asterisk
America Doesn’t Know Tofu
China has spent millennia exploring the culinary possibilities of soybean curds. The West has barely...
a year ago
China has spent millennia exploring the culinary possibilities of soybean curds. The West has barely scratched the surface.
Math Is Still...
How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps.
The post How Math Has...
a year ago
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps.
The post How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Melting Asphalt
The Elephant in the Brain
It's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book,...
over a year ago
It's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book, coauthored with Robin Hanson — is now widely available. You can find the ebook version on Kindle, Google Play, and iBooks. It's also…
Read more ›
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Issue With The COVID Bailout | Out-Of-Pocket
A WHOLE NEW WORLD, A NEW PANDEMIC POINT OF VIEW
a year ago
A WHOLE NEW WORLD, A NEW PANDEMIC POINT OF VIEW
Asterisk
Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute
The rise and fall of the influential, embattled Oxford research center that brought us the concept...
a month ago
The rise and fall of the influential, embattled Oxford research center that brought us the concept of existential risk.
Blog - Practical...
The Hidden Engineering of Wildlife Crossings
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Wallis Annenberg...
5 days ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing under construction over the 101 just outside Los Angeles, California. When it’s finished in a few years, it will be the largest wildlife crossing (*of its kind) on...
nanoscale views
Intriguing papers - exquisite thermal measurements + automated materials discovery/synthesis
It's a busy time, but I wanted to point out a couple of papers from this past week.
First, I want...
a year ago
It's a busy time, but I wanted to point out a couple of papers from this past week.
First, I want to point to this preprint on the arxiv, where the Weizmann folks do an incredibly technically impressive thing. I'd written recently about the thermal Hall effect, when a...
NeuroLogica Blog
AC vs DC and other Power Questions
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9...
a month ago
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9 hour seminar on scientific skepticism for the Dubai Future Foundation. That sounds like a lot of time, but it isn’t. It was a good reminder of the vast body of knowledge that is...
ToughSF
Advanced Solar Energy in Space: Part I
Solar Thermal Rockets can be efficient and have high performance. However, they remain...
over a year ago
Solar Thermal Rockets can be efficient and have high performance. However, they remain temperature-limited to an exhaust velocity of 12km/s.
How do we surpass this limit?
The limits
NASA's Suntower concept.
Solar Thermal Rockets have been shown to have great potential if...
brr
South Pole Signage
Please close doors quietly!
a year ago
Please close doors quietly!
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Medical Tourism: A Tarpit Idea | Out-Of-Pocket
trust me, you're not the first to look into this
8 months ago
trust me, you're not the first to look into this
Asterisk
What We Get Wrong About AI & China
Everyone’s afraid of what China can and will do with AI. On the ground, the picture looks a lot more...
a year ago
Everyone’s afraid of what China can and will do with AI. On the ground, the picture looks a lot more complicated.
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on Quantum Computers
There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still...
a year ago
There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still a technology that is slowly advancing in the background, while actual applications have been limited. There is a threshold effect at play – at some point, quantum computers will be...
Willem Pennings
Home Assistant-compatible air quality sensor
I recently moved and our new home is equipped with a ventilation system that distributes fresh...
over a year ago
I recently moved and our new home is equipped with a ventilation system that distributes fresh (outside) air through the house and recoups heat from the air that is exhausted. There is a problem with this system, though. Sometimes, for example when a neighbour lights their wood...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Yet Another Teladongo Take | Out-Of-Pocket
You haven't read enough of them
a year ago
You haven't read enough of them
Math Is Still...
Researchers Refute a Widespread Belief About Online Algorithms
Three computer scientists have disproved a long-standing conjecture about a fundamental problem...
a year ago
Three computer scientists have disproved a long-standing conjecture about a fundamental problem involving imperfect information.
The post Researchers Refute a Widespread Belief About Online Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Robots and a Sense of Self
Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption)...
a month ago
Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption) have a sense of self. This sense has several components – we feel as if we occupy our physical bodies, that our bodies are distinct entities separate from the rest of the universe,...
The Works in...
Does higher density cause lower birth rates?
Assessing one recent claim that it does
7 months ago
Assessing one recent claim that it does
Math Is Still...
A Plan to Address the World’s Challenges With Math
Minhyong Kim is leading a new initiative called Mathematics for Humanity that encourages...
a year ago
Minhyong Kim is leading a new initiative called Mathematics for Humanity that encourages mathematicians to apply their skills to solving social problems.
The post A Plan to Address the World’s Challenges With Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
These Metals Destroy Themselves to Prevent Rust
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the old Howard...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the old Howard Frankland Bridge that carries roughly 180,000 vehicles per day across Old Tampa Bay between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida. A replacement for the bridge is currently under...
Math Is Still...
What a Contest of Consciousness Theories Really Proved
A five-year “adversarial collaboration” of consciousness theorists led to a stagy showdown in front...
a year ago
A five-year “adversarial collaboration” of consciousness theorists led to a stagy showdown in front of an audience. It crowned no winners — but it can still claim progress.
The post What a Contest of Consciousness Theories Really Proved first appeared on Quanta...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Cold Brew Coffee
While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory...
5 months ago
While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory cost-benefit analysis shows that they get back more than they spend. Coffee's caffeine content boosts a person's focus and attention, and it reduces mental fatigue, all of these...
Math Is Still...
Elliptic Curve ‘Murmurations’ Found With AI Take Flight
Mathematicians are working to fully explain unusual behaviors uncovered using artificial...
9 months ago
Mathematicians are working to fully explain unusual behaviors uncovered using artificial intelligence.
The post Elliptic Curve ‘Murmurations’ Found With AI Take Flight first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Cultural Blindness
One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the...
a year ago
One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the recognition that while the human brain is a powerful information processing machine, it also has many frailties. One of those frailties is perception – we do not perceive the world in...
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence of Ancient Solar Flares
From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or...
a year ago
From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or even coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In 1859 a large CME hit Earth (known as the Carrington Event), shorting out telegraphs, brightening the sky, and causing aurora deep into...
Casey Handmer's blog
Entrepreneurship changed the way I think
A quick note with some self reflection on the eve of my 37th year and after nearly three years of...
3 months ago
A quick note with some self reflection on the eve of my 37th year and after nearly three years of running a hardware start up. I never saw myself as a founder. At some point a few years ago I realized nearly all my friends were founders or managers of their own business, but I...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Reality of Real-World Evidence | Out-Of-Pocket
Real recognize real...sort of
a year ago
Real recognize real...sort of
IEEE Spectrum
The Unlikely Inventor of the Automatic Rice Cooker
How the automatic rice cooker was invented
It isn’t often that housewives get credit in the annals...
a month ago
How the automatic rice cooker was invented
It isn’t often that housewives get credit in the annals of invention, but in the story of the automatic rice cooker, a woman takes center stage. That happened only after the first attempts at electrifying rice cooking, starting in the...
Asterisk
You’re Invited to a Colonoscopy!
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost...
a year ago
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost nowhere else. But do they work? We finally have a comprehensive trial, but it’s left gastroenterologists with more questions than answers.
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 3)
Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of...
over a year ago
Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of butterflies, and more.
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI and Social Media to Measure Climate Change Denial
A recent study finds that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in global climate change. This number is...
10 months ago
A recent study finds that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in global climate change. This number is roughly in line with what recent survey have found, such as this 2024 Yale study which put the figure at 16%. In 2009, by comparison, the figure was at 33% (although this was a...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Common healthcare questions I get | Out-Of-Pocket
Some of your FAQs finally answered
2 weeks ago
Some of your FAQs finally answered
Uncharted...
The Earth Is Better with More People
A world with 2 billion people would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless. With 100B, it...
3 weeks ago
A world with 2 billion people would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless. With 100B, it would be rich, beautiful, vibrant, peaceful, hopeful.
pcloadletter
Quality is a hard sell in big tech
I have noticed a trend in a handful of products I've worked on at big tech companies. I have friends...
10 months ago
I have noticed a trend in a handful of products I've worked on at big tech companies. I have friends at other big tech companies that have noticed a similar trend: The products are kind of crummy.
Here are some experiences that I have often encountered:
the UI is flakey and/or...
Drew Ex Machina
Apollo A-002: Testing the Limits of the Launch Escape System
One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed...
2 weeks ago
One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed spacecraft have had launch abort options to cover […]
IEEE Spectrum
The Invention That Let Fiber Optics Span the Globe
Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten:...
a year ago
Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten: New Coke, “We Are the World,” the rise of desktop publishing. But one at-the-time obscure invention from that year has long eclipsed the frothy headlines of its time, because it...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
AI in healthcare - defensibility, capabilities, and cost reduction | Out-Of-Pocket
fine fine I'll write about AI
7 months ago
fine fine I'll write about AI
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Wave of Concierge Medicine | Out-Of-Pocket
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
5 months ago
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
Cremieux Recueil
Rich Country, Poor Country
Growth is our most precious resource and small amounts of it make a big difference
3 months ago
Growth is our most precious resource and small amounts of it make a big difference
Math Is Still...
Electric ‘Ripples’ in the Resting Brain Tag Memories for Storage
New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about...
7 months ago
New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about the importance of rest.
The post Electric ‘Ripples’ in the Resting Brain Tag Memories for Storage first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed...
over a year ago
The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed economists for decades. What makes it so hard to answer?
Explorations of an...
Los Amigos Biological Station - Part 3
My final post from Peru....
September 22, 2022
Much like the previous morning, Laura and I...
a year ago
My final post from Peru....
September 22, 2022
Much like the previous morning, Laura and I arranged a packed breakfast and we hit the trails around dawn. While birds were obviously on my mind, there were still a few mammals that I was really keen to search for, too. And luck...
wadertales
How do wader chicks respond to being handled?
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they...
2 months ago
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they are studying. Given that most shorebird species are in trouble or causing concern, conservation science is a tricky balancing act between ‘need to understand’ and ‘disturbance’. In...
IEEE Spectrum
Lewis H. Latimer: A Life of Lightbulb Moments
James Weldon Johnson’s hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” adopted by African Americans as the...
a year ago
James Weldon Johnson’s hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” adopted by African Americans as the unofficial “Negro National Anthem,” includes the line, “We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,” which sums up how Black Americans have found ways to thrive under...
nanoscale views
Brief items - light-driven diamagnetism, nuclear recoil, spin transport in VO2
Real life continues to make itself felt in various ways this summer (and that's not even an allusion...
5 months ago
Real life continues to make itself felt in various ways this summer (and that's not even an allusion to political madness), but here are three papers (two from others and a self-indulgent plug for our work) you might find interesting.
There has been a lot of work in recent...
Math Is Still...
New AI Tools Predict How Life’s Building Blocks Assemble
Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold3 and other deep learning algorithms can now predict the shapes of...
7 months ago
Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold3 and other deep learning algorithms can now predict the shapes of interacting complexes of protein, DNA, RNA and other molecules, better capturing cells’ biological landscapes.
The post New AI Tools Predict How Life’s Building Blocks...
symmetry magazine
Imagining the future of gravitational-wave research
To understand why scientists are excited about detecting a new background, just look to the history...
a year ago
To understand why scientists are excited about detecting a new background, just look to the history of studies of the CMB.
Explorations of an...
Frustrating Times at Parque Nacional El Palmar
Parque Nacional El Palmar is located near Argentina's eastern border, a few hours north of Buenos...
a year ago
Parque Nacional El Palmar is located near Argentina's eastern border, a few hours north of Buenos Aires. The main habitat found in this national park is palm savannah, a severely fragmented ecosystem found in northeastern Argentina, Uruguay and barely into southern Brazil. PN El...
symmetry magazine
Spacetime: All the universe’s a stage
In the 1900s, Albert Einstein unified the concepts of space and time, giving us a useful new way to...
a year ago
In the 1900s, Albert Einstein unified the concepts of space and time, giving us a useful new way to picture the universe.
ToughSF
Piracy in Space is Possible Part II: Armed Merchants and Pirate Patrols
There's more to piracy than just attacking a target and running away afterwards.
Put yourself in...
over a year ago
There's more to piracy than just attacking a target and running away afterwards.
Put yourself in the shoes of a pirate, a merchant or the authorities. What would you do?
Fighting back
Pirates intercepting, attacking and ransoming a merchant crew should be...
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
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...
Probably...
Have the Nones Leveled Off?
Last month Ryan Burge published “The Nones Have Hit a Ceiling“, using data from the 2023 Cooperative...
5 months ago
Last month Ryan Burge published “The Nones Have Hit a Ceiling“, using data from the 2023 Cooperative Election Study to show that the increase in the number of Americans with no religious affiliation has hit a plateau. Comparing the number of Atheists, Agnostics, and “Nothing in...
Math Is Still...
The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes
Making ice requires more than subzero temperatures. The unpredictable process takes microscopic...
6 months ago
Making ice requires more than subzero temperatures. The unpredictable process takes microscopic scaffolding, random jiggling and often a little bit of bacteria.
The post The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Continuing Studies course, take 2
A year and a half ago, I mentioned that I was going to teach a course through Rice's Glasscock...
10 months ago
A year and a half ago, I mentioned that I was going to teach a course through Rice's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, trying to give a general audience introduction to some central ideas in condensed matter physics. Starting in mid-March, I'm doing this again. Here is a...
Math Is Still...
How 3D Changes in the Genome Turned Sharks Into Skates
Changes in the 3D structure of their genome gave skates and rays their distinctive winglike fins and...
a year ago
Changes in the 3D structure of their genome gave skates and rays their distinctive winglike fins and pancake flatness.
The post How 3D Changes in the Genome Turned Sharks Into Skates first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six Stages Of Health Tech Grief Pt. 1 | Out-Of-Pocket
we should pay people to be healthy + building a new EMR
a year ago
we should pay people to be healthy + building a new EMR
Probably...
How Does World Population Grow?
Recently I posed this question on Twitter: “Since 1960, has world population grown exponentially,...
a year ago
Recently I posed this question on Twitter: “Since 1960, has world population grown exponentially, quadratically, linearly, or logarithmically?” Here are the responses: By a narrow margin, the most popular answer is correct — since 1960 world population growth has been roughly...
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