Long Now
Priyamvada Natarajan: Solving Dark Matter and Dark Energy
## The darkness of dark matter and dark energy
ALL THAT WE KNOW of the universe we get from...
12th Apr 2016
## The darkness of dark matter and dark energy
ALL THAT WE KNOW of the universe we get from observing photons, Natarajan pointed out. But dark matter, which makes up 90 percent of the total mass in the universe, is called dark because it neither emits nor reflects photons — and...
Eukaryote Writes...
Fiber arts, mysterious dodecahedrons, and waiting on “Eureka!”
Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
4th Aug 2022
Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
The Quanta Podcast
Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins
Modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the...
13th Aug 2020
Modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the genetic flow went both ways.
The post Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
When RAND Made Magic in Santa Monica
RAND’s halcyon days lasted two decades, during which the corporation produced some of the most...
1st Jun 2024
RAND’s halcyon days lasted two decades, during which the corporation produced some of the most influential developments in science and American foreign policy. So how did it become just another think tank?
The Works in...
Heat waves
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
12th Jul 2024
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
Cremieux Recueil
The Boring Reason GDP is Inevitable
GDP is a reviled metric, but it's highly correlated with everything we care about. I explain one...
17th Dec 2025
GDP is a reviled metric, but it's highly correlated with everything we care about. I explain one mathematical reason why.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming Mar. 13-14
There will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible in the Americas the night of March 13-14
The post...
13th Feb 2025
There will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible in the Americas the night of March 13-14
The post Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming Mar. 13-14 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
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.
SubAnima
Why do bees die when they sting you?
Suicide is a truly bizarre evolutionary strategy. Why does it exist?
4th Oct 2021
Suicide is a truly bizarre evolutionary strategy. Why does it exist?
Long Now
Paul Hawken: The New Great Transformation
### Humanity's immune system
The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has...
9th Jun 2007
### Humanity's immune system
The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has two referents, he explained. Economist Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, _The Great Transformation_ , said that the "market society" and modern nation state emerged together in Europe after...
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
Danny Hillis & Brian Eno: The Long Now, now
### Make the next legal U-turn
"Bitching Betty," they call the robotic voice of the car’s GPS...
22nd Jan 2014
### Make the next legal U-turn
"Bitching Betty," they call the robotic voice of the car’s GPS guidance system. Eno and Hillis, on their road trips, always become so engrossed in conversation that they get lost—one time, driving to Monterey they wound up in Sacramento, 200 miles...
Cremieux Recueil
American Elections Are Unfair
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
5th Nov 2024
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
Peder M. Isager
Quantifying the corroboration of a finding
A summary of the pros and cons of multiple candidate statistics.
12th Apr 2019
A summary of the pros and cons of multiple candidate statistics.
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Moon
In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial...
17th Dec 2024
In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial neighbor.
Its face, periodically filled with light and devoured by darkness, has an ever-changing, but dependable presence in our skies.
In this article, we’ll learn about the Moon and its path...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Mechanical Watch
In the world of modern portable devices, it may be hard to believe that merely a few decades ago the...
4th May 2022
In the world of modern portable devices, it may be hard to believe that merely a few decades ago the most convenient way to keep track of time was a mechanical watch. Unlike their quartz and smart siblings, mechanical watches can run without using any batteries or other...
Cremieux Recueil
"Nutrition Science's Most Preposterous Result" is False
There's no mysterious health benefit to eating ice cream
2nd Apr 2026
There's no mysterious health benefit to eating ice cream
Quanta Magazine
‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback
You’re carrying around in your head a model of how the world works. Will AI systems need to do the...
2nd Sep 2025
You’re carrying around in your head a model of how the world works. Will AI systems need to do the same?
The post ‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Suhanya Raffel: World Art Through The Asian Perspective
Coming to the fore in this century is Asian perspective on everything. A thrilling place to watch...
21st Oct 2019
Coming to the fore in this century is Asian perspective on everything. A thrilling place to watch the shift is in art.
Extraordinary contemporary art from all over the world, especially Asia, has been collected for the new world-class museum in Hong Kong called M+. The massive...
Works in Progress...
The secret fast track for animal drugs
Animal drugs are approved much faster than human drugs. Perhaps we could adopt the same model for...
12th Jun 2025
Animal drugs are approved much faster than human drugs. Perhaps we could adopt the same model for humans without compromising on safety.
Beautiful Public...
Aerial Glacier Photographs
A collection of 100,000 striking high-resolution aerial photos of glaciers, photographed over 40...
18th Jun 2024
A collection of 100,000 striking high-resolution aerial photos of glaciers, photographed over 40 years with a 63-pound WW II surveillance camera.
Long Now
Michael West: The Prospects of Human Life Extension
### Ever longer life
Our germline cells (eggs and sperm) are already immortal. What if the rest of...
13th Nov 2004
### Ever longer life
Our germline cells (eggs and sperm) are already immortal. What if the rest of the cells of our body could acquire the same ability? Tissue by tissue, one degenerative disease after another, it could gradually happen in the course of one or two human...
Long Now
Timothy Ferriss: Accelerated Learning in Accelerated Times
### Learning to learn fast
To acquire "the meta-skill of acquiring skills," Ferriss recommends...
15th Sep 2011
### Learning to learn fast
To acquire "the meta-skill of acquiring skills," Ferriss recommends approaching any subject with some contrarian analysis: "What if I try the opposite of best practices?" Some conventional wisdom---"children learn languages faster than adults" (no they...
nanoscale views
NSF, spending, and the end of the fiscal year
We are less than one month away from the end of the federal fiscal year, and traditionally there are...
a week ago
We are less than one month away from the end of the federal fiscal year, and traditionally there are internal deadlines for agencies to allocate their final spending by around September 9. Right now, the NSF is on track to issue about 4000 fewer (!!) awards in FY26 than it did...
The Works in...
Issue 12: Houston, we have a solution
Plus: How Mexico built its state, the causes of the Baby Boom, and the 141-year quest for a malaria...
7th Sep 2023
Plus: How Mexico built its state, the causes of the Baby Boom, and the 141-year quest for a malaria vaccine.
NeuroLogica Blog
What Is Orbitronics
You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of...
1st Oct 2024
You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of spintronics and photonics. Now there is also the possibility of orbitronics. What do these cool-sounding words mean? Electronic technology is one of those core technologies that has...
Confessions of a...
My Teaching Philosophy
As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern...
16th Apr 2013
As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern as part of the PTIS scheme. Central to this portfolio is a personal teaching philosophy, detailing why teaching is important to me, what my objectives are as a teacher, what...
NeuroLogica Blog
Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet...
2nd May 2024
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet we know comparatively little about them. But in recent years phage research has taken off with renewed interest. This is partly driven by the availability of CRISPR-based tools for...
The Works in...
What did Henry George think about cities?
Solving the terrible urban conditions of the 1800s by abolishing cities
9th May 2024
Solving the terrible urban conditions of the 1800s by abolishing cities
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 10: The Owlet Lodge (February 11 and 12, 2024)
February 11, 2024
Laura and I were looking forward to our one-night visit to the Owlet Lodge. Up to...
20th Jul 2024
February 11, 2024
Laura and I were looking forward to our one-night visit to the Owlet Lodge. Up to this point we had only stayed at cheap hotels, while we had also eaten simply, with at least two meals each day consisting of sandwiches/snacks that we prepared. For once, someone...
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...
Long Now
Frank Ostaseski: What the Dying Teach the Living
## Death’s Honesty
**In one of Long Now’s most moving talks** , Ostaseski began: “I’m not romantic...
11th Apr 2017
## Death’s Honesty
**In one of Long Now’s most moving talks** , Ostaseski began: “I’m not romantic about dying. This is the hardest work you will ever do. It is tough. It’s sad and it’s messy and it’s cruel and it’s beautiful sometimes and mysterious, but above all that, it’s...
Yale E360
African Forests Have Become a Source of Carbon Emissions
Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that...
1st Dec 2025
Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that underscores the need for urgent action to save the world’s great natural climate stabilizers.
Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Was Jesus a Con Artist?
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots...
1st Aug 2024
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots of clarification. This was, however, the discussion here, while although poorly informed, does raise some interesting questions. This is a Tik Tok video of a popular podcast which...
IEEE Spectrum
A Brief History of the World’s First Planetarium
In 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea:...
1st May 2024
In 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea: Could you project an artificial starry sky onto a dome, as a way of demonstrating astronomical principles to the public?
It was such a novel concept that when von Miller approached...
Long Now
Daniel Suarez: Daemon: Bot-mediated Reality
### Bot-dominated Reality
[Daniel Suarez, originally published as Leinad Zaurus, delivered a talk...
9th Aug 2008
### Bot-dominated Reality
[Daniel Suarez, originally published as Leinad Zaurus, delivered a talk on the themes developed in his (originally self published) book __Daemon__. The book is now scheduled to be released in hard cover in January 02009 by Dutton.]
Forget about...
SubAnima
Can Biology Be Reduced To Physics?
"Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
11th Nov 2022
"Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
Long Now
Bruce Sterling: The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole
One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is because technology keeps...
12th Jun 2004
One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is because technology keeps accelerating so rapidly, we assume the world will become unrecognizable in a few years and then move on to unimaginable. Long-term thinking must be either impossible or irrelevant.
The...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Winter Solstice Arrives on Sunday Dec 21
Dec. 21 is the winter solstice. We explain what this means and how the seasons come about.
The post...
19th Dec 2025
Dec. 21 is the winter solstice. We explain what this means and how the seasons come about.
The post Winter Solstice Arrives on Sunday Dec 21 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
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.
Long Now
Robert Fuller: Patient Revolution: Human Rights Past and Future
### The culminating human right
What does it take to change human habits of cruelty (such as...
13th Aug 2005
### The culminating human right
What does it take to change human habits of cruelty (such as slavery, genocide) and humiliation (racism, sexism)?
What do past and present efforts for human rights tell about their future?…
Robert Fuller is author of the ground-breaking...
The Quanta Podcast
Dark Matter Recipe Calls for One Part Superfluid
A different kind of dark matter could help to resolve an old celestial conundrum.
The...
25th Aug 2017
A different kind of dark matter could help to resolve an old celestial conundrum.
The post Dark Matter Recipe Calls for One Part Superfluid first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Inverted Passion
Why AI agents aren’t adopted widely
Hint: managing someone is actually hard, and most times not worth it. Most people don’t use AI...
5th Aug 2026
Hint: managing someone is actually hard, and most times not worth it. Most people don’t use AI agents daily because delegation (to another human) is a learned skill. Using AI agents is actually a lot like doing natural language programming: specifying requirements, verifying...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Perseid Meteor Shower Aug 12-13, 2023
We make suggestions for how best to see the 2023 Perseid meteor shower.
The post Perseid Meteor...
5th Aug 2023
We make suggestions for how best to see the 2023 Perseid meteor shower.
The post Perseid Meteor Shower Aug 12-13, 2023 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
The Quanta Podcast
Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity
A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force.
The post...
6th Dec 2018
A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force.
The post Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Paul Saffo: The Creator Economy
### The Creator Economy
Media innovations drive economic shifts, Saffo began. “We invent new...
1st Apr 2015
### The Creator Economy
Media innovations drive economic shifts, Saffo began. “We invent new technology and then use it to reinvent ourselves.”
1\. The Industrial/producer Economy. At the beginning of the 20th century the leading scarcity was _stuff_ , and so manufacture was...
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...
Long Now
Juan Enriquez: Mapping the Frontier of Knowledge
### Mapping Life
"All life is imperfectly transmitted code," Enriquez began, "and it is...
13th Oct 2007
### Mapping Life
"All life is imperfectly transmitted code," Enriquez began, "and it is promiscuous." Thus discoveries like the one last month of an entire bacterial genome inside the DNA of a fruitfly is exploding the old tree-of-life models of evolution. The emerging map...
Casey Handmer's blog
Notes on the Fermi Paradox
I recently realized I hadn’t written much in this blog about the Fermi Paradox, though I do write...
3rd Mar 2026
I recently realized I hadn’t written much in this blog about the Fermi Paradox, though I do write about it elsewhere. So here is a quick note. The Fermi Paradox, sometimes paraphrased as “where are they?” is a question about the apparent lack of intelligent alien life in the...
Conservation...
Our work in the news, January 2026
3rd Feb 2026
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Sunday is Both Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice
June 21 is not just father's day but the day of the summer solstice
The post Sunday is Both Father’s...
19th Jun 2026
June 21 is not just father's day but the day of the summer solstice
The post Sunday is Both Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Interaction Magic -...
The last design you'll ever make
Designing from cradle to grave is no longer good enough. We need to postpone that grave as long as...
7th Dec 2021
Designing from cradle to grave is no longer good enough. We need to postpone that grave as long as possible. This is how to design for a right to repair.
NeuroLogica Blog
Problems with the Institute Of Noetic Sciences
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of...
1st May 2023
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Overall the article is very good, and author Maddie Bender was fair and reasonable in how I was quoted. I can’t always take that as a given. No matter how...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Things I’m watching in healthcare 2023 | Out-Of-Pocket
it's been a weird year
5th Mar 2024
NeuroLogica Blog
Flexible School Start Time
A recent study shows pretty clearly that highschoolers benefit from a little extra sleep. We will...
2nd Mar 2026
A recent study shows pretty clearly that highschoolers benefit from a little extra sleep. We will get to the study in a bit, but first I want to note that this information is not new. Teenagers tend to stay up late, and yet we make them get up super early to be at class, often by...
Long Now
Blaise Agüera y Arcas: What is Intelligence?
Blaise Agüera y Arcas’s talk took us on a journey through What is Intelligence?, his groundbreaking...
9th Oct 2025
Blaise Agüera y Arcas’s talk took us on a journey through What is Intelligence?, his groundbreaking new work connecting the evolutionary dots between life, computation, and symbiogenesis.
He explores how, in our symbiotic world, things combine to make larger things all the...
Long Now
Emily Levine & Jill Tarter: Long Conversation 4 of 19
**This is one conversation out of the 19 that took place as part of the Long Conversation.[Media...
16th Oct 2010
**This is one conversation out of the 19 that took place as part of the Long Conversation.[Media links for the other Conversations are available here.](https://longnow.org/seminars/02010/oct/16/long-conversation/)**
Long Conversation, an epic relay of one-to-one conversations...
The Quanta Podcast
At Tiny Scales, a Giant Burst on Tree of Life
A new technique for finding and characterizing microbes has boosted the number of known bacteria by...
6th Aug 2015
A new technique for finding and characterizing microbes has boosted the number of known bacteria by almost 50 percent, revealing a hidden world all around us.
The post At Tiny Scales, a Giant Burst on Tree of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Confessions of a...
Predation of juvenile reef fish in coral patches at Ningaloo Reef
The second research article I have decided to discuss is one I had the pleasure to be involved with!...
11th Feb 2013
The second research article I have decided to discuss is one I had the pleasure to be involved with! In fact, it was the first paper I was a co-author on, after linking up with the Department of Environment and Conservation through an ANNiMS internship program. The paper was...
Long Now
David Grinspoon: Earth in Human Hands
## Cognitive planet
**Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people...
20th Sep 2017
## Cognitive planet
**Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people say we are entering an Anthropocene Epoch, Grinspoon began, but what if the term “epoch” understates the consequence of what is going on? Astrobiologists recently learned that...
Inverted Passion
Getting things done by not trying
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned....
20th Oct 2024
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned. It’s an unconventional self-help book disguised as a computer science research exposition (that’s why the publisher is Springer). I strongly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of...
Melting Asphalt
Minimum Viable Superorganism
Originally published at Ribbonfarm. Of all the remarkable things about our species — and there are...
11th Feb 2016
Originally published at Ribbonfarm. Of all the remarkable things about our species — and there are many — perhaps the most striking of all is our ability to band together and act as a united, coherent superorganism. E pluribus unum.…
Read more ›
Chris Grossack's...
Internal Group Actions as Enriched Functors
Earlier today this month on the Category Theory Zulip, Bernd Losert asked an
extremely natural...
18th Feb 2024
Earlier today this month on the Category Theory Zulip, Bernd Losert asked an
extremely natural question about how we might study topological group
actions via the functorial approach beloved by category theorists.
The usual story is to treat a group $G$ as a one-object...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: How Much Info Should A Patient Get? | Out-Of-Pocket
do we need our physicians to be interpreters?
9th Aug 2023
do we need our physicians to be interpreters?
The Works in...
Getting people to donate their organs
Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier?
2nd Apr 2024
Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier?
wadertales
Four eggs or five?
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their...
6th Mar 2026
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their pointed ends in the middle, as illiustrated in the Ringed Plover nest alongside. There has been an assumption that this is an optimum arrangement for incubation, with strong...
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?
Long Now
Saul Griffith: Climate Change Recalculated
### The Terawatt World
Engineer Griffith said he was going to make the connection between personal...
17th Jan 2009
### The Terawatt World
Engineer Griffith said he was going to make the connection between personal actions and global climate change. To do that he's been analyzing his own life in extreme detail to figure out exactly how much energy he uses and what changes might reduce the...
Damn Interesting
The Rube’s Dilemma
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly...
28th Oct 2022
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly colored ribbon tied around the crown. Originally popularized by gondoliers in Venice, this jaunty accessory had reached the height of American couture by the turn of the 20th century....
The Roots of...
The Problem-Solving Animal, part 1
Previously: The Flywheel, part 1 and part 2.
I feel sorry for the Rev. Thomas Malthus. He was doomed...
3rd Jun 2025
Previously: The Flywheel, part 1 and part 2.
I feel sorry for the Rev. Thomas Malthus. He was doomed to be misremembered by history.
His Essay on the Principle of Population is remembered as a prophecy of scarcity. But Malthus’s focus was how to deal with scarcity, which he took...
Works in Progress...
There was no great stagnation
We may not have flying cars but we do have incredible information technology. We’re mismeasuring the...
12th Oct 2022
We may not have flying cars but we do have incredible information technology. We’re mismeasuring the huge benefits it is bringing.
IEEE Spectrum
The Marimba Virtuoso’s Desktop Planetarium
The United States was at the time approaching “peak space.” The previous year, cosmonaut Yuri...
1st Oct 2023
The United States was at the time approaching “peak space.” The previous year, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human to reach outer space, and on 12 September 1962 President Kennedy would announce the United States’ intention to put a man on the moon before the...
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)...
Drew Ex Machina
The Largest Launch Vehicles in Service – 1957 to the Present
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title...
16th Nov 2022
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title “the largest launch vehicle in service”: the […]
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.
Long Now
Mary Lou Jepsen: Toward Practical Telepathy
With her stunning breakthroughs in neural imaging, Mary Lou Jepsen is making the brain readable (and...
5th Nov 2018
With her stunning breakthroughs in neural imaging, Mary Lou Jepsen is making the brain readable (and stimulatable) in real time. That will revolutionize brain study and brain medicine, but what about brain communication? Could a direct high-resolution interface to the brain lead...
Asterisk
The Institute Behind Taiwan’s Chip Dominance
TSMC (and most of Taiwan’s chip industry) spun out of one government research institute. How did...
16th Mar 2026
TSMC (and most of Taiwan’s chip industry) spun out of one government research institute. How did ITRI implement one of the most successful industrial policy programs of all time?
Long Now
Becky Chambers & Annalee Newitz: Resisting Dystopia
One of our guiding principles at Long Now is that in order to get to a future that we want to live...
15th Jun 2023
One of our guiding principles at Long Now is that in order to get to a future that we want to live in, we must first be able to imagine it.
For many, it is much easier to imagine a dystopia than a thriving civilization. Our cultural visions of the future are increasingly...
ToughSF
The Lofstrom Loop: A Bridge to Space
Imagine you could take a train ride to space. Tracks that slope up into the sky, higher and higher,...
9th Dec 2023
Imagine you could take a train ride to space. Tracks that slope up into the sky, higher and higher, until you reach a plateau above the planet where it’s a straight line up to orbital velocity.
That’s what’s possible with a Lofstrom Loop. But sending you into orbit is just one...
Conservation...
In the news: Climate change is scrambling food production
3rd Mar 2025
Long Now
Joline Blais & Jon Ippolito: At the Edge of Art
### Artibodies
Art, like the antibodies in our immune system, creates alien forces in service of...
15th Dec 2007
### Artibodies
Art, like the antibodies in our immune system, creates alien forces in service of the whole. It anticipates threats and models them. It is a diversity agent.
Two forms of that process were explained and shown by Ippolito and Blais: perversion, and execution.
One...
Long Now
Benjamin Barber: If Mayors Ruled the World
### City-based global governance
Sovereign nation states have conspicuously failed to cooperate...
6th Jun 2012
### City-based global governance
Sovereign nation states have conspicuously failed to cooperate well enough to deal with increasingly global problems such as climate change, environmental degradation, and organized crime, Barber said. Nations focus on their borders, which are...
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.
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.
The Roots of...
Accelerating science through evolvable institutions
This is the written version of a talk presented to the Santa Fe Institute at a working group on...
4th Dec 2023
This is the written version of a talk presented to the Santa Fe Institute at a working group on “Accelerating Science.”
We’re here to discuss “accelerating science.” I like to start on topics like this by taking the historical view: When (if ever) has science accelerated in the...
brr
Pressure Altitude
Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
6th Aug 2023
Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
Long Now
Robert Neuwirth: The 21st Century Medieval City
### World squatter reality
Humanity is urbanizing at a world-changing pace and in a world-changing...
11th Jun 2005
### World squatter reality
Humanity is urbanizing at a world-changing pace and in a world-changing way. A billion squatters are re-inventing their lives and their cities simultaneously. One of the few to experience the range of the phenomenon first hand is Robert Neuwirth,...
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...
Asterisk
Rust in Numbers
Why do manure spreaders have life cycles?
6th May 2026
Why do manure spreaders have life cycles?
Long Now
Jane Langdale: Radical Ag: C4 Rice and Beyond
## Revolutionary rice
Feeding the world (and saving nature) in this populous century, Jane Langdale...
15th Mar 2016
## Revolutionary rice
Feeding the world (and saving nature) in this populous century, Jane Langdale began, depends entirely on agricultural efficiency—the ability to turn a given amount of land and sunlight into ever more food. And that depends on three forms of efficiency in...
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...
Cremieux Recueil
"You Couldn't Replicate Our Study Because You're Ugly"
Attractiveness rating studies shouldn't be taken too seriously
3rd Dec 2024
Attractiveness rating studies shouldn't be taken too seriously
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.
NeuroLogica Blog
City Planning and CO2 Emissions
In Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel he imagines a future in which most of humanity lives in...
1st Jun 2026
In Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel he imagines a future in which most of humanity lives in gigantic cities, extending many levels underground. This leaves the majority of the Earth’s surface for industrial farming, necessary to feed all those densely populated cities. If you...
SubAnima
The Problem With Richard Dawkins
How should we view The Selfish Gene 50 years on?
22nd Apr 2023
How should we view The Selfish Gene 50 years on?
Quantum Frontiers
Sculpting quantum steampunk
In 2020, many of us logged experiences that we’d never anticipated. I wrote a nonfiction book and...
28th Oct 2024
In 2020, many of us logged experiences that we’d never anticipated. I wrote a nonfiction book and got married outside the Harvard Faculty Club (because nobody was around to shoo us away). Equally unexpectedly, I received an invitation to collaborate … Continue reading →
Long Now
Peter Schwartz: The Art Of The Really Long View
### The art of the really long view
For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going...
13th Dec 2003
### The art of the really long view
For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going on in the Seminar Thursday night.
The topic was "The Art of the Really Long View." Peter Schwartz chatted through his slides for tonight's lecture, then the discussion waded in....
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...
24th Dec 2023
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 […]
Long Now
Stefan Kröpelin: Civilization’s Mysterious Desert Cradle
### The Sahara and civilization
“Almost everything breaks in the desert,” Kröpelin began. He showed...
11th Jun 2014
### The Sahara and civilization
“Almost everything breaks in the desert,” Kröpelin began. He showed trucks mired in sand, one vehicle blown up by a land mine, and a Unimog with an impossibly, hopelessly broken axle. (Using the attached backhoe, it hunched its way 50 miles back...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
What’s Coming in the Sky in 2026?
We review what's coming in the sky and in space exploration for 2026
The post What’s Coming in the...
11th Jan 2026
We review what's coming in the sky and in space exploration for 2026
The post What’s Coming in the Sky in 2026? appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
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 […]
Willem Pennings
Fixing my heating system
The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm...
3rd May 2024
The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm water to the underfloor heating system of about a dozen apartments, including mine. During the warm summer months, the system supplies cool water instead. The heat pumps figure out...
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.
Quantum Frontiers
Eight highlights from publishing a science book for the general public
What’s it like to publish a book? I’ve faced the question again and again this year, as my book...
19th Dec 2022
What’s it like to publish a book? I’ve faced the question again and again this year, as my book Quantum Steampunk hit bookshelves in April. Two responses suggest themselves. On the one hand, I channel the Beatles: It’s a hard … Continue reading →
Chris Grossack's...
Building Objects with Category Theory
Typically category theory is useful for showing the uniqueness
of certain objects by checking that...
20th Feb 2023
Typically category theory is useful for showing the uniqueness
of certain objects by checking that they satisfy some
universal property. This makes them unique up to unique isomorphism.
However, category theory can also be used in order to show that objects
exist at all, usually...
Asterisk
After Work, We’ll Have Each Other
Once you realize what that means, you’ll be giving two cheers for the American work ethic.
2 weeks ago
Once you realize what that means, you’ll be giving two cheers for the American work ethic.
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.
Inverted Passion
2024 wrapped
This year’s review is going to be shorter than 2023 (and previous years) because I’m in Goa right...
31st Dec 2024
This year’s review is going to be shorter than 2023 (and previous years) because I’m in Goa right now for a holiday and I don’t feel like being in front of a screen for long. I mean, just look at this view and tell me that you’d rather be in front of a screen writing…
Read...
Long Now
Roger Kennedy: The Political History of North America from 25,000 BC to 12,000 AD
### Ancient American politics
Roger Kennedy, the former head of the Smithsonian National Museum of...
26th Feb 2005
### Ancient American politics
Roger Kennedy, the former head of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and former Director of the US National Park Service, is so eloquent that Walt Kelly based a "Pogo" character on him (the bear P.T. Bridgeport, whose speech...
Long Now
Eric Cline: 1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed
### When chaos overwhelmed civilization
Archaeologist Cline began by declaring that the time he...
12th Jan 2016
### When chaos overwhelmed civilization
Archaeologist Cline began by declaring that the time he would most like to be transported to is the Late Bronze Age in the Mediterranean—the five centuries between 1700 and 1200 B.C. In those centuries eight advanced societies were densely...
Quantum Frontiers
Unleashing the Advantage of Quantum AI
As experimental capabilities advance rapidly, the quantum computing community faces a critical...
10th Apr 2026
As experimental capabilities advance rapidly, the quantum computing community faces a critical elephant in the room: What will these quantum machines eventually be useful for? Will they deliver the promised broad societal impact, or will they remain highly specialized devices …...
Long Now
Neil Gaiman: How Stories Last
## How stories last
Stories are alive. The ones that last, Gaiman said, outcompete other stories by...
10th Jun 2015
## How stories last
Stories are alive. The ones that last, Gaiman said, outcompete other stories by changing over time. They make it from medium to medium—from oral to written to film and beyond. They lose uninteresting elements but hold on to the most compelling bits or even...
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
brr
McMurdo Postal Mail
How to mail things to and from Antarctica!
25th Nov 2022
How to mail things to and from Antarctica!
nanoscale views
Brief items - Static electricity, quantum geometry, Hubbard model, + news
It's been a busy time that has cut into my blogging, but I wanted to point out some links from the...
8th Aug 2025
It's been a busy time that has cut into my blogging, but I wanted to point out some links from the past couple of weeks.
Physics Today has a cover article this past issue about what is colloquially known as static electricity, but what is more technically described as...
Long Now
Arthur Ganson: Machines and the Breath of Time
### Dancing chairs
"You follow the feeling of the piece," Ganson explained, "and then wrestle it...
15th Sep 2009
### Dancing chairs
"You follow the feeling of the piece," Ganson explained, "and then wrestle it into physicality." As long as the idea is nonphysical, it is permanent; it becomes temporary as a physical device; and then it becomes permanent again in the mind of the viewer.
As...
Long Now
Spencer Beebe: Very Long-term Very Large-scale Biomimicry
### The rainforests of home
Spencer Beebe is founder and head of Ecotrust, the Portland-based...
12th Mar 2005
### The rainforests of home
Spencer Beebe is founder and head of Ecotrust, the Portland-based organization that is setting in motion a permanently prosperous conservation economy for the entire Pacific Coast from San Francisco north to Alaska-- the temperate rain forest also...
Drew Ex Machina
The Promise of MIDAS: The First Experimental Early Warning Satellites
Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile...
19th Jul 2023
Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile launches anywhere on the planet and quickly determine whether it […]
Long Now
Larry Brilliant, Richard Rockefeller, & Katherine Fulton: The Deeper News About the New...
### Philanthropic stamina
10,000 families in the US, Katherine Fulton reported, have assets of $100...
4th Nov 2006
### Philanthropic stamina
10,000 families in the US, Katherine Fulton reported, have assets of $100 million or more. That's up from 7,000 just a couple years ago. Most of that money is "on the sidelines." The poor and the middle class are far more generous in their philanthropy,...
Long Now
Clay Shirky: Making Digital Durable: What Time Does to Categories
### Categories go nova
It is fortunate that the leading thinker in "social software" is one of the...
15th Nov 2005
### Categories go nova
It is fortunate that the leading thinker in "social software" is one of the best speakers in the high-tech world, a hot ticket at any conference that can get him. Clay Shirky gave one of his dazzling presentations Monday, Nov. 14, examining a new dimension...
wadertales
Why count shorebirds? A tale from Portugal
The Sado Estuary is one of Portugal’s most important wetlands – a key link in the chain of sites...
14th Feb 2023
The Sado Estuary is one of Portugal’s most important wetlands – a key link in the chain of sites connecting Africa and the Arctic, on the East Atlantic Flyway. In a paper in Waterbirds, João Belo and colleagues analyse changes in numbers of waders wintering in this estuary over...
Long Now
Paul Hawken: The Long Green
### The long green
The environmental movement has moved on. It has become so deep and wide that it...
16th Oct 2004
### The long green
The environmental movement has moved on. It has become so deep and wide that it adds up to something new entirely, still unnamed. Whatever it is, it is now the largest movement in the world and the least ideological. Driven by science and patience, it is...
Beautiful Public...
The footprints of every building in NYC
The landscape of NYC changes so much that the New York City Office of Technology and Innovation...
20th Jul 2026
The landscape of NYC changes so much that the New York City Office of Technology and Innovation updates a dataset of building footprint shapes weekly.
Quantum Frontiers
It from Qubit: The Last Hurrah
Editor’s note: Since 2015, the Simons Foundation has supported the “It from Qubit” collaboration, a...
9th Aug 2023
Editor’s note: Since 2015, the Simons Foundation has supported the “It from Qubit” collaboration, a group of scientists drawing on ideas from quantum information theory to address deep issues in fundamental physics. The collaboration held its “Last Hurrah” event at … Continue...
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...
Stephen Wolfram...
Yet More New Ideas and New Functions: Launching Version 14.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector...
31st Jul 2024
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector Databases and Semantic Search RAGs and Dynamic Prompting for LLMs Connect to Your Favorite LLM Symbolic Arrays and Their Calculus Binomials and Pitchforks: Navigating Mathematical...
The Quanta Podcast
A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance...
1st Apr 2021
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes.
The post A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Works in Progress...
How one Kiwi tamed inflation
Inflation targeting is now standard in central banking. But it began with an offhand comment and a...
12th Jun 2025
Inflation targeting is now standard in central banking. But it began with an offhand comment and a political gamble in New Zealand – long before economists took it seriously.
Yale E360
More Than 110 New Species Discovered In Deep Waters Off Australia
Scientists have identified more than 110 new species found in deep water beyond the edges of...
1st Apr 2026
Scientists have identified more than 110 new species found in deep water beyond the edges of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
Read more on E360 →
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
Drew Endy & Jim Thomas: Synthetic Biology Debate
### Terms of Biocontainment
"I want to develop tools that make biology easy to engineer," Drew Endy...
18th Nov 2008
### Terms of Biocontainment
"I want to develop tools that make biology easy to engineer," Drew Endy began. The first purpose is better understanding fundamental biological mechanisms through "learning by building." The toolkit of Synthetic Biology starts with DNA construction...
The Quanta Podcast
Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars
Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes...
13th Oct 2016
Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes are shaking up astrophysics.
The post Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
South Pole Water Infrastructure
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
8th Jun 2024
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
The Quanta Podcast
To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics
The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love....
2nd Mar 2017
The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them.
The post To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 1: Introduction, Phoenix to Miller Canyon
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini...
22nd Sep 2024
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini vacations. Due to the variations in her work schedule, Laura had two blocks of time - a five-day chunk in early August, and six days in early September - and we wanted to make the...
Blog - Practical...
Why Are There No Short Arch Dams?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Flaming Gorge Dam rises from...
5th Aug 2025
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Flaming Gorge Dam rises from the Green River in northern Utah like a concrete wedge driven into the canyon, anchored against the sheer rock walls that flank it. It’s quintessential, in a way. It’s what we...
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”....
Long Now
Margaret Levi: The Organized Pursuit of Knowledge
The human quest to understand our world continues. The Director of Stanford’s [Center for Advanced...
18th Apr 2018
The human quest to understand our world continues. The Director of Stanford’s [Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS)](http://casbs.stanford.edu/) discusses how academics and researchers have organized the study of human action, society, and institutions...
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?
Confessions of a...
Let’s argue against the Shark Cull with science
There’s been a lot in the news recently about the implementation of the Shark Cull (or, as the...
1st Feb 2014
There’s been a lot in the news recently about the implementation of the Shark Cull (or, as the Government put it, the “shark protection measures”) here in Western Australia. Just as I am not a climate scientist, I am not a shark biologist, and cannot claim to be a shark expert....
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...
Conservation...
Newly protected habitat offers hope for the Siamese crocodile
5th Aug 2026
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...
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...
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
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...
Long Now
James Dewar: Long-term Policy Analysis
### Long-term policy analysis
Dewar is head of RAND’s Pardee Center on very long-term policy—35 to...
14th Feb 2004
### Long-term policy analysis
Dewar is head of RAND’s Pardee Center on very long-term policy—35 to 200 years
For over half a century the RAND Corporation has influenced national policy and invented major intellectual tools. Packet switching (Paul Baran) came from RAND; so did...
Eukaryote Writes...
Good posts from the Inkhaven blogging residency
Cannot stress this enough: literally everyone at the writing residency was good at this. Maybe...
28th Feb 2026
Cannot stress this enough: literally everyone at the writing residency was good at this. Maybe you'll find a new favorite blog among these.
Damn Interesting
Pushing the Envelope
As is often the case with people in dangerous professions, the Apollo astronauts found that life...
15th Apr 2021
As is often the case with people in dangerous professions, the Apollo astronauts found that life insurance policies were prohibitively expensive. Rather than pay the exorbitant insurance fees, the astronauts devised a system to ensure their wives and children would be financially...
Long Now
Lynn Rothschild: Nature’s Hardware Store
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been...
5th Nov 2025
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been invented by nature? In this forward-looking talk, evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist Dr. Lynn Rothschild explores how life’s patterns, materials, and mechanisms, refined over...
Long Now
Peter Calthorpe: Urban Planet
Throughout Peter Calthorpe's decade-spanning career in urban design, planning, and architecture, he...
6th Aug 2020
Throughout Peter Calthorpe's decade-spanning career in urban design, planning, and architecture, he has developed and practiced the key principles of [New Urbanism](https://www.cnu.org/resources/what-new-urbanism): that the most successful places are diverse in uses and users,...
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum computing vs. Grubhub
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my...
3rd Apr 2023
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 →
wadertales
Conservation beyond boundaries
When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be...
7th Apr 2023
When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be affected by a new airport, because relatively small flocks are counted during field surveys, is there an assumption that the birds encountered are always the same individuals? What if...
Quanta Magazine
Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy
Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems....
3rd Jun 2024
Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems.
The post Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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.
Long Now
Martin Rees: Life's Future in the Cosmos
### Cosmic Life
The pace of astronomic discovery, said the Astronomer Royal, keeps increasing with...
3rd Aug 2010
### Cosmic Life
The pace of astronomic discovery, said the Astronomer Royal, keeps increasing with the constant improvement in our sensing technology. The recent discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe (dark energy) revolutionized cosmology, and with the launch...
The Quanta Podcast
Mathematicians Set Numbers in Motion to Unlock Their Secrets
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines...
10th Jun 2021
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines insights from number theory and dynamical systems.
The post Mathematicians Set Numbers in Motion to Unlock Their Secrets first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
Borneo 2024: Introduction And Pre-Tour Birding
About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for...
3rd Nov 2024
About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for Quest Nature Tours. I've always said that Borneo is one of my favourite tours that I run and even after three previous trips I was looking forward to returning. One of the main...
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...
Long Now
Geoff Manaugh & Nicola Twilley: Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine
**Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley** track the history and future of quarantine around the globe,...
8th Feb 2022
**Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley** track the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space—from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean, built to contain the Black Death, to an experimental Ebola unit in...
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
Long Now
Caroline Winterer: The Art and Science of Deep Time: Conceiving the Inconceivable in the 19th...
The ambition to think on the scale of thousands, millions, even billion of years emerged in the 19th...
6th Feb 2020
The ambition to think on the scale of thousands, millions, even billion of years emerged in the 19th century. Historian and author [Caroline Winterer](https://history.stanford.edu/people/caroline-winterer) chronicles how the concept of “deep time” has inspired and puzzled...
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 ›
Long Now
Brewster Kahle: Universal Access to All Knowledge
### All knowledge, to all people, for all time, for free
Universal access to all knowledge, Kahle...
1st Dec 2011
### All knowledge, to all people, for all time, for free
Universal access to all knowledge, Kahle declared, will be one of humanity's greatest achievements. We are already well on the way. "We're building the Library of Alexandria, version 2. We can one-up the Greeks!"
Start...
Quanta Magazine
Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups
The numbers count a variety of seemingly unrelated mathematical structures.
The post...
1st Aug 2023
The numbers count a variety of seemingly unrelated mathematical structures.
The post Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
GOES Video of Solar Eclipse – October 14, 2023
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14,...
14th Oct 2023
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023 was no different. Unlike a total solar eclipse where the […]
Long Now
Stewart Brand: Rethinking Green
### Globalizing Green
Brand built his case for rethinking environmental goals and methods on two...
10th Oct 2009
### Globalizing Green
Brand built his case for rethinking environmental goals and methods on two major changes going on in the world. The one that most people still don't take into consideration is that power is shifting to the developing world, where 5 out of 6 people live,...
Long Now
Jill Tarter: The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence: Necessarily a Long-term Strategy
### The long search
"The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: Necessarily a Long-term...
10th Jul 2004
### The long search
"The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: Necessarily a Long-term Strategy" is the title for Jill Tarter's Seminar About Long-term Thinking this Friday. There's no deeper question than "Are we alone in the universe?" And there's no quick way to answer...
Casey Handmer's blog
How to reason from first principles
This post is a follow up on my general questions on AI post, and expands on ideas I published here...
16th Jul 2025
This post is a follow up on my general questions on AI post, and expands on ideas I published here and here in the ancient times. Every time one of the labs releases an updated model I give it a thorough shakedown on physics, in the style of the oral examination that is still...
Beautiful Public...
US Government UFO (UAP) Footage
For decades, the public suspected that the US Government was hiding secret intelligence about UFOs —...
10th Feb 2025
For decades, the public suspected that the US Government was hiding secret intelligence about UFOs — (now known as UAPs). Turns out…it kind of was.
IEEE Spectrum
This 1945 TV Console Showed Two Programs at Once
As I try to write this article, my friend and I have six different screens attached to three types...
3rd Jul 2025
As I try to write this article, my friend and I have six different screens attached to three types of devices. We’re working in the same room but on our own projects—separate yet together, a comfortable companionship.
I had never really thought of the proliferation of screens as...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, March 2023
A new monthly feature, let me know what you think.
Books
Matt Ridley, How Innovation Works (2020)....
9th Mar 2023
A new monthly feature, let me know what you think.
Books
Matt Ridley, How Innovation Works (2020). About halfway through, lots of interesting case studies, very readable.
Vaclav Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century (2005). I read the first chapter; saving the rest of it for when...
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.
IEEE Spectrum
Esoteric Languages Challenge Coders to Think Way Outside the Box
Have you ever tried programming with a language that uses musical notation? What about a language...
4th Sep 2025
Have you ever tried programming with a language that uses musical notation? What about a language that never runs programs the same way? What about a language where you write code with photographs?
All exist, among many others, in the world of esoteric programming languages, and...
Works in Progress...
The great reinforcer
Alongside all the successes of science in the Covid era, the pandemic has also sparked an outbreak...
8th Feb 2021
Alongside all the successes of science in the Covid era, the pandemic has also sparked an outbreak of viral misinformation and sloppy research, revealing the glaring flaws in our scientific system.
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.
Marine Madness
Culture Club: Time to let the cetaceans in?
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent...
29th Jul 2021
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent studies shine a light on the fact that non-human animals including Cetaceans (dolphins and whales), may also possess it. They live in tightly-knit social communities, exhibit...
Long Now
James Fallows: Civilization's Infrastructure
### Infrastructure investment tricks
All societies under-invest in their infrastructure—in the...
7th Oct 2015
### Infrastructure investment tricks
All societies under-invest in their infrastructure—in the systems that allow them to thrive. There is hardware infrastructure: clean water, paved roads, sewer systems, airports, broadband; and, Fallows suggested, software infrastructure:...
Long Now
George Dyson, Freeman Dyson, & Esther Dyson: The Difficulty of Looking Far Ahead
### Finessing the future
Instead of one podium there were four chairs on the stage of Wednesday's...
6th Oct 2005
### Finessing the future
Instead of one podium there were four chairs on the stage of Wednesday's seminar. In three seats, three Dysons: Esther, George and Freeman. They were appearing together on stage for the first time. The fourth held Stewart Brand who led the three through...
Eukaryote Writes...
Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the...
13th Apr 2024
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the moon.” The truth is that given a lot of power, a nuclear weapon, and a lot of extremely specific circumstances, we too might find ourselves thinking “I should nuke the moon.”
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
Lofty Ambitions
One summer day in 1933, in a brief pocket of time between the two World Wars, a British man named...
14th Dec 2022
One summer day in 1933, in a brief pocket of time between the two World Wars, a British man named Maurice Wilson clutched the stick of his tiny, open air biplane and watched his fuel gauge dwindle. He had only learned to fly two months earlier, but inexperience was not his...
Quanta Magazine
How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps.
The post How Math Has...
1st Jun 2023
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
Works in Progress...
The decline and fall of the British economy
When America’s economy overtook Britain’s a century ago, it remade the world order. How it happened...
21st Jul 2022
When America’s economy overtook Britain’s a century ago, it remade the world order. How it happened is still debated.
Long Now
Adrian Hon: A History of the Future in 100 Objects
### Future artifacts
Speaking from 02082, Hon described 5 (of 100) objects and events from this...
17th Jul 2014
### Future artifacts
Speaking from 02082, Hon described 5 (of 100) objects and events from this century’s history he felt most strongly evoked the astonishing trends that have transformed humanity in the past 8 decades.
Not all developments proved to be positive. One such was...
NeuroLogica Blog
Harvesting Energy from Water Vapor
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about...
1st Jun 2023
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about it. UMASS researchers have produced a device that generates electricity by harvesting charge from water vapor. They write: The common feature of these materials is that they are...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part III
Part 3 Hi Steve, and thank you for your timely response, and for even considering hosting this...
6th Mar 2023
Part 3 Hi Steve, and thank you for your timely response, and for even considering hosting this debate. There has been, and continues to be a “blackout” on almost all discussion regarding the science behind climate change. If “The science” is truly “settled”, it is a pretty shaky...
Long Now
Nils Gilman: Deviant Globalization
### The anti-state economy
Gilman described deviant globalization as "the unpleasant underside of...
4th May 2010
### The anti-state economy
Gilman described deviant globalization as "the unpleasant underside of transnational integration."
There's nice tourism, and then sex tourism, such as in Thailand and Switzerland. The vast pharmacology industry is matched by a vast traffic in illegal...
The Quanta Podcast
Brightest-Ever Space Explosion Reveals Possible Hints of Dark Matter
A recent gamma-ray burst known as the BOAT — “brightest of all time” — appears to have produced a...
1st Mar 2023
A recent gamma-ray burst known as the BOAT — “brightest of all time” — appears to have produced a high-energy particle that shouldn’t exist. For some, dark matter provides the explanation. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Transcarent, AI Therapists, Interoperability, and more | Out-Of-Pocket
Plus Out-Of-Pocket is hiring!!
16th Jan 2025
Plus Out-Of-Pocket is hiring!!
Long Now
Tim O'Reilly: Birth of the Global Mind
### The global mind is us, augmented
As a student of the classics at Harvard in the 1970s, O’Reilly...
6th Sep 2012
### The global mind is us, augmented
As a student of the classics at Harvard in the 1970s, O’Reilly was impressed by a book titled _The Discovery of the Mind: In Greek Philosophy and Literature_ , by Bruno Snell. In the four centuries between Homer and classical Athens, wrote...
Long Now
Stephen Pyne: Fire Slow, Fire Fast, Fire Deep
### Ecological wildfire
“We are uniquely fire creatures,” Pyne began, “on a uniquely fire planet.”...
10th Feb 2016
### Ecological wildfire
“We are uniquely fire creatures,” Pyne began, “on a uniquely fire planet.” Life itself is a form of slow metabolic combustion—which eventually created oxygen and burnable vegetation that allowed fast combustion, ignited by lightning. Humans came along and...
brr
The Last Egg
Five more months until freshies...
9th Jun 2023
Five more months until freshies...
The Works in...
Escape to the country
What makes a successful New Town?
1st Aug 2024
What makes a successful New Town?
Long Now
Ray Kurzweil: Kurzweil's Law
### Escape velocity
Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of...
24th Sep 2005
### Escape velocity
Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of imagining that the pace of the future is like the pace of the past. Pondering the next ten years, we usually begin by studying the last ten years. He recommends studying the last...
Confessions of a...
Marine science, the environment, and the 2013 Australian election
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write about the upcoming election in this blog; after all the point of...
10th Sep 2013
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write about the upcoming election in this blog; after all the point of this blog has never been about anything political! However, for better or worse the state of our environment (including our oceans) are inextricably linked to politics, so here...
Probably...
New Book!
I am working on a new book called You Would Choose Now: Measuring America’s Progress Toward Fairness...
a week 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...
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...
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
Chris D. Thomas: Are We Initiating The Great Anthropocene Speciation Event?
The bad news (not news to most): Many wild species are under severe duress.
The good news (total...
26th Jun 2018
The bad news (not news to most): Many wild species are under severe duress.
The good news (total news to most): “Nature is thriving in an age of extinction.”
Ecologist and evolutionary biologist Chris Thomas has examined a little-noticed phenomenon around the world, that as an...
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