The Quanta Podcast
Pentagon Tiling Proof Solves Century-Old Math Problem
A French mathematician has completed the classification of all convex pentagons, and therefore all...
21st Sep 2017
A French mathematician has completed the classification of all convex pentagons, and therefore all convex polygons, that tile the plane.
The post Pentagon Tiling Proof Solves Century-Old Math Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Apoorva Srinivasan
what's happened since the human genome project
When the human genome project was deemed “complete” in 2003, it was met with incredible fanfare. The...
17th May 2022
When the human genome project was deemed “complete” in 2003, it was met with incredible fanfare. The entire project leading up to that moment had all the drama to keep its audience enthralled. Fierce rivalry between a public and private institution, multiple countries involved,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Tong Test for Artificial General Intelligence
Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing...
2nd Oct 2023
Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing expert Alan Turing in 1950, and originally called “The Imitation Game”. The original paper is enlightening to read. Turing was not trying to answer the question “can machines think”....
lcamtuf’s thing
Approximation game
The number 22/7 and the pigeon flock of Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet.
28th Feb 2026
The number 22/7 and the pigeon flock of Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet.
IEEE Spectrum
The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the...
2nd Apr 2024
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the end of the long tail.
if you look on 3M’s own website, you will see no mention of this legacy—it’s a firm that sells abrasive materials, adhesive tapes, filters, films, personal...
Apoorva Srinivasan
on edward jenner and creativity
One common question that’s on everyone’s minds as we fiercely scrub our hands, pool our resources,...
20th May 2020
One common question that’s on everyone’s minds as we fiercely scrub our hands, pool our resources, conserve our consumption, stock up (but not hoard), invent calculus or write King Lear is: when will this end? Nobody knows what the answer to that question is but we
Wanderingspace
Dust Storm On Mars
A dust storm in Olympia Planum's north polar dune fields was triggered by a late Martian summer cold...
8th Apr 2024
A dust storm in Olympia Planum's north polar dune fields was triggered by a late Martian summer cold front. As the northern polar cap shrinks fast, it releases cold air that sometimes moves south, like on Earth. These cold fronts strengthen in late summer and early fall due to...
Quantum Frontiers
What distinguishes quantum from classical thermodynamics?
Should you require a model for an Oxford don in a play or novel, look no farther than Andrew Briggs....
27th Nov 2025
Should you require a model for an Oxford don in a play or novel, look no farther than Andrew Briggs. The emeritus professor of nanomaterials speaks with a southern-English accent as crisp as shortbread, exhibits manners to which etiquette influencer … Continue reading →
The Quanta Podcast
A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine
Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly...
14th Mar 2019
Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly discovered rocky body has added evidence to the circumstantial case for it.
The post A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine first appeared on Quanta...
Quanta Magazine
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...
1st Apr 2024
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
IEEE Spectrum
What Is an Electronic Sackbut?
If you, like me, think of musical synthesizers as an artifact of 1970s rock and disco, then you,...
1st Feb 2024
If you, like me, think of musical synthesizers as an artifact of 1970s rock and disco, then you, like me, will be surprised to learn that the first electronic synthesizer predates those genres by several decades
In 1945, Hugh Le Caine, a physicist at Canada’s National Research...
Works in Progress...
Why Japan has such good railways
Japan’s railways are the finest in the world. Other countries can copy its formula.
7th Apr 2026
Japan’s railways are the finest in the world. Other countries can copy its formula.
Long Now
Jason Tester: Queering the Future: How LGBTQ Foresight Can Benefit All
Jason Tester asks us to see the powerful potential of "queering the future" - how looking at the...
3rd Feb 2021
Jason Tester asks us to see the powerful potential of "queering the future" - how looking at the future through a lens of difference and openness can reveal unexpected solutions to wicked problems, and new angles on innovation. Might a queer perspective hold some of the keys to...
Inverted Passion
Life as a physical process
It’s always hard to define life. Everyone has their favorite definition – some describe it as a...
4th Jun 2025
It’s always hard to define life. Everyone has their favorite definition – some describe it as a struggle against entropy, while others describe it as an emergent property of chemicals. Countless books have been written on the topic, yet we’re far from a consensus. Against the...
Conservation...
News spotlight: Study buoys hope for rare axolotls
1st May 2025
Confessions of a...
Reflections of a postgrad lecturer-in-training: Part 1
In a previous post, I mentioned that I was beginning a stint as postgraduate teaching intern at UWA,...
9th Mar 2013
In a previous post, I mentioned that I was beginning a stint as postgraduate teaching intern at UWA, and that part of the internship involved keeping a reflective journal. So I’ve decided that instead of merely writing down my thoughts (and possibly becoming lazy about it as the...
Long Now
Louis Hyman: The New Deal You Don't Know
Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow:...
2nd Jan 2018
Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow: The American Way of Debt](https://www.amazon.com/Borrow-American-Debt-Vintage-Original/dp/0307741680/)_ , he examines in detail how the evolution of personal debt has not only...
Works in Progress...
The road from serfdom
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful...
16th Feb 2024
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful opposition took a remarkable approach that let peasants vote themselves into freedom.
Long Now
Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco
### Four Dimensional Cities
Cities are designed and built in three dimensions. Watching...
20th Dec 2008
### Four Dimensional Cities
Cities are designed and built in three dimensions. Watching Prelinger's historic footage of San Francisco last night (to a more than overflowing crowd) reminds us however that one of the most compelling dimensions to a city is its fourth dimension -...
The Quanta Podcast
The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound...
2nd Sep 2021
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics.
The post The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Andy Weir: The Red Planet for Real
Before Andy Weir's self-published novel _The Martian_ became a _New York Times_ bestseller and a...
9th Jun 2017
Before Andy Weir's self-published novel _The Martian_ became a _New York Times_ bestseller and a blockbuster film, it began as a series of blog posts. Those posts, and the online conversation they sparked, reflect Andy's lifelong love of space and his detailed research into how...
Quantum Frontiers
Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem!
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a...
28th Nov 2024
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a River. The Rat explains how the River permeates his life: “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
Detecting Online Predatory Journals
The World Wide Web has proven to be a transformative communication technology (we are using it right...
2nd Sep 2025
The World Wide Web has proven to be a transformative communication technology (we are using it right now). At the same time there have been some rather negative unforeseen consequences. Significantly lowering the threshold for establishing a communications outlet has democratized...
The Quanta Podcast
What Actually Causes Lightning?
Thunderstorms have captivated humanity for millennia, and yet their inner workings remain deeply...
2nd Jun 2026
Thunderstorms have captivated humanity for millennia, and yet their inner workings remain deeply mysterious. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, guest host and Quanta senior editor Hannah Waters speaks with staff writer Charlie Wood about the new technologies that are helping...
The Quanta Podcast
Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge
The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient?...
9th Apr 2020
The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient? Quantum entanglement.
The post Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Inverted Passion
Do you know what GDP is?
I thought I knew! But the more I introspected, the hazy my understanding got. Is GDP amount of stuff...
1st May 2025
I thought I knew! But the more I introspected, the hazy my understanding got. Is GDP amount of stuff produced or consumed? Does it include imports or exports? What does it have to do with well being? Why does it keep increasing? So, I fired up Claude and started understanding...
Quanta Magazine
How Randomness Improves Algorithms
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.
The...
3rd Apr 2023
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.
The post How Randomness Improves Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Vortices everywhere
The 2026 APS Oliver E. Buckley Prize in condensed matter physics was announced this week, and it's a...
8th Nov 2025
The 2026 APS Oliver E. Buckley Prize in condensed matter physics was announced this week, and it's a really interesting combination of topics that, to a lay person, may seem to be completely unrelated.
Fig. 1 from this follow-up PRB.
On the one hand, John Reppy (at age 94!)...
John Salvatier
The “I Already Get It” Slide
Followup to: Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles, Guessing The Teacher’s Password
Jessica Taylor...
31st Jan 2017
Followup to: Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles, Guessing The Teacher’s Password
Jessica Taylor recently wrote a description of Paul Christiano’s and MIRI’s differing driving intuitions for thinking about the AI alignment problem. Jacob Steinhardt observes that the “do cognitive...
Long Now
Rosabeth Moss Kanter: Enduring Principles for Changing Times
### Principles against panic
"Everything looks like a failure in the middle." Any new enterprise,...
10th Nov 2007
### Principles against panic
"Everything looks like a failure in the middle." Any new enterprise, Kanter explained, encounters roadblocks. As the obstacles multiply, the situation looks hopeless. That's when deeply held principles and the long view are most needed to get you...
lcamtuf’s thing
How many dimensions is this?
A degree in mathematics might not save you from stacking boxes for a living.
3rd Sep 2025
A degree in mathematics might not save you from stacking boxes for a living.
Peder M. Isager
What to Replicate?
Justifications of study choice from 85 replication studies.
9th Jun 2018
Justifications of study choice from 85 replication studies.
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: A tale of two particles
Not all radioactivity is risky or harmful
5th Dec 2022
Not all radioactivity is risky or harmful
Yale E360
Bizarre New Creatures Discovered 30,000 Feet Under the Sea
The Titanic lies about 12,500 feet under the ocean. The pressure down there is so immense that even...
1st Aug 2025
The Titanic lies about 12,500 feet under the ocean. The pressure down there is so immense that even submersibles supposedly built for those conditions can, as we know, tragically fail. Now imagine taking a sub nearly three times deeper.
Read more on E360 →
The Roots of...
Get your fine, handcrafted artisanal essays right here
I don’t use AI to draft my writing. These are fine handcrafted artisanal essays, every word placed...
10th Jun 2026
I don’t use AI to draft my writing. These are fine handcrafted artisanal essays, every word placed individually with loving care.
I use AI a lot for researching, occasionally for brainstorming, and increasingly for fact-checking. But not for outlining, drafting, or directly...
Uncharted...
How Can Europe Improve Its Immigration
Through getting better immigrants, rejecting coutnerproductive ones, and managing the existing ones...
2nd Jun 2026
Through getting better immigrants, rejecting coutnerproductive ones, and managing the existing ones better.
The Quanta Podcast
The Incredible Shrinking Sex Chromosome
Nature offers species a panoply of ways to determine an organism’s sex. That flexibility suggests we...
10th Dec 2015
Nature offers species a panoply of ways to determine an organism’s sex. That flexibility suggests we need not be concerned about losing sex chromosomes, but it raises the question of why such a fundamental property is so variable.
The post The Incredible Shrinking Sex...
Long Now
Nadia Asparouhova: The Making and Maintenance of our Open Source Infrastructure
Nadia Asparouhova is particularly interested in infrastructure, governance, and the economics of the...
10th Dec 2020
Nadia Asparouhova is particularly interested in infrastructure, governance, and the economics of the internet - and how the dynamics of these subjects play out in software, online communities and generally living life online.
Asparouhova, who interviewed hundreds of developers...
Quantum Frontiers
The spirit of relativity
One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a...
14th Nov 2022
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 →
Beautiful Public...
Government Comic Books
Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and...
27th Nov 2023
Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and how soldiers should handle homosexuality in the military.
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 15: More From Explorama Lodge (February 20 - 21, 2024)
February 20, 2024
A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went...
1st Feb 2025
February 20, 2024
A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went off at 5:00 AM. It was going to be a good day.
At dinner the previous night Luis, Laura and I had come up with a plan for our full day at Explorama Lodge. We would begin by taking...
The Roots of...
Where is the YIMBY movement for healthcare?
In the progress movement, some cause areas are about technical breakthroughs, such as fusion power...
10th May 2025
In the progress movement, some cause areas are about technical breakthroughs, such as fusion power or a cure for aging. In other areas, the problems are not technical, but social. Housing, for instance, is technologically a solved problem. We know how to build houses, but housing...
The Works in...
Flipping the switch on far-UVC
We’ve known about far-UVC’s promise for a decade. Why isn't it everywhere?
10th Mar 2025
We’ve known about far-UVC’s promise for a decade. Why isn't it everywhere?
Long Now
Dorie Clark: The Long Game: How to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world
Personal goals need a long-term strategy too.
Dorie Clark offers concrete practices to sharpen...
18th May 2022
Personal goals need a long-term strategy too.
Dorie Clark offers concrete practices to sharpen strategic thinking and incorporate a long-term perspective within a personal time scale. By reorienting ourselves to focus on the big picture, and using the power of small but...
Eukaryote Writes...
Learn to write well BEFORE you have something worth saying
Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
29th Dec 2024
Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
Quantum Frontiers
Nicole’s guide to handling failure and rejection
It’s happening. Your inbox registers an email from the chair of a faculty-hiring committee. With...
21st May 2026
It’s happening. Your inbox registers an email from the chair of a faculty-hiring committee. With trembling fingers, you click on the message. “We’ve been grateful for the opportunity to learn about your work…The decision was very difficult…many highly qualified candidates…” …...
Beautiful Public...
All of the 8,291 License Plates in America
States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations,...
21st Aug 2023
States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations, professions, sports teams, causes and other groups.
wadertales
Learning from their elders
A 2026 paper in Animal Behaviour examines how quickly juvenile Black-tailed Godwits(right, with...
5th Feb 2026
A 2026 paper in Animal Behaviour examines how quickly juvenile Black-tailed Godwits(right, with juvenile Redshanks) acquire the feeding skills they will need to get them through their first winter. Josh Nightingale followed the same migration route taken by young birds, as they...
NeuroLogica Blog
Solar Is Booming
Solar power as a source of electricity has been on a meteoric rise, and has crossed some encouraging...
2 weeks ago
Solar power as a source of electricity has been on a meteoric rise, and has crossed some encouraging milestone recently. Every way you look at it, solar is booming. This is driven primarily by the decrease in the cost of adding solar power, so let’s start there.
The Berkley Lab...
nanoscale views
Energy storage in the internal states of molecules - old and new
A science story first, then a US research ecosystem story later.
When we think about using molecules...
2nd May 2026
A science story first, then a US research ecosystem story later.
When we think about using molecules to store energy, it's usually in the context of food or fuel, so that chemical reactions take place - bonds are broken and remade, and in an exothermic reaction, the products end...
Beautiful Public...
50,000 boat names
From SEA SLUT II to BILBOAT BAGGINS, a deep dive into AIS vessel data turns up 50,000 boat names...
10th Aug 2026
From SEA SLUT II to BILBOAT BAGGINS, a deep dive into AIS vessel data turns up 50,000 boat names packed with nautical puns, dirty jokes, and Tolkien deep cuts.
Long Now
Nicholas Negroponte: Beyond Digital
### A world of convergence
In education, Negroponte explained, there’s a fundamental distinction...
18th Apr 2013
### A world of convergence
In education, Negroponte explained, there’s a fundamental distinction between "instructionism" and "constructionism." "Constructionism is learning by discovery, by doing, by making. Instructionism is learning by being told." Negroponte’s lifelong...
The Quanta Podcast
Foundations Built for a General Theory of Neural Networks
Neural networks can be as unpredictable as they are powerful. Now mathematicians are beginning to...
5th Dec 2019
Neural networks can be as unpredictable as they are powerful. Now mathematicians are beginning to reveal how a neural network’s form will influence its function.
The post Foundations Built for a General Theory of Neural Networks first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
A young Oystercatcher’s first adventure
I find it amazing that, when they depart on autumn migration, juvenile waders can be faced with a...
2 weeks ago
I find it amazing that, when they depart on autumn migration, juvenile waders can be faced with a journey of hundreds or thousands of kilometres. In the latest phase of their Oystercatcher studies in Iceland, Verónica Méndez and colleagues have been tagging young birds, just at...
The Quanta Podcast
Landmark Algorithm Breaks 30-Year Impasse
Computer scientists are abuzz over a fast new algorithm for solving one of the central problems in...
14th Jan 2016
Computer scientists are abuzz over a fast new algorithm for solving one of the central problems in the field.
The post Landmark Algorithm Breaks 30-Year Impasse first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Works in Progress...
Reclaiming the roads
Until recently, roads were shared between a messy mix of cyclists, stagecoaches, carts, horses, and...
21st Jul 2022
Until recently, roads were shared between a messy mix of cyclists, stagecoaches, carts, horses, and pedestrians, with no dominant user.
The Quanta Podcast
How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain
Feelings of loneliness prompt changes in the brain that further isolate people from social contact....
2nd Aug 2023
Feelings of loneliness prompt changes in the brain that further isolate people from social contact. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Slow Burn” by Kevin MacLeod.
The Quanta Podcast
Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos
In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic...
14th Feb 2019
In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic systems.
The post Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Alaska Wolf Found With Record Amount of Mercury, a Sign of Growing Contamination
When Alaska’s wolves began eating sea otters, it looked like a story of adaptation. Then they...
2nd Jan 2026
When Alaska’s wolves began eating sea otters, it looked like a story of adaptation. Then they started getting sick.
Read more on E360 →
Uncharted...
Where Geniuses Hide Today
Where are today’s Michelangelos?
6th Dec 2024
Where are today’s Michelangelos?
Works in Progress...
The perks of being a mole rat
The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for...
4th Feb 2026
The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for centuries.
Inverted Passion
[2025 review] Life is a holiday!
Ok, this was a phenomenal year for me. The vibe of the year is cleanly captured by what I had...
31st Dec 2025
Ok, this was a phenomenal year for me. The vibe of the year is cleanly captured by what I had scribbled on a whiteboard on Jan 3rd, 2025. To my amazement and giddiness, the feeling still holds up as the year wraps up. Let’s see what all kept this spirit alive. Brief interlude:...
Beautiful Public...
FAA Aviation Maps
Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a...
29th Jan 2024
Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a higher information density than the Federal Aviation Administration’s aviation maps.
Long Now
Jennifer Pahlka: Fixing Government: Bottom Up and Outside In
## Toward agile government
Pahlka quoted: “Efficiency in government is a matter of social justice.”...
2nd Feb 2017
## Toward agile government
Pahlka quoted: “Efficiency in government is a matter of social justice.” (Mayor John Norquist) It is at the often maddening interface with government that the inefficiency and injustice play out. Two examples (both now fixed)… At the Veterans Affairs...
Quantum Frontiers
Can AI Predict the Quantum Universe?
AI promises to revolutionize the way we do science, which raises a central technological question of...
11th Dec 2025
AI promises to revolutionize the way we do science, which raises a central technological question of our time: Can classical AI understand all natural phenomena, or are some fundamentally beyond its reach? Many proponents of artificial intelligence argue that any … Continue...
The Works in...
How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars: 1973, Israel Maintains
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
5th Oct 2023
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
lcamtuf’s thing
Why I refrain from infosec punditry
If you know about my professional background, the most puzzling aspect of this Substack must be that...
16th Apr 2026
If you know about my professional background, the most puzzling aspect of this Substack must be that I don’t use it to talk about my primary field of expertise: information security.
Long Now
Jared Diamond: How Societies Fail-And Sometimes Succeed
### On failing to think long-term
Sophisticated societies from time to time collapse utterly, often...
16th Jul 2005
### On failing to think long-term
Sophisticated societies from time to time collapse utterly, often leaving traces of a civilization that was at a proud peak just before the fall. Other societies facing the same dangers figure out how to adapt around them, recover, and go on to...
Peder M. Isager
Why experiments are considered gold standard for answering causal questions
In this blog post, I will briefly explain why experimental designs are considered so valuable by...
7th Aug 2025
In this blog post, I will briefly explain why experimental designs are considered so valuable by scientists and why we often insist that randomized experiments are necessary for answering causal questions. I will use a practical example to illustrate this point. If you’re new to...
Long Now
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his...
27th Jan 2007
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time...
Long Now
Matt Ridley: Deep Optimism
### Undeniable Progress
Hominids had upright walking, stone tools, fire, even language but still...
23rd Mar 2011
### Undeniable Progress
Hominids had upright walking, stone tools, fire, even language but still remained in profound stasis. What led to humanity's global takeoff, Ridley argues, was the invention of exchange about 120,000 years ago. "That's ten times older than...
The Quanta Podcast
Computer Scientists Break Traveling Salesperson Record
After 44 years, there’s finally a better way to find approximate solutions to the notoriously...
7th Jan 2021
After 44 years, there’s finally a better way to find approximate solutions to the notoriously difficult traveling salesperson problem.
The post Computer Scientists Break Traveling Salesperson Record first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
Making full use of tracking data
This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are...
6th May 2025
This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are being revealed through shorebird tracking work and to encourage scientists to make their data available via the Global Wader platform. If small numbers of waders are going to be...
Long Now
John Brockman: Possible Minds
John Brockman's newly released book [_Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at...
13th Mar 2019
John Brockman's newly released book [_Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI_](https://smile.amazon.com/Possible-Minds-Twenty-Five-Ways-Looking-ebook/dp/B07D6C1X3X/ref=sr_1_1) is the springboard for this Seminar on Artificial Intelligence. Brockman will interview...
Works in Progress...
The story of Viktor Zhdanov
Although Viktor Zhdanov’s name is little known today, he spearheaded one of the greatest projects in...
20th Aug 2020
Although Viktor Zhdanov’s name is little known today, he spearheaded one of the greatest projects in history. Who was he and what did he do?
Melting Asphalt
2015 Meta
Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I...
11th Jan 2016
Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I published a paltry six full essays this year. Don't get me wrong: I'm proud of them. But still, six. It would be…
Read more ›
Works in Progress...
The first non-opioid painkiller
For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally...
6th Oct 2025
For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally made something better.
Works in Progress...
Machines for living in
Buildings are not just art – they are the places people live in, work in, and experience every day....
5th Dec 2024
Buildings are not just art – they are the places people live in, work in, and experience every day. True functionalism combines utility and beauty for the people who use it 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...
5th Oct 2023
After almost a year of sitting on my hard drive, I finally had time in
August to finish revising my new preprint on
Right Angled Artin Groups (Raags). And in September I had time to put
it on the arxiv for people to see! Within 24 hours I had an email from
somebody who had...
Blog - Practical...
The Hidden Engineering of Liquid Dampers in Skyscrapers
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
There’s a new trend in...
1st Jul 2025
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
There’s a new trend in high-rise building design. Maybe you’ve seen this in your city. The best lots are all taken, so developers are stretching the limits to make use of space that isn’t always ideal for...
Interaction Magic -...
The UX of LEGO Interface Panels
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I...
2nd Aug 2020
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I bought 52 of them from BrickLink to explore the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.
Conservation...
Climate Week: Money, nature and what really matters
14th May 2024
Long Now
Eric Ries: Long-Term Stock Exchange
Companies that operate with a long-term mindset tend to outperform their peers over time. But the...
3rd Mar 2020
Companies that operate with a long-term mindset tend to outperform their peers over time. But the pressure to achieve short-term quarterly gains often works against longer-term sustainable growth, and can push even the most visionary company into a short-term mindset.
In 02019,...
Peder M. Isager
How to share your data online with OSF
The Open Science movement is here to stay. However, incorporating open practices like data sharing...
2nd Oct 2018
The Open Science movement is here to stay. However, incorporating open practices like data sharing into your work flow can seem like a challenging task. If you have never made data available online before, the process can feel a bit daunting. Where should I put the data? What...
Long Now
David Keith: Patient Geoengineering
## Practical geoengineering
“Temporary, moderate, and responsive” should be the guidelines of...
18th Feb 2015
## Practical geoengineering
“Temporary, moderate, and responsive” should be the guidelines of responsible geoengineering, in David Keith’s view. For slowing global warming, and giving humanity time to bring greenhouse gas emissions down to zero (and eventually past zero with...
Stephen Wolfram...
Ruliology of the “Forgotten” Code 10
My All-Time Favorite Science Discovery June 1, 1984—forty years ago today—is when it would be fair...
1st Jun 2024
My All-Time Favorite Science Discovery June 1, 1984—forty years ago today—is when it would be fair to say I made my all-time favorite science discovery. Like with basically all significant science discoveries (despite the way histories often present them) it didn’t happen without...
nanoscale views
FY27 Presidential budget request
To the surprise of no one at all, the 2027 presidential budget request is extremely bad for...
3rd Apr 2026
To the surprise of no one at all, the 2027 presidential budget request is extremely bad for science. Remember, this is largely a political document, and Congress does not have to follow this. In the past year, Congress largely ignored the recommendations and appropriated a much...
Drew Ex Machina
Habitable Planet Reality Check: TOI-700e Discovered by NASA’s TESS Mission
During a press conference held on January 6, 2020 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical...
23rd Jan 2023
During a press conference held on January 6, 2020 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Honolulu, Emily Gilbert (then a graduate […]
Long Now
Michael Pollan: Deep Agriculture
### Making farmers cool again
Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past....
6th May 2009
### Making farmers cool again
Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past. Michael Pollan's talk promoted the premise - and hope - that farming can become an occupation and force of the future. In the past century American farmers were given the assignment to...
Works in Progress...
How to write for Works in Progress
We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.
4th Apr 2025
We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.
Long Now
Maya Tudor: Can Nationalism be a Resource for Democracy?
A political scientist examines how foundational nationalisms affect democracy globally, using...
6th May 2019
A political scientist examines how foundational nationalisms affect democracy globally, using countries like India and Myanmar to illustrate that some kinds of nationalism can be an essential resource for protecting democracy.
Maya Tudor is a comparative political scientist...
Long Now
Kevin Kelly: The Next 100 Years of Science: Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method.
### Recursion drives science
The co-founding editor of “Wired” magazine and author of _Out of...
11th Mar 2006
### Recursion drives science
The co-founding editor of “Wired” magazine and author of _Out of Control_ is working on a new book on “what technology wants.” His research led to the first-ever history of scientific methodology. Starting from this long-term view of science’s past...
Works in Progress...
The ultra-selfish gene
We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with...
3rd Sep 2024
We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with brute force. Doing this to malaria-carrying mosquitoes could allow us to wipe out humanity’s most deadly killer.
Long Now
Neal Stephenson: ANATHEM Book Launch Event
### _Anathem_ book launch
Neal Stephenson's nearly thousand page tome...
9th Sep 2008
### _Anathem_ book launch
Neal Stephenson's nearly thousand page tome [_Anathem_](https://longnow.org/anathem/) was inspired in part by Long Now's [10,000 Year Clock](https://longnow.org/projects/clock/) project, and so a collaboration on the launch event was a natural fit. With...
Works in Progress...
Watch men
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the...
2nd Dec 2025
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
Eukaryote Writes...
Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at...
7th Jan 2024
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at great effort and expense during the 1969 Apollo landing.
Beautiful Public...
Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data
Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and...
7th Nov 2022
Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and floodplains.
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...
3rd Sep 2024
Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and how America's favourite type of coffee got really, really good.
The Quanta Podcast
High-Temperature Superconductivity Understood at Last
A new atomic-scale experiment all but settles the origin of the strong form of superconductivity...
1st Feb 2023
A new atomic-scale experiment all but settles the origin of the strong form of superconductivity seen in cuprate crystals, confirming a 35-year-old theory. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.
The Quanta Podcast
How Bacteria Help Regulate Blood Pressure
Kidneys sniff out signals from gut bacteria for cues to lower blood pressure after meals. Our...
10th May 2018
Kidneys sniff out signals from gut bacteria for cues to lower blood pressure after meals. Our understanding of how the symbiotic microbes affect health is becoming much more molecular.
The post How Bacteria Help Regulate Blood Pressure first appeared on Quanta...
Chris Grossack's...
Externalizing Some Simple Topos Statements
Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with
the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done...
13th Dec 2022
Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with
the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done math in any
serious capacity for almost the past month. It’s been a
lot of hard work trying to get fair contracts out of the UC,
but I had a lot of travel plans this December to...
Long Now
Jenny Odell: Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock
Jenny Odell describes _Saving Time_, her second book and the inspiration for her first Long Now...
14th Apr 2023
Jenny Odell describes _Saving Time_, her second book and the inspiration for her first Long Now Talk, as a “panoramic assault on nihilism.”
The particular nihilism that Odell confronts is rooted in what she calls “Clock Time.” While the rigid, regular progression of clock time...
The Quanta Podcast
New Support for Alternative Quantum View
An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an...
2nd Jun 2016
An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics that eliminates the most baffling features of the subatomic universe.
The post New Support for Alternative Quantum View first...
Inverted Passion
Asking agents to make money to survive
Recently I read The Rogue Agent Explosion Will Be Mostly Invisible and the scenario in it seemed...
2 weeks ago
Recently I read The Rogue Agent Explosion Will Be Mostly Invisible and the scenario in it seemed intriguing. Essentially, the post painted a picture of how agents could go rogue if prompted with something like the following: Good morning agent 23,000. You have 10,000,000 tokens...
Quantum Frontiers
Watch out for geese! My summer in Waterloo
It’s the beginning of another summer, and I’m looking forward to outdoor barbecues, swimming in...
6th Jun 2024
It’s the beginning of another summer, and I’m looking forward to outdoor barbecues, swimming in lakes and pools, and sharing my home-made ice cream with friends and family. One thing that I won’t encounter this summer, but I did last … Continue reading →
Uncharted...
How AI Will Change Media
Work with me to make it happen
3rd Apr 2026
Work with me to make it happen
Quanta Magazine
Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in...
2nd Jul 2025
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan.
The post Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms first appeared on Quanta...
The Quanta Podcast
When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field
The study of natural language processing, or NLP, dates back to the 1940s. It gave Stephen Hawking a...
29th Jul 2025
The study of natural language processing, or NLP, dates back to the 1940s. It gave Stephen Hawking a voice, Siri a brain and social media companies another way to target us with ads. In less than five years, large language models broke NLP and made it anew.
The Quanta Podcast,...
Casey Handmer's blog
Dittemore’s Law
A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror...
17th Jan 2025
A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center in Florida commemorates the 25 US astronauts who have died in flight. Ron Dittemore is the retired former Space Shuttle program manager who was...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: The stats gap
Students understand just enough statistics to get by
4th Jan 2023
Students understand just enough statistics to get by
Chris Grossack's...
Analytic Combinatorics Redux
Earlier today I gave a talk in the graduate student seminar titled
“Counting is Hard. Complex...
9th May 2025
Earlier today I gave a talk in the graduate student seminar titled
“Counting is Hard. Complex Analysis is Easy.” based in part on my
recent blog post about analytic combinatorics and based in part
on Varilly’s notes on Dirichlet’s Theorem, showing how to count
the number of...
The Quanta Podcast
Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe's First Stars
Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space...
12th Apr 2023
Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
Asterisk
Saving Academics from Themselves
The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
1st Jul 2026
The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
Works in Progress...
How TV learned to sell itself
Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
11th Mar 2026
Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
The Quanta Podcast
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a...
12th Apr 2018
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors.
The post A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
6th Nov 2023
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional wisdom, but I’m not so sure. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted that AI would “make paid work redundant.” I encountered the same opinion watching the latest season of...
The Quanta Podcast
What Happens When Lakes Stop Mixing
Every summer since 1983, scientists at Crater Lake National Park have gathered data about the lake’s...
2nd Dec 2025
Every summer since 1983, scientists at Crater Lake National Park have gathered data about the lake’s famous clarity. This past summer, Quanta contributing writer Rachel Nuwer journeyed with them as they conducted their annual tests. On this week’s episode, Nuwer and host Samir...
Long Now
Jason Scott: The Web In An Eye Blink
Jason Scott is an activist archiver who preserves artifacts of digital culture for the future. Users...
1st Nov 2017
Jason Scott is an activist archiver who preserves artifacts of digital culture for the future. Users today have many ways to create content online, but they often lack the skills, tools or guidance to preserve the media they make. As startups fail, platforms disappear, and...
Probably...
Planning for your midlife crisis
Yesterday I presented a talk at ODSC East 2026, called “Counterfactual Analysis with Bayesian...
1st May 2026
Yesterday I presented a talk at ODSC East 2026, called “Counterfactual Analysis with Bayesian Models: What Drives the Life Expectancy Gap?” Here’s the abstract Across nearly every country in the world, women live longer than men—but the size of this gap varies from about two...
ToughSF
Riding Sunbeams with Solar Sails
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the...
26th May 2023
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the Solar System, as many times as you want, any time of the year.
Solar sails can carry passengers and they have a nearly unlimited number of uses. You just have to... think...
Chris Grossack's...
Estimating a Difference of Products
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last
quick analysis trick....
28th Aug 2023
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last
quick analysis trick. But I’ve been itching to
write more blog posts lately, and I thought that something quick and easy like
this would be a good way to get back into it without the kind of effort...
Peder M. Isager
Four one-sided test of significance (FOST). Dear reader, does this make sense?
In this blog post I propose a four one-sided test of significance (FOST) that can be used to test...
24th May 2024
In this blog post I propose a four one-sided test of significance (FOST) that can be used to test whether an effect is smaller than OR larger than OR equivalent to the smallest effect size of interest. I lay out the general setup and interpretation of FOST, and ask readers to...
Long Now
George Dyson: There's Plenty of Room at the Top: Long-term Thinking About Large-scale Computing
### Long-term thinking about large-scale computing
Ever since his 1997 breakthrough book, _Darwin...
10th Jan 2004
### Long-term thinking about large-scale computing
Ever since his 1997 breakthrough book, _Darwin Among the Machines_ , Dyson has become regarded as a leading historian and interpreter of computer science, bringing a rigorous and unconventional perspective. Thus his willingness...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Future Tech Possibilities
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see...
1st Feb 2024
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see what happens when you try out a new technology in the real world with actual people. Many technologies that look good on paper run into logistical problems, difficulty scaling, fall...
Quantum Frontiers
Mo’ heights mo’ challenges – Climbing mount grad school
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride,...
4th Oct 2022
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride, Colorado. We spent ten days in Telluride, where I spoke at the Information Engines at the Frontiers of Nanoscale Thermodynamics workshop. Telluride is a gorgeous … Continue reading...
Long Now
George P. Shultz: Perspective
Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than...
2nd Aug 2018
Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than George Shultz, now 97. (Henry Kissinger is only 95.)
Secretary Shultz was a US Marine Captain in World War II. After becoming an economics professor at MIT and the University of...
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...
4th Nov 2024
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...
Stephen Wolfram...
The Ruliology of Lambdas
Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it.
What Are Lambdas?
It’s a story of...
15th Sep 2025
Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it.
What Are Lambdas?
It’s a story of pure, abstract computation. In fact, historically, one of the very first. But even though it’s something I for one have used in practice for nearly half a century, it’s not something...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
“I Swallowed a Martian” and Water on Mars
The history of water on Mars allows us to wonder if the planet ever had life.
The post “I Swallowed...
14th Jul 2026
The history of water on Mars allows us to wonder if the planet ever had life.
The post “I Swallowed a Martian” and Water on Mars appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
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...
6th Apr 2023
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...
Chris Grossack's...
Free Things Are Complicated (Especially the Sphere Spectrum!)
I’ve spent the last week at CT2025, which has just come to a close.
It was great getting to see so...
20th Jul 2025
I’ve spent the last week at CT2025, which has just come to a close.
It was great getting to see so many old friends and meet so many new ones,
and every time I go to a CT I’m reminded of just how much category theory
there is in the world, as well as just how much I enjoy all...
brr
Polar Night
Surreal and otherworldly.
22nd May 2023
Surreal and otherworldly.
Interaction Magic -...
Units: the forgotten half of the statistic
From the millihelen to the microcentury, via jerk, pirate-ninjas and the Mongolian vowel separator.
2nd Feb 2021
From the millihelen to the microcentury, via jerk, pirate-ninjas and the Mongolian vowel separator.
Asterisk
A Defense of Weird Research
Government-funded scientific research may appear strange or impractical, but it has repeatedly...
5th Feb 2025
Government-funded scientific research may appear strange or impractical, but it has repeatedly yielded scientific breakthroughs — and continues to pay for itself many times over.
Long Now
Geoffrey B West: The Universal Laws of Growth and Pace
## Why cities live forever
**West focussed on cities** in his discussion of the newly discovered...
24th May 2017
## Why cities live forever
**West focussed on cities** in his discussion of the newly discovered exponential scaling laws that govern everything alive. “We live,” he said, “in an exponentially expanding socio-economic universe.” Global urbanization has reached the point that...
Cremieux Recueil
Fast Fact Check: Does Hep B Vaccination Cause Autism?
Obviously not
5th Mar 2026
Quanta Magazine
Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy
Susan Clark is helping to unravel the mysterious workings of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, a...
1st Jul 2024
Susan Clark is helping to unravel the mysterious workings of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, a critical missing piece of the galactic puzzle.
The post Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
In an Already Broiling Summer, El Niño Is About to Turn Up the Heat
El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe,...
3rd Aug 2026
El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization. The forecast comes as blistering heat shatters temperature records from Europe to Asia.
Read more on E360 →
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...
18th Aug 2021
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the rest are thought to be active volcanos on the Io surface. The moons are not a primary target of the Juno mission, but they do occasionally take a peek to try and monitor such...
The Works in...
The eye of the tiger
What makes tigers different from one another?
8th Jun 2023
What makes tigers different from one another?
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder – July 4, 1997
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to...
4th Jul 2022
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to the television set watching live […]
Long Now
Danny Hillis: Progress on the 10,000-year Clock
"How's the Clock coming?" Everyone connected with The Long Now Foundation or with Danny Hillis hears...
11th Sep 2004
"How's the Clock coming?" Everyone connected with The Long Now Foundation or with Danny Hillis hears that question all the time.
"Progress on the 10,000-Year Clock," Danny Hillis -- Friday, September 10, 7pm, Fort Mason Conference Center, San Francisco. Doors open for coffee and...
Melting Asphalt
A Natural History of Beauty
A mashup of ideas from David Deutsch, Geoffrey Miller, and Richard Prum, with a little César Hidalgo...
30th Oct 2018
A mashup of ideas from David Deutsch, Geoffrey Miller, and Richard Prum, with a little César Hidalgo thrown in for good measure. —— Of all the problems that can plague a discussion of beauty — and there are several — perhaps…
Read more ›
Explorations of an...
Making The Most Of Winter
The winter of 2025-2026 is shaping up to be a proper one. Since basically the start of December we...
4th Feb 2026
The winter of 2025-2026 is shaping up to be a proper one. Since basically the start of December we have experienced below average temperatures and an abundance of snow. We haven't had much respite from the cold, other than a brief warm spell in January quickly followed by an...
Works in Progress...
Innovation is not linear
Many have argued that innovation develops in a simple linear fashion – from research to...
19th Oct 2020
Many have argued that innovation develops in a simple linear fashion – from research to experimentation to engineering.
Long Now
Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 4
### Gas Stations, Not Flowers
The fourth incarnation of _Lost Landscapes of San Francisco_ played...
5th Dec 2009
### Gas Stations, Not Flowers
The fourth incarnation of _Lost Landscapes of San Francisco_ played to a sold out house at the Herbst Theater with the chanteuse Suzanne Ramsey opening the evening with a selection of historical San Francisco songs including the 01926 gem [Masculine...
The Quanta Podcast
Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming...
14th Oct 2021
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer.
Eukaryote Writes...
There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From...
3rd May 2021
Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From 'dendro', the ancient Greek root for tree.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3
The post Heads Up: Total...
25th Feb 2026
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3
The post Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Long Now
Brian Fagan: We Are Not the First to Suffer Through Climate Change
### Catastrophic drought is coming back
There are two kinds of historians, Brian Fagan says,...
10th Mar 2007
### Catastrophic drought is coming back
There are two kinds of historians, Brian Fagan says, parachutists and truffle hunters. Parachutists command an overview of the landscape, while truffle hunters dig deeply to uncover marvelous treasures. Fagan is a parachutist. In his talk...
Long Now
Alex Wright: Glut: Mastering Information Though the Ages
### A Series of Information Explosions
As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have swarmed in...
18th Aug 2007
### A Series of Information Explosions
As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have swarmed in intense networks for 3.5 billion years. Then a hierarchical form emerged with the first nucleated cells that were made up of an enclosed society of formerly independent...
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
12th May 2024
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
Probably...
New Book!
I am working on a new book called You Would Choose Now: Measuring America’s Progress Toward Fairness...
2 weeks ago
I am working on a new book called You Would Choose Now: Measuring America’s Progress Toward Fairness and Tolerance. It’s a data-driven exploration of progress (or not) in public opinion and civil rights. I posted the first two chapters as an Early Access edition on LeanPub (a...
Cremieux Recueil
A Modest Proposal To Turn Canada Into a Narco State
Americans want cheap drugs and Canadians wants loads of money. I smell a deal.
30th Jul 2025
Americans want cheap drugs and Canadians wants loads of money. I smell a deal.
Conservation...
News spotlight: Sea creatures could harbor the next generation of medications, but are they at risk?
2nd Apr 2025
Long Now
Paul Saffo: Embracing Uncertainty: the secret to effective forecasting
### Rules of Forecasting
Reflecting on his 25 years as a forecaster, Paul Saffo pointed out that a...
12th Jan 2008
### Rules of Forecasting
Reflecting on his 25 years as a forecaster, Paul Saffo pointed out that a forecaster's job is not to predict outcomes, but to map the "cone of uncertainty" on a subject. Where are the edges of what might happen? (Uncertainty is cone-shaped because it...
Apoorva Srinivasan
an experiment in navigating the knowledge frontier beyond search
Lately, I've been experimenting with interfaces for large language models (LLMs) in my free time....
21st Nov 2023
Lately, I've been experimenting with interfaces for large language models (LLMs) in my free time. The fruit of this labor is something I'm calling "curie," an exploratory and sense-making tool designed to navigate complex topics.
0:00
...
Uncharted...
Warm Countries’ Poverty & Mountains: Responses to Your Comments
Geographic arguments against the theory: Switzerland, Austria, Colorado, India, Cambodia, Indonesia,...
1st Oct 2025
Geographic arguments against the theory: Switzerland, Austria, Colorado, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, China…Has race had any role in warm countries’ poverty?Does this disregard colonialism?
The Quanta Podcast
Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals
An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more...
3rd Jan 2019
An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more complex during the Cambrian explosion.
The post Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Adornment
"Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by...
2nd Sep 2024
"Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by its purpose or function. A quick perusal of any antique shop will show that this maxim is generally ignored. Humans (Homo sapiens) have been called "naked apes," but we and our...
Stephen Wolfram...
Towards a Theory of Bugs: The Ruliology of the Unexpected
21st Jul 2026
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...
1st Sep 2021
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...
The Roots of...
Who regulates the regulators?
IRBs
Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review...
4th May 2023
IRBs
Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review the ethics of medical trials: From Oversight to Overkill, by Dr. Simon Whitney. From the title alone, you can see where this is going.
IRBs are supposed to (among other things)...
Long Now
Steven Pinker: The Decline of Violence
### The Long Peace
“Nothing can be more gentle than man in his primitive state,” declared Rousseau...
9th Oct 2012
### The Long Peace
“Nothing can be more gentle than man in his primitive state,” declared Rousseau in the 18th century. A century earlier, Thomas Hobbes wrote, “In the state of nature the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The evidence shows that Rousseau...
Interaction Magic -...
Plastic archeology
The history, science and engineering of Lego bricks, on the cusp between trash and treasure.
20th Nov 2023
The history, science and engineering of Lego bricks, on the cusp between trash and treasure.
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 3)
Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of...
18th Sep 2020
Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of butterflies, and more.
Long Now
Sam Harris: The View from the End of the World
### On necessary heresy
With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow...
10th Dec 2005
### On necessary heresy
With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Time Toxicity - A Real-World Example | Out-Of-Pocket
Being sick is already annoying, now I gotta spend time on the phone???
3rd Jan 2024
Being sick is already annoying, now I gotta spend time on the phone???
Long Now
Frank Gavin: Five Ways to Use History Well
### History-savvy Policy
Why do policy makers and historians shun each other? Gavin observed that...
13th Jul 2010
### History-savvy Policy
Why do policy makers and historians shun each other? Gavin observed that policy people want actionable information, certainty, and simple explanations. Meanwhile historians revel in nuance, distrust simple explanations and also distrust power and those...
Chris Grossack's...
Finiteness in Sheaf Topoi
The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be
tricky for people new to...
19th Aug 2024
The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be
tricky for people new to the subject to understand. For a while now I’ve
wanted to figure out what’s going on with the different versions of “finite”
in a way that felt concrete and obvious (I mentioned...
Drew Ex Machina
Recollections of NASA’s Apollo 11 Mission
Like a lot of kids who grew up during the ‘60s and ‘70s, I had a fascination with spaceflight. This...
20th Jul 2024
Like a lot of kids who grew up during the ‘60s and ‘70s, I had a fascination with spaceflight. This interest started honestly enough back around […]
brr
South Pole Water Infrastructure
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
8th Jun 2024
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
pcloadletter
Make your PR process resilient to AI slop
One concern I have heard from AI naysayers is that AI slop will make code reviews nearly impossible....
24th Dec 2025
One concern I have heard from AI naysayers is that AI slop will make code reviews nearly impossible. AI churns out so much code, documentation, etc. that it's just impossible for any reviewer to keep up with it... right?
Wrong!
If you have good PR review processes, then reviewing...
Probably...
Bayesian Decision Analysis
At PyData Global 2025 I presented a workshop on Bayesian Decision Analysis with PyMC. The video is...
9th Jan 2026
At PyData Global 2025 I presented a workshop on Bayesian Decision Analysis with PyMC. The video is available now. This workshop is based on the first session of the Applied Bayesian Modeling Workshop I teach along with my colleagues at PyMC Labs. If you would like to learn more,...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Ridiculous Mothing At Trus Madi Entomology Camp
When doing research on the few possible "lifer" birds that I could find on this trip to Sabah, and...
14th Dec 2024
When doing research on the few possible "lifer" birds that I could find on this trip to Sabah, and in particular, looking for sites to find the Bornean Frogmouth, I read about the Trus Madi Entomology Camp. This piqued my interest, as there is almost nothing I like more than...
NeuroLogica Blog
BBC Gets Into UFOs
Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become...
1st Jul 2024
Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become fascinated with a topic, but eventually the novelty will wear thin and interest will fade. But the flame will be kept alive by the hardcore believers. Wait long enough, and...
Casey Handmer's blog
How to build a lunar mass driver
Casey Handmer May 2026 What? Elon has recently (late 2025, early 2026) been talking about building...
8th May 2026
Casey Handmer May 2026 What? Elon has recently (late 2025, early 2026) been talking about building many terawatts of orbital AI compute and launching some components from Moon factories with a mass driver. This is an old idea, enabled by …
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2024, 1)
Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras...
13th Mar 2024
Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras used for good and evil, ant heaven now, and more.
Long Now
Brian Christian: Algorithms to Live By
### Solving hard decisions
Deciding when to stop your quest for the ideal apartment, or ideal...
21st Jun 2016
### Solving hard decisions
Deciding when to stop your quest for the ideal apartment, or ideal spouse, depends entirely on how long you expect to be looking, says Brian Christian. The first one you check will be the best you’ve seen, but it’s unlikely to be the best you’ll ever...
nanoscale views
EUV lithography - a couple of quick links
Welcome to the new year!
I've written previously (see here, item #3) about the extreme ultraviolet...
2nd Jan 2026
Welcome to the new year!
I've written previously (see here, item #3) about the extreme ultraviolet lithography tools used in modern computer chip fabrication. These machines are incredible, the size of a railway car, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars each. Veritasium...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Artificial flavoring
"Artificial" didn't scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare us now?
6th Apr 2023
"Artificial" didn't scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare us now?
Damn Interesting
The Unceasing Cessna Hacienda
Warren “Doc” Bayley was a man of the people. When he and his wife Judy opened their Las Vegas resort...
26th Oct 2021
Warren “Doc” Bayley was a man of the people. When he and his wife Judy opened their Las Vegas resort in 1956, Bayley had no plans to compete with the flashier, corporate casinos at the center of the Strip. Instead, the Hacienda Hotel catered to families, as well as to locals who...
Quantum Frontiers
Lessons in frustration
Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken. I was a master’s student in...
17th Feb 2025
Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken. I was a master’s student in the Perimeter Scholars International program at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Perimeter trotted in world experts to lecture about modern physics. Many … Continue...
The Quanta Podcast
AI Filters Will Always Have Holes
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But...
6th Jan 2026
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But users have long played a cat-and-mouse game to try to trick language models into providing forbidden information. Just as quickly as these “jailbreaks” appear, AI companies patch them...
Casey Handmer's blog
Powering the Mars base
This post is part of the series on space topics. This post is not the last word on this topic. The...
5th Nov 2024
This post is part of the series on space topics. This post is not the last word on this topic. The usual caveats apply. I’m curious if you have strong opinions on different fuel mixes. A growing Mars base has a prodigious need for power. I’ve previously written two posts on...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
My Science Fiction Story “Who Speaks for Earth” Just Published; Free Link
I am tickled to report that The Worlds Within magazine has just published my science-fiction story...
22nd Mar 2026
I am tickled to report that The Worlds Within magazine has just published my science-fiction story “Who Speaks for Earth.” It concerns a Congressional hearing about a future President, who had to bomb a radio telescope owned by a religious group that insisted on answering an...
Long Now
Carl Zimmer: Viral Time
### What's time to a virus?
"Everything about viruses is extreme," Zimmer began. The number of...
8th Jun 2011
### What's time to a virus?
"Everything about viruses is extreme," Zimmer began. The number of viruses on Earth is estimated to be 1 followed by 31 zeroes. Small as they are, if you stacked them all up, the stack would reach 100 million light years. They are the planet's most...
Works in Progress...
Why housing shortages cause homelessness
Why do high-cost cities have more homelessness? It’s not just about rents — it’s also about the...
5th Dec 2024
Why do high-cost cities have more homelessness? It’s not just about rents — it’s also about the rooms friends and family can’t afford to share.
Uncharted...
Should You Be Able to Experiment on Your Own Cancer?
A researcher in virology and immunotherapy got bad news: Her cancer was back with a vengeance; the...
26th Sep 2024
A researcher in virology and immunotherapy got bad news: Her cancer was back with a vengeance; the treatments weren’t working. She decided to treat it herself.
Damn Interesting
Devouring the Heart of Portugal
On the morning of Thursday, 04 December 1924, a tall and well-dressed Dutch trader named Karel...
3rd May 2022
On the morning of Thursday, 04 December 1924, a tall and well-dressed Dutch trader named Karel Marang strolled along Great Winchester Street in the City of London, among the bustling crowds of bankers and brokers of the business district, unaware that the parcel he carried held...
Sean Carroll
331 | Solo: Fine-Tuning, God, and the Multiverse
Certain features of our universe seem unnatural to us. These include "constants of nature" such as...
6th Oct 2025
Certain features of our universe seem unnatural to us. These include "constants of nature" such as the cosmological constant and […]
The Quanta Podcast
To Make Sense of the Present, Brains May Predict the Future
A controversial theory suggests that perception, motor control, memory and other brain functions all...
9th May 2019
A controversial theory suggests that perception, motor control, memory and other brain functions all depend on comparisons between ongoing actual experiences and the brain’s modeled expectations.
The post To Make Sense of the Present, Brains May Predict the Future...
brr
Sunset
Hunkering down for the winter!
9th Apr 2023
Hunkering down for the winter!
The Quanta Podcast
New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning
A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms...
1st Mar 2018
A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms — and might also explain how human brains learn.
The post New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
Why Don’t Patients Get Sick in Sync? Modelers Find Statistical Clues.
The long, variable times that some diseases incubate after infection defies simple explanation. An...
8th Nov 2018
The long, variable times that some diseases incubate after infection defies simple explanation. An idealized model of tumor growth offers a statistical solution.
The post Why Don’t Patients Get Sick in Sync? Modelers Find Statistical Clues. first appeared on Quanta...
Long Now
Drew Endy: The iGEM Revolution
## Massively collaborative synthetic biology
Natural genomes are nearly impossible to figure out,...
17th Sep 2014
## Massively collaborative synthetic biology
Natural genomes are nearly impossible to figure out, Endy began, because they were evolved, not designed. Everything is context dependent, tangled, and often unique. So most biotech efforts become herculean. It cost $25 million to...
Eukaryote Writes...
COVID-19 FAQ
A lot of people have been asking me questions about the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) outbreak, in my...
12th Mar 2020
A lot of people have been asking me questions about the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) outbreak, in my informal capacity as “local biodefense person”.
Works in Progress...
Watch men
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the...
2nd Dec 2025
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
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