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NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Diamond Boom The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us...
a year ago
27
a year ago
The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us something about a post-scarcity world. Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. However, it like to form with other elements and therefore it was very difficulty to...
Yale e360
Malaria Cases Rising Amid Worsening Floods Malaria killed almost 600,000 people in 2023, as cases rose for the fifth consecutive year,...
6 months ago
3
6 months ago
Malaria killed almost 600,000 people in 2023, as cases rose for the fifth consecutive year, according to a new report from the World Health Organization. Read more on E360 →
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...
9 months ago
12
9 months ago
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...
Yale e360
In a Major Reversal, the World Bank Is Backing Mega Dams Despite continued opposition, the World Bank has approved the first of five big dam projects...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
Despite continued opposition, the World Bank has approved the first of five big dam projects expected to get its support in the coming months. Climate change has upped the need for renewable energy, but the environmental and social costs of building such massive projects...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, May 2023 This is a monthly feature. As usual, I’ve omitted recent blog posts and such, which you can find in...
over a year ago
64
over a year ago
This is a monthly feature. As usual, I’ve omitted recent blog posts and such, which you can find in my links digests. John Gall, The Systems Bible (2012), aka Systemantics, 3rd ed. A concise, pithy collection of wisdom about “systems”, mostly human organizations, projects, and...
Yale e360
A.I. Is Quietly Powering a Revolution in Weather Prediction Weather forecasts powered by artificial intelligence are usually more accurate — and require less...
2 months ago
4
2 months ago
Weather forecasts powered by artificial intelligence are usually more accurate — and require less computational energy and fewer human hours — than conventional predictions. But questions remain about A.I. systems’ reliability and their ability to forecast extreme weather...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Air Quality, Breathing, and Health | Out-Of-Pocket What we inhale is a public health issue
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Will Better Superconductors Transform the World? Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient...
a year ago
97
a year ago
Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient conditions. In this episode, the physicist Siddharth Shanker Saxena tells co-host Janna Levin about what makes this hunt so difficult and consequential. The post Will...
IEEE Spectrum
What It Takes To Let People Play With the Past Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet...
9 months ago
79
9 months ago
Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet functional, technology. Located on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, the MAL is where you can watch a magic lantern show, play Star Castle on a Vectrex games console, or check...
Interaction Magic -...
Plastic archeology The history, science and engineering of Lego bricks, on the cusp between trash and treasure.
a year ago
Asterisk
The Transistor Cliff Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
over a year ago
nanoscale views
What is "static electricity"/"contact electrification"/triboelectricity? An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static...
4 months ago
23
4 months ago
An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static electricity:  an electrical insulator like a wool cloth or animal fur is rubbed on a glass or plastic rod, and suddenly the rod can pick up pieces of styrofoam or little bits of paper. ...
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s...
a year ago
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a year ago
By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s first moments. The post Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale e360
Push to Rewild in Wealthy Countries Fueling Destruction in Poorer Ones A new study details how, as wealthy countries rewild farmland, they are driving the destruction of...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
A new study details how, as wealthy countries rewild farmland, they are driving the destruction of forests in poorer countries that are more abundant in wildlife. Read more on E360 →
Yale e360
Amid Devastation in Gaza, a Deepening Environmental Wound The ongoing war in the Gaza Strip has obliterated crops and trees, according to a new assessment of...
3 weeks ago
1
3 weeks ago
The ongoing war in the Gaza Strip has obliterated crops and trees, according to a new assessment of the impact. Read more on E360 →
Uncharted...
16 Most Surprising Facts About Korea As I research the country, these are the most interesting and surprising facts I gathered—and some...
2 months ago
38
2 months ago
As I research the country, these are the most interesting and surprising facts I gathered—and some beautiful images along the way.
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!...
over a year ago
41
over a year ago
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hybrid Bionic Hand If you think about the human hand as a work of engineering, it is absolutely incredible. The level...
3 months ago
23
3 months ago
If you think about the human hand as a work of engineering, it is absolutely incredible. The level of fine motor control is extreme. It is responsive and precise. It has robust sensory feedback. It combines both rigid and soft components, so that it is able to grip and lift heavy...
Uncharted...
AI Weeks When Decades Happen How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
4 months ago
symmetry magazine
Will AI make MC the MVP of particle physics? Particle physicists are building innovative machine-learning algorithms to enhance Monte Carlo...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Particle physicists are building innovative machine-learning algorithms to enhance Monte Carlo simulations with the power of AI.
Asterisk
Automating Math Computers can already help verify proofs. One day soon, they may be able to come up with new ones.
6 months ago
12
6 months ago
Computers can already help verify proofs. One day soon, they may be able to come up with new ones.
Quanta Magazine
Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its...
over a year ago
95
over a year ago
There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its last surviving remnants. The post Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
Connecting Solar to the Grid is Harder Than You Think [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On June 4, 2022, a small piece...
a year ago
107
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On June 4, 2022, a small piece of equipment (called a lightning arrestor) at a power plant in Odessa, Texas failed, causing part of the plant to trip offline. It was a fairly typical fault that happens from...
Quanta Magazine
Pleasure or Pain? He Maps the Neural Circuits That Decide. The work of the neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has opened up a world of insights into precisely...
a year ago
96
a year ago
The work of the neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has opened up a world of insights into precisely how much pleasure and pain animals experience during different forms of touch. The post Pleasure or Pain? He Maps the Neural Circuits That Decide. first appeared on...
symmetry magazine
A call to cite Black women and gender minorities Theoretical astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein recently unveiled the Cite Black Women+ in...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Theoretical astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein recently unveiled the Cite Black Women+ in Physics and Astronomy Bibliography.
NeuroLogica Blog
Moon Spacesuit Prototype Unveiled Good spacesuits are deceptively difficult to design, even with today’s technology. NASA is planning...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Good spacesuits are deceptively difficult to design, even with today’s technology. NASA is planning to return to the moon in 2025 (if all goes well) but the spacesuit the astronauts will wear is one piece to the puzzle they have not completed yet (the other being the lunar...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Ro Breakdown | Out-Of-Pocket The idea of “goal oriented care” and the big questions around direct-to-patient care
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
The Computer Scientist Peering Inside AI’s Black Boxes Cynthia Rudin wants machine learning models, responsible for increasingly important decisions, to...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Cynthia Rudin wants machine learning models, responsible for increasingly important decisions, to show their work. The post The Computer Scientist Peering Inside AI’s Black Boxes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
To See Black Holes in Stunning Detail, She Uses ‘Echoes’ Like a Bat The astrophysicist Erin Kara measures time lags in black holes’ X-ray glows, which reveal the...
a year ago
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a year ago
The astrophysicist Erin Kara measures time lags in black holes’ X-ray glows, which reveal the complexity of the objects’ closest surroundings. The post To See Black Holes in Stunning Detail, She Uses ‘Echoes’ Like a Bat first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Trust in New Technology In an optimally rational person, what should govern their perception of risk? Of course, people are...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
In an optimally rational person, what should govern their perception of risk? Of course, people are generally not “optimally rational”. It’s therefore an interesting thought experiment – what would be optimal, and how does that differ from how people actually assess risk? Risk is...
Asterisk
Reports of the Death of California High-Speed Rail Have Been Greatly Exaggerated Building a high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco was never going to be easy — but...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
Building a high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco was never going to be easy — but the critics who write it off are missing the real source of the project’s struggles.
Quanta Magazine
Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic...
a year ago
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a year ago
A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness. The post Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness,...
Apoorva Srinivasan
getting started with bayesian inference In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the method that is commonly taught in STAT101 classes. But for many decades, some statisticians have argued for another approach to conduct statistical analysis based on bayes...
Yale e360
A Third of Forests Lost This Century Will Likely Never Be Restored Of the forest lost so far this century, roughly a third was destroyed to make room for farms, a new...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
Of the forest lost so far this century, roughly a third was destroyed to make room for farms, a new analysis finds. Those woodlands, which spanned an area larger than Mongolia, will likely never be restored, authors say. Read more on E360 →
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 16: ExplorNapo Lodge (February 21 - 23, 2024) February 21, 2024 (continued) We sped down the Amazon and made a left at the confluence with the...
4 months ago
20
4 months ago
February 21, 2024 (continued) We sped down the Amazon and made a left at the confluence with the Napo River. The Napo had noticeably less flow, while we also realized that sandbars were also much more numerous, leading to the presence of many wading birds and terns. At around...
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
a year ago
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a year ago
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...
Quanta Magazine
Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient essential for life. The pair are in the process of merging into a single organism. The post Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient first appeared on Quanta...
wadertales
Iceland’s waders in decline It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in West Europe and West Africa. There is a lot of guesswork associated with this number and little national monitoring information to assess whether species are doing well or badly....
Eukaryote Writes...
A point of clarification on infohazard terminology “Infohazard” means any kind of information that could be harmful in some fashion. Let’s use “memetic...
over a year ago
45
over a year ago
“Infohazard” means any kind of information that could be harmful in some fashion. Let’s use “memetic hazard” to describe information that could specifically harm the person who knows it.
The Roots of...
2023 in review 2023 was another big year for me and The Roots of Progress. It was a year when ROP as an...
a year ago
47
a year ago
2023 was another big year for me and The Roots of Progress. It was a year when ROP as an organization really started to take off. Even though the org itself was formed in 2021, at first it was just a vehicle for my own intellectual work, plus a few side projects. Last year we...
Quanta Magazine
Can Information Escape a Black Hole? Black holes are inescapable traps for most of what falls into them — but there can be exceptions....
a year ago
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a year ago
Black holes are inescapable traps for most of what falls into them — but there can be exceptions. The theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind speaks with co-host Janna Levin about the black hole information paradox and how it has propelled modern physics. The post Can...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Representation and human history Do shrunken heads belong in a museum?
over a year ago
The Roots of...
Why you, personally, should want a larger human population What is the ideal size of the human population? One common answer is “much smaller.” Paul Ehrlich,...
a year ago
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a year ago
What is the ideal size of the human population? One common answer is “much smaller.” Paul Ehrlich, co-author of The Population Bomb (1968), has as recently as 2018 promoted the idea that “the world’s optimum population is less than two billion people,” a reduction of the current...
Quanta Magazine
How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics. The post How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
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.
Probably...
Algorithmic Fairness This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com...
5 months ago
16
5 months ago
This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. This article is based on the Recidivism Case Study, which is about algorithmic fairness. The goal of the case study is to explain the statistical arguments...
Quanta Magazine
How Does Graph Theory Shape Our World? Maria Chudnovsky reflects on her journey in graph theory, her groundbreaking solution to the...
5 days ago
6
5 days ago
Maria Chudnovsky reflects on her journey in graph theory, her groundbreaking solution to the long-standing perfect graph problem, and the unexpected ways this abstract field intersects with everyday life. The post How Does Graph Theory Shape Our World? first appeared...
IEEE Spectrum
How Vannevar Bush Engineered the 20th Century In the summer of 1945, Robert J. Oppenheimer and other key members of the Manhattan Project gathered...
a year ago
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a year ago
In the summer of 1945, Robert J. Oppenheimer and other key members of the Manhattan Project gathered in New Mexico to witness the first atomic bomb test. Among the observers was Vannevar Bush, who had overseen the Manhattan Project and served as the sole liaison to U.S. President...
SubAnima
Can Biology Be Reduced To Physics? "Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t...
a year ago
24
a year ago
The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t persist in adults. The post Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How To (Properly) Text Patients | Out-Of-Pocket Do’s and don’ts + tactical tips from an actual doctor
a year ago
Asterisk
The Great Inflection? A Debate About AI and Explosive Growth A conversation about what happens to the economy when intelligence becomes too cheap to meter.
over a year ago
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote writes for Asterisk Magazine See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus...
8 months ago
77
8 months ago
See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus every time we figure out how to look closer: Through the Looking Glass, and What Zheludev et al. (2024) Found There at Asterisk Magazine I’ve written for Asterisk before: What I won’t...
IEEE Spectrum
The Lisa Was Apple’s Best Failure Happy 40th Birthday to Lisa! The Apple Lisa computer, that is. In celebration of this milestone, the...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
Happy 40th Birthday to Lisa! The Apple Lisa computer, that is. In celebration of this milestone, the Computer History Museum has received permission from Apple to release the source code to the Lisa, including its system and applications software. You can access the Lisa source...
Yale e360
How Restored Wetlands Can Protect Europe from Russian Invasion The flooding of a Ukraine’s Irpin valley thwarted Russia’s assault on Kyiv in 2022. Now, scientists...
2 weeks ago
8
2 weeks ago
The flooding of a Ukraine’s Irpin valley thwarted Russia’s assault on Kyiv in 2022. Now, scientists are proposing Europe create a band of restored and protected wetlands along its eastern borders to deter future Russian aggression, and military strategists are taking notice. Read...
NeuroLogica Blog
Are Animals Conscious? This is a great scientific question because it challenges how we ask and answer scientific...
a year ago
85
a year ago
This is a great scientific question because it challenges how we ask and answer scientific questions. Are animals conscious? This is a question discussed in a recent BBC article that peaked my interest. They eventually get to a question that they should have opened with – how do...
Yale e360
The Year in Energy in Four Charts The global energy sector defied expectations this year, in ways both good and bad for the climate....
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
The global energy sector defied expectations this year, in ways both good and bad for the climate. Four charts highlight key trends in the transition to clean energy. Read more on E360 →
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...
9 months ago
22
9 months ago
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.
IEEE Spectrum
Why L. Ron Hubbard Patented His E-Meter zombie mysteries, historical fiction, pirate adventure tales, and westerns. science fiction. The...
a year ago
127
a year ago
zombie mysteries, historical fiction, pirate adventure tales, and westerns. science fiction. The publishers of Astounding Science Fiction approached Hubbard to write stories that focused on people, rather than robots and machines. His first story, “The Dangerous Dimension,” was...
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Discover New Way for Spheres to ‘Kiss’ A new proof marks the first progress in decades on important cases of the so-called kissing problem....
5 months ago
68
5 months ago
A new proof marks the first progress in decades on important cases of the so-called kissing problem. Getting there meant doing away with traditional approaches. The post Mathematicians Discover New Way for Spheres to ‘Kiss’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale e360
How Natural Solutions Can Help Islands Survive Sea Level Rise Scientists have found that atoll islands with healthy forests and coral reefs are more resilient...
a month ago
11
a month ago
Scientists have found that atoll islands with healthy forests and coral reefs are more resilient against rising seas. To shore up vulnerable islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans, experts are working to restore native trees and seabirds and boost the growth of protective...
Quantum Frontiers
To thermalize, or not to thermalize, that is the question. If Hamlet had been a system of noncommuting charges, his famous soliloquy may have gone like this…...
a year ago
90
a year ago
If Hamlet had been a system of noncommuting charges, his famous soliloquy may have gone like this… To thermalize, or not to thermalize, that is the question:Whether ’tis more natural for the system to sufferThe large entanglement of thermalizing dynamics,Or … Continue reading →
Blog - Practical...
How Fish Survive Hydro Turbines [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Most of the largest dams in...
a year ago
100
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Most of the largest dams in the US were built before we really understood the impacts they would have on river ecosystems. Or at least they were built before we were conscientious enough to weigh those impacts...
Stephen Wolfram...
Can AI Solve Science? Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for...
a year ago
62
a year ago
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for training the neural nets used here is also available (requires GPU). Won’t AI Eventually Be Able to Do Everything? Particularly given its recent surprise successes, there’s a somewhat...
Asterisk
The Virtue of Wonder: Martha Nussbaum’s Justice for Animals Martha Nussbaum’s latest book challenges us to change the way we think — and feel — about animals....
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Martha Nussbaum’s latest book challenges us to change the way we think — and feel — about animals. What role can wonder and awe play when pathos comes up short?
IEEE Spectrum
A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War In the early 1970s, the Cold War had reached a particularly frigid moment, and U.S. military and...
5 months ago
57
5 months ago
In the early 1970s, the Cold War had reached a particularly frigid moment, and U.S. military and intelligence officials had a problem. The Soviet Navy was becoming a global maritime threat—and the United States did not have a global ocean-surveillance capability. Adding to the...
Quanta Magazine
How to Guarantee the Safety of Autonomous Vehicles As computer-driven cars and planes become more common, the key to preventing accidents, researchers...
a year ago
69
a year ago
As computer-driven cars and planes become more common, the key to preventing accidents, researchers show, is to know what you don’t know. The post How to Guarantee the Safety of Autonomous Vehicles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
ChatGPT Performs At University Level We are still sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of the new crop of artificial intelligence...
a year ago
24
a year ago
We are still sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of the new crop of artificial intelligence (AI) applications, the poster-child of which is ChatGPT. This is a so-called large language model application using a “generative pre-trained transformer”. Essentially these types of...
Yale e360
Will U.S. Push on Seabed Mining End Global Consensus on Oceans? President Trump’s recent order to expedite permits to begin deep-sea mining bypasses international...
a month ago
3
a month ago
President Trump’s recent order to expedite permits to begin deep-sea mining bypasses international agreements that protect oceans. By moving unilaterally, says the Ocean Conservancy’s Jeff Watters, the U.S. could endanger fragile marine ecosystems and set a troubling...
Quanta Magazine
Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining...
a year ago
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a year ago
Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining many online security protocols. Now a researcher has shown how to do it even faster. The post Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring first appeared on...
NeuroLogica Blog
Converting CO2 to Carbon Nanofibers One of the dreams of a green economy where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is stable, and not...
a year ago
36
a year ago
One of the dreams of a green economy where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is stable, and not slowly increasing, is the ability to draw CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it to a solid form. Often referred to as carbon capture, some form of this is going to be necessary...
Asterisk
Beyond Staple Grains The Green Revolution saved a billion lives, but it left a legacy of homogenous diets and distorted...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
The Green Revolution saved a billion lives, but it left a legacy of homogenous diets and distorted agricultural markets. What impact has this had on global health — and how can we move forward?
Quanta Magazine
He’s Gleaning the Design Rules of Life to Re-Create It Yizhi “Patrick” Cai is coordinating a global effort to write a complete synthetic yeast genome. If...
7 months ago
73
7 months ago
Yizhi “Patrick” Cai is coordinating a global effort to write a complete synthetic yeast genome. If he succeeds, the resulting cell will be the artificial life most closely related to humans to date. The post He’s Gleaning the Design Rules of Life to Re-Create It first...
Yale e360
African Solar Installations Headed for Banner Year African solar installations are projected to grow by 42 percent this year, according to an industry...
3 months ago
5
3 months ago
African solar installations are projected to grow by 42 percent this year, according to an industry group. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Marvel at ‘Crazy’ Cuts Through Four Dimensions Topologists prove two new results that bring some order to the confoundingly difficult study of...
a year ago
115
a year ago
Topologists prove two new results that bring some order to the confoundingly difficult study of four-dimensional shapes. The post Mathematicians Marvel at ‘Crazy’ Cuts Through Four Dimensions first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
The Birth of German(y) Goods, Gods, and Guns
4 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Gradient Nanostructured Steel Science fiction writers, who have to think deeply about the possible nature of future technology,...
a year ago
28
a year ago
Science fiction writers, who have to think deeply about the possible nature of future technology, often invent new sci-fi materials in order to make their future technology seem plausible. They seem to understand the critical role that material science plays in advancing...
nanoscale views
This week in the arXiv: quantum geometry, fluid momentum "tunneling", and pasta sauce Three papers caught my eye the other day on the arXiv at the start of the new year: arXiv:2501.00098...
5 months ago
18
5 months ago
Three papers caught my eye the other day on the arXiv at the start of the new year: arXiv:2501.00098 - J. Yu et al., "Quantum geometry in quantum materials" - I hope to write up something about quantum geometry soon, but I wanted to point out this nice review even if I haven't...
Yale e360
Renewables Supplied Two-Thirds of Germany's Power Last Year Germany, the largest economy in Europe, got nearly two-thirds of its power from renewables last...
5 months ago
1
5 months ago
Germany, the largest economy in Europe, got nearly two-thirds of its power from renewables last year, an analysis shows. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
The Molecular Bond That Helps Secure Your Memories How do memories last a lifetime when the molecules that form them turn over within days, weeks or...
a month ago
15
a month ago
How do memories last a lifetime when the molecules that form them turn over within days, weeks or months? An interaction between two proteins points to a molecular basis for memory. The post The Molecular Bond That Helps Secure Your Memories first appeared on Quanta...
Quanta Magazine
Pierre de Fermat’s Link to a High School Student’s Prime Math Proof How Fermat’s less famous ‘little theorem’ got mathematicians young and old to play with prime-like...
a year ago
46
a year ago
How Fermat’s less famous ‘little theorem’ got mathematicians young and old to play with prime-like Carmichael numbers. The post Pierre de Fermat’s Link to a High School Student’s Prime Math Proof first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
Is the World Really Running Out of Sand? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] If you have to know the answer...
9 months ago
110
9 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] If you have to know the answer right away, it’s no; or at least, my goal with this video is to convince you that the world is not running out of sand. But if it were that simple, I wouldn’t be here (right?) and...
Yale e360
U.S. Wind and Solar Overtake Coal Power In a first, the U.S. saw wind and solar supply more power than coal last year, according to a new...
5 months ago
3
5 months ago
In a first, the U.S. saw wind and solar supply more power than coal last year, according to a new analysis. But even as renewables made gains, U.S. emissions stayed flat owing to rising demand for energy. Read more on E360 →
The Roots of...
Who regulates the regulators? IRBs Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
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)...
Yale e360
How a Former Herder Protected Mongolia's Vast Grasslands Batmunkh Luvsandash has fought to protect more than a million acres of steppe lands in his native...
2 months ago
4
2 months ago
Batmunkh Luvsandash has fought to protect more than a million acres of steppe lands in his native Mongolia. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he explains how, by drawing on the knowledge of local herders, he was able to take on the powerful mining industry and win. Read...
Yale e360
Recycling Nuclear Waste: A Win-Win or a Dangerous Gamble? As interest in nuclear power rises, startups are pursuing plans to recycle spent fuel and reuse its...
2 months ago
7
2 months ago
As interest in nuclear power rises, startups are pursuing plans to recycle spent fuel and reuse its untapped energy to power reactors. Advocates tout new recycling methods as a breakthrough, but many experts warn it will extract plutonium that could be used for nuclear...
Yale e360
In Test, A.I. Weather Model Fails to Predict Freak Storm Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than...
a month ago
12
a month ago
Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than conventional forecasts and are faster and cheaper to produce. But new research shows A.I. may fail to predict unprecedented weather events, a troubling finding as warming fuels new...
NeuroLogica Blog
Nuclear Microreactors The first nuclear powered vessel was completed in 1959. Since then there have been nuclear powered...
over a year ago
61
over a year ago
The first nuclear powered vessel was completed in 1959. Since then there have been nuclear powered vessels in the oceans, including many nuclear submarines. The obvious advantage is that is such vessels can stay at see for long periods of time without refueling. These ships use...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Type of Black Hole Discovered ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not surprising, as that is Gaia’s mission – to precisely map the three-dimensional position of two billion objects in our galaxy, using three separate instruments. The process is called...
Yale e360
Warming Doubled the Odds of Record Fires in South Korea Warming fueled the hot, dry, windy weather that gave rise to a spate of record-breaking fires in...
2 months ago
1
2 months ago
Warming fueled the hot, dry, windy weather that gave rise to a spate of record-breaking fires in South Korea in March, an analysis finds. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Latest Gallup Creationism Poll Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people answer. But it is useful to ask the exact same question over a long period of time, because that can indicate how public attitudes are changing. This is one of the benefits of...
Casey Handmer's blog
SLS is still a national disgrace Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the...
9 months ago
38
9 months ago
Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the NASA SLS (Space Launch System), I wrote one. If you’re unfamiliar with the topic, you should read it first.  It is hard to …
nanoscale views
End of the year thoughts - scientific philanthropy and impact As we head into 2025, and the prospects for increased (US) government investment in science,...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
As we head into 2025, and the prospects for increased (US) government investment in science, engineering, and STEM education seem very limited, I wanted to revisit a topic that I wrote about over a decade ago (!!!), the role of philanthropy and foundations in these...
Quantum Frontiers
Let gravity do its work One day, early this spring, I found myself in a hotel elevator with three other people. The cohort...
a year ago
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a year ago
One day, early this spring, I found myself in a hotel elevator with three other people. The cohort consisted of two theoretical physicists, one computer scientist, and what appeared to be a normal person. I pressed the elevator’s 4 button, … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
How Substance Abuse Affects the Brain I will acknowledge up front that I never drink, ever. The concept of deliberately consuming a known...
a year ago
20
a year ago
I will acknowledge up front that I never drink, ever. The concept of deliberately consuming a known poison to impair the functioning of your brain never appealed to me. Also, I am a bit of a supertaster, and the taste of alcohol to me is horrible – it overwhelms any other...
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Identify the Best Versions of Iconic Shapes Researchers are discovering the shortest knots and fattest Möbius strips, among other “optimal...
a year ago
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a year ago
Researchers are discovering the shortest knots and fattest Möbius strips, among other “optimal shapes.” The post Mathematicians Identify the Best Versions of Iconic Shapes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Apply for Invisible College 2025 Our residential seminar for 18–22 year olds was such a success that we are running it again
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Roleplaying Games May Help Autistic People Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic...
10 months ago
61
10 months ago
Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic people“. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game where a small group of people each play characters adventuring in an imaginary world run by the dungeon master (DM)....
Asterisk
Chimes at Midnight It’s been an idea for over three decades. How did the clock that will run for 10,000 years become a...
8 months ago
13
8 months ago
It’s been an idea for over three decades. How did the clock that will run for 10,000 years become a reality?
Interaction Magic -...
Engineering beneath the ice sheet Living in Greenland, deploying electronic beacons deep beneath the ice.
7 months ago
symmetry magazine
Applications of quantum mechanics at the beach How does sunscreen work on the atomic level?
a year ago
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...
a year ago
37
a year ago
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...
Yale e360
Carbon Dioxide Levels Rose by a Record Amount Last Year Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before, putting hopes of limiting...
5 months ago
1
5 months ago
Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before, putting hopes of limiting warming in jeopardy. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Big Ring Challenges Cosmological Principle University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) PhD student Alexia Lopez, who two years ago discovered a...
a year ago
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a year ago
University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) PhD student Alexia Lopez, who two years ago discovered a giant arc of galaxy clusters in the distant universe, has now discovered a Big Ring. This (if real) is one of the largest structures in the observable universe at 1.3 billion light...
NeuroLogica Blog
BBC Gets Into UFOs Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become...
a year ago
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a year ago
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...
Yale e360
Growing Risk of 'Thirstwaves' as the Planet Warms The atmosphere is getting thirstier. A new study finds that warming is leading to more frequent...
2 months ago
7
2 months ago
The atmosphere is getting thirstier. A new study finds that warming is leading to more frequent bouts of hot, dry weather that cause soils to lose large volumes of water to evaporation. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Are There Reasons to Believe in a Multiverse? Several areas of physics suggest reasons to think that unobservable universes with different natural...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Several areas of physics suggest reasons to think that unobservable universes with different natural laws could lie beyond ours. The theoretical physicist David Kaplan talks with Steven Strogatz about the mysteries that a multiverse would solve. The post Are There...
NeuroLogica Blog
Robots and a Sense of Self Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption)...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption) have a sense of self. This sense has several components – we feel as if we occupy our physical bodies, that our bodies are distinct entities separate from the rest of the universe,...
The Works in...
Rust never sleeps A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Yale e360
Peatland Algae to Soak Up More Carbon as Planet Warms New research finds that microalgae in northern peat bogs will absorb more carbon dioxide as the...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
New research finds that microalgae in northern peat bogs will absorb more carbon dioxide as the planet warms, helping to take a bite out of emissions. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Introducing The Quanta Podcast Exploring the distant universe, the insides of cells, the abstractions of math, the complexity of...
a month ago
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a month ago
Exploring the distant universe, the insides of cells, the abstractions of math, the complexity of information itself and much more, The Quanta Podcast will be a tour of the frontier between the known and the unknown. The post Introducing The Quanta Podcast first...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Cool Ideas For Dentistry + Medicine With Nisarg Patel | Out-Of-Pocket plus what actually happens in the operating room?
a year ago
The Works in...
How Airbus took off Why you can build a European airliner, but not a European Google
3 months ago
Quantum Frontiers
Building a Visceral Understanding of Quantum Phenomena A great childhood memory that I have comes from first playing “The Incredible Machine” on PC in the...
10 months ago
89
10 months ago
A great childhood memory that I have comes from first playing “The Incredible Machine” on PC in the early 90’s. For those not in the know, this is a physics-based puzzle game about building Rube Goldberg style contraptions to achieve … Continue reading →
Yale e360
Discarded U.K. Clothing Dumped in Protected Wetlands in Ghana Heaps of discarded clothing from the U.K. have been dumped in protected wetlands in Ghana, an...
a week ago
1
a week ago
Heaps of discarded clothing from the U.K. have been dumped in protected wetlands in Ghana, an investigation found. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
For Movies – Animals Don’t Sound Real Enough What does a majestic eagle sound like, or the hoot of a spider monkey, or the roar of a bear? Unless...
a year ago
24
a year ago
What does a majestic eagle sound like, or the hoot of a spider monkey, or the roar of a bear? Unless you have an interest in movie tropes, or listen regularly to the SGU, you may have a complete misconception about the sounds these and many other animals make. Eagles, for...
symmetry magazine
CERN opens Science Gateway About 1,400 people attended the grand opening of CERN’s new science education center.
a year ago
Yale e360
Lightning Strikes the Arctic: What Will It Mean for the Far North? A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Scientists...
a week ago
2
a week ago
A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Scientists are now reporting a dramatic surge in lightning in the Far North and are scrambling to parse how this could affect wildfires, the chemistry of the atmosphere, and Arctic...
Wanderingspace
Uranus is not as boring as we thought “An animation of three near-infrared images of Uranus captured by the JWST Space Telescope with...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
“An animation of three near-infrared images of Uranus captured by the JWST Space Telescope with assigned representative colors. During processing, I aligned the rings separately to reduce the bubbling effect caused by different inclinations, making the planet appear to rotate on...
Quanta Magazine
New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient Quantum computing is still really, really hard. But the rise of a powerful class of error-correcting...
a year ago
37
a year ago
Quantum computing is still really, really hard. But the rise of a powerful class of error-correcting codes suggests that the task might be slightly more feasible than many feared. The post New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient first appeared...
Yale e360
Grass-Fed Beef No Better for Climate Than Industrial Beef, Study Finds New research finds that, pound for pound, grazing cattle generate at least as much heat-trapping gas...
3 months ago
5
3 months ago
New research finds that, pound for pound, grazing cattle generate at least as much heat-trapping gas as those raised in feedlots. Read more on E360 →
Chris Grossack's...
A truly incredible fact about the number 37 So I was on math stackexchange the other day, and I saw a cute post looking for a book which lists,...
a year ago
22
a year ago
So I was on math stackexchange the other day, and I saw a cute post looking for a book which lists, for many many integers, facts that Ramanujan could have told Hardy if he’d taken a cab other than 1729. A few days ago OP answered their own question, saying that the book in...
Yale e360
Trees That Have Never Known Plentiful Rainfall Better Prepared for Drought A new study finds that trees that have lived through many wet years struggle to cope with dry...
5 months ago
Yale e360
Imperiled in the Wild, Many Plants May Survive Only in Gardens As the impacts of climate change and other threats mount, conservationists are racing to preserve...
3 months ago
6
3 months ago
As the impacts of climate change and other threats mount, conservationists are racing to preserve endangered plant species in botanical garden “metacollections” in the hope of eventually returning them to the wild. But what happens when there is no suitable habitat to return them...
NeuroLogica Blog
Cultural Blindness One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the...
a year ago
27
a year ago
One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the recognition that while the human brain is a powerful information processing machine, it also has many frailties. One of those frailties is perception – we do not perceive the world in...
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Don't Sink [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The essence of a bridge is not...
12 months ago
130
12 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The essence of a bridge is not just that it goes over something, but that there’s clear space underneath for a river, railway, or road. Maybe this is already obvious to you, but bridges present a unique...
Asterisk
The Next Revolution in Animal Agriculture The technologies of precision livestock farming could reshape animal agriculture. How will that go...
12 months ago
18
12 months ago
The technologies of precision livestock farming could reshape animal agriculture. How will that go for the animals?
Yale e360
On a Dammed River, Amazon Villagers Fight to Restore the Flow Indigenous communities that rely on the natural flow of the Xingu River have long fought the Belo...
2 months ago
1
2 months ago
Indigenous communities that rely on the natural flow of the Xingu River have long fought the Belo Monte dam in Brazil. With the dam now up for relicensing, they are urging the government to allow more water to flow, which would help revive the river and their way of life. Read...
SubAnima
What is a biological individual? Some individuals have no clear boundaries. Here’s an assortment of some of the most interesting...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Some individuals have no clear boundaries. Here’s an assortment of some of the most interesting problem cases
Marine Madness
Penguin Problems: Are human-induced food shortages driving population declines? We all love penguins. Clumsy and awkward on land, stealthy and precise underwater- these charismatic...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
We all love penguins. Clumsy and awkward on land, stealthy and precise underwater- these charismatic creatures have captured our hearts ever since the release of March of the Penguins. Unfortunately, penguin populations across the globe (especially in South Africa and Antarctica)...
NeuroLogica Blog
Another UFO Whistleblower How seriously should we take the claims of David Grusch? He is an airforce veteran and former member...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
How seriously should we take the claims of David Grusch? He is an airforce veteran and former member of the UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) task force, which is enough to at least hear him out. He gave an exclusive interview to journalist Ross Coulthart from NewsNation, part...
Quantum Frontiers
The most steampunk qubit I never imagined that an artist would update me about quantum-computing research. Last year,...
a month ago
14
a month ago
I never imagined that an artist would update me about quantum-computing research. Last year, steampunk artist Bruce Rosenbaum forwarded me a notification about a news article published in Science. The article reported on an experiment performed in physicist Yiwen Chu’s … Continue...
The Works in...
The prehistoric psychopath Life in the state of nature was less violent than you might think. But this made them vulnerable to...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
Life in the state of nature was less violent than you might think. But this made them vulnerable to a few psychopaths.
Drew Ex Machina
The Dream: The First Probe to the Moon The past decade or so has seen a marked increase in interest to reach the Moon for exploration as...
a year ago
34
a year ago
The past decade or so has seen a marked increase in interest to reach the Moon for exploration as well as the potential exploitation of its […]
The Works in...
Nuclear reactors for dummies Fission basics #1
a month ago
The Works in...
Issue 19: American S-Bahn Plus: How to redraw cities with tangled property rights, the secret history of inflation targeting,...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
Plus: How to redraw cities with tangled property rights, the secret history of inflation targeting, and the end of lead pollution in the developing world
Probably...
Multiple Regression with StatsModels This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
6 months ago
11
6 months ago
This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 10, which is about multiple regression. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab. In the previous...
Quanta Magazine
The Road Map to Alien Life Passes Through the ‘Cosmic Shoreline’ Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmospheres. But...
3 months ago
27
3 months ago
Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmospheres. But first, they need to know where to look — and that means figuring out which planets are likely to have atmospheres in the first place. The post The Road Map to Alien Life...
Yale e360
A Year of Climate Extremes, In Photos From floods in Brazil to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, extreme weather exacted a devastating...
6 months ago
5
6 months ago
From floods in Brazil to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, extreme weather exacted a devastating toll in 2024. Read more on E360 →
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...
7 months ago
49
7 months ago
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...
Cremieux Recueil
Grading the World's Shortest Manifesto It gets an F and the student has earned the death penalty
6 months ago
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,...
a year ago
65
a year ago
States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations, professions, sports teams, causes and other groups.
Yale e360
In Test, A.I. Weather Model Fails to Predict Freak Storm Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than...
a month ago
1
a month ago
Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than conventional forecasts and are faster and cheaper to produce. But new research shows A.I. may fail to predict unprecedented weather events, a troubling finding as warming fuels new...
Uncharted...
What’s at Stake in Germany’s Elections The future of Ukraine, of Europe, freedom of speech, and Germany’s economy
4 months ago
Blog - Practical...
How Would a Nuclear EMP Affect the Power Grid? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Late in the morning of April...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Late in the morning of April 28, 1958, the USS Boxer aircraft carrier ship was about 70 miles off the coast of the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The crew of the Boxer was preparing to launch a...
Quanta Magazine
The S-Matrix Is the Oracle Physicists Turn To in Times of Crisis Particle physicists in search of the next theory of reality are consulting a mathematical structure...
a year ago
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a year ago
Particle physicists in search of the next theory of reality are consulting a mathematical structure that they know will never fail: a table of possibilities known as the S-matrix. The post The S-Matrix Is the Oracle Physicists Turn To in Times of Crisis first appeared...
Yale e360
World's Richest 10 Percent Responsible for Two-Thirds of Warming The wealthiest 10 percent of people on Earth have fueled two-thirds of the warming since 1990,...
a month ago
13
a month ago
The wealthiest 10 percent of people on Earth have fueled two-thirds of the warming since 1990, according to a new modeling study. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Why we stopped building subways cheaply We used to dig up roads to put trains underneath
a month ago
Cremieux Recueil
Preregistration Is No Panacea Stopping scientific cheaters requires setting up systems that can't be gamed
7 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printing Superalloys This is a cool material science development that nicely illustrates recent technological...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
This is a cool material science development that nicely illustrates recent technological advancements. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have created a superalloy using additive manufacturing (3D printing). That may not sound that impressive at first, but consider the...
The Works in...
Anemia and Malaria In malaria endemic regions, being anemic could be keeping children safe
8 months ago
Chris Grossack's...
Talk - Where Are The Open Sets? I was invited to give a talk at HoTTEST 2022, and was more than happy to accept! Ever since I was...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
I was invited to give a talk at HoTTEST 2022, and was more than happy to accept! Ever since I was first learning HoTT I was curious how we could be sure that theorems in HoTT give us corresponding theorems in “classical” homotopy theory. Earlier this summer I spent a lot of...
IEEE Spectrum
This Little Mars Rover Stayed Home Sojourner sent back photos of the Martian surface during the summer of 1997. I was not alone. The...
a month ago
12
a month ago
Sojourner sent back photos of the Martian surface during the summer of 1997. I was not alone. The servers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab slowed to a crawl when they got more than 47 million hits (a record number!) from people attempting to download those early images of the Red...
Wanderingspace
Mars Express is Still Making Great Images 20 Years Later Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In...
9 months ago
76
9 months ago
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In one shot, you can see Mars as a half-lit disk, with Phobos, its tiny moon, hovering above. Right below Phobos is Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano, towering 22 km...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Neolithic Revolution What was the greatest invention of human civilization? Arguably it was agriculture, which allowed...
11 months ago
85
11 months ago
What was the greatest invention of human civilization? Arguably it was agriculture, which allowed for civilization itself. Prior to agriculture humans were some combination of hunters, gatherers, scavengers, and fishers. We lived off the land, which was a full-time job. Many...
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2024, 1) Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras...
a year ago
134
a year ago
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.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
New Telescope to Take Movie of Entire Sky Astronomers unveiled first pictures from the amazing Rubin Observatory, which is getting ready to...
6 days ago
8
6 days ago
Astronomers unveiled first pictures from the amazing Rubin Observatory, which is getting ready to take the deepest, widest movie of the entire sky. The post New Telescope to Take Movie of Entire Sky appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education...
Yale e360
Russia’s War Has Destroyed Forest Twice the Size of New York City Ukraine lost roughly 600 square miles of forest in the first two years of its war with Russia, an...
3 months ago
5
3 months ago
Ukraine lost roughly 600 square miles of forest in the first two years of its war with Russia, an area of woodland twice the size of New York City. Read more on E360 →
Cremieux Recueil
Food Deserts Are Not Real They're more like bad habit neighborhoods
9 months ago
Asterisk
Emotional Intelligence Amplification Love in the time of chatbots.
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Epic Effort to Ground Physics in Math Opens Up the Secrets of Time By mathematically proving how individual molecules create the complex motion of fluids, three...
2 weeks ago
13
2 weeks ago
By mathematically proving how individual molecules create the complex motion of fluids, three mathematicians have illuminated why time can’t flow in reverse. The post Epic Effort to Ground Physics in Math Opens Up the Secrets of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale e360
Spread of Dark Algae Could Hasten Melt of Greenland Ice Sheet Dark algae are spreading across the Greenland ice sheet as snow retreats. Their dark color causes...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Dark algae are spreading across the Greenland ice sheet as snow retreats. Their dark color causes ice to absorb more heat from the sun, accelerating melting, and according to a new study, the harsh conditions atop the ice sheet will do little to slow their advance. Read more on...
Beautiful Public...
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s...
over a year ago
67
over a year ago
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
NeuroLogica Blog
Climate Sensitivity and Confirmation Bias I love to follow kerfuffles between different experts and deep thinkers. It’s great for revealing...
a year ago
49
a year ago
I love to follow kerfuffles between different experts and deep thinkers. It’s great for revealing the subtleties of logic, science, and evidence. Recently there has been an interesting online exchange between a physicists science communicator (Sabine Hossenfelder) and some...
Asterisk
Are AIs People? Every year, AI models get better at thinking. Could they possibly be capable of feeling? And if they...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
Every year, AI models get better at thinking. Could they possibly be capable of feeling? And if they are, how would we know?
Asterisk
Is Cultivated Meat For Real? Cultivated meat faces a wall of scientific skepticism, but investors haven’t been deterred. A decade...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Cultivated meat faces a wall of scientific skepticism, but investors haven’t been deterred. A decade in, how close are we to seeing it on our plates?
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 3: Hunter Canyon to Portal September 2, 2024 We awoke to another beautiful sunrise in the Huachuca Mountains. I could get used...
9 months ago
13
9 months ago
September 2, 2024 We awoke to another beautiful sunrise in the Huachuca Mountains. I could get used to this view. View from Beatty's Guest Ranch - Miller Canyon, Cochise County, Arizona This was our final morning in this region; we had plans to make the long drive eastwards...
Beautiful Public...
Nuclear Weapon Test Films Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories has an archive of an estimated 10,000 films of nuclear...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories has an archive of an estimated 10,000 films of nuclear weapons tests from the 1940's - 1960's.
Quanta Magazine
When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness...
9 months ago
57
9 months ago
Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness to deal with the unknown. The post When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Light from Space
The Helping Hand of LDN 1355 LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark...
over a year ago
42
over a year ago
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark dust obscuring the reflection nebula behind it. Total exposure time: 58h 50' (211,800s) Image resolution: 5,216 × 3,909px (1.924″/px) Shot from my driveway
The Roots of...
The origins of the steam engine This is a guest post written by Anton Howes and animated by Matt Brown of Extraordinary Facility....
a year ago
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a year ago
This is a guest post written by Anton Howes and animated by Matt Brown of Extraordinary Facility. This project was sponsored by The Roots of Progress, with funding generously provided by The Institute. Steam power did not begin with the steam engine. Long before...
IEEE Spectrum
AlexNet Source Code Is Now Open Source In partnership with Google, the Computer History Museum has released the source code to AlexNet, the...
3 months ago
40
3 months ago
In partnership with Google, the Computer History Museum has released the source code to AlexNet, the neural network that in 2012 kickstarted today’s prevailing approach to AI. The source code is available as open source on CHM’s GitHub page. What Is AlexNet? AlexNet is an...
Quanta Magazine
In a Fierce Desert, Microbe ‘Crusts’ Show How Life Tamed the Land Extreme microorganisms carpeting the Atacama Desert in Chile illuminate how life might have first...
a year ago
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a year ago
Extreme microorganisms carpeting the Atacama Desert in Chile illuminate how life might have first taken hold on Earth’s surface. The post In a Fierce Desert, Microbe ‘Crusts’ Show How Life Tamed the Land first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and how America's favourite type of coffee got really, really good.
Quanta Magazine
The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made the world ring. Finding its cause took 68 scientists and an assist by the Danish military. The post The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight first...
Quanta Magazine
Does Nothingness Exist? Even empty space bubbles with energy, according to quantum mechanics — and that fact affects almost...
a year ago
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a year ago
Even empty space bubbles with energy, according to quantum mechanics — and that fact affects almost every facet of physical reality. The theoretical physicist Isabel Garcia Garcia explains to Steven Strogatz why it’s so important in modern physics to understand what a true vacuum...
NeuroLogica Blog
Building A Robotic Hand Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of biological bodies in rubber, metal, and plastic. This is a difficult task because biological organisms are often wondrous machines. The human hand, in particular, is a feat of...
Quanta Magazine
Animal Mutation Rates Reveal Traits That Speed Evolution The first large-scale comparison of mutation rates gives insights into how quickly species can...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
The first large-scale comparison of mutation rates gives insights into how quickly species can evolve. The post Animal Mutation Rates Reveal Traits That Speed Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
My investing theses | Out-Of-Pocket Hit up ya boi
a year ago
Wanderingspace
Ganymede from Juno Some incredibly sharp images from the Juno mission of Ganymede. The first new views of this...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Some incredibly sharp images from the Juno mission of Ganymede. The first new views of this beautiful moon since Galileo. See more from kevinmgill on flickr. Also see the thread building up to these full composites in unmannedspaceflight.com.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Next Step in Space Travel The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space...
a year ago
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a year ago
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space capsule. This will be used initially for cargo, but then eventually for crew as well. They anticipate a maiden voyage in 2028. I think this is a positive development. It seems we are...
NeuroLogica Blog
De-extincting the Dire Wolf This really is just a coincidence – I posted yesterday about using AI and modern genetic engineering...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
This really is just a coincidence – I posted yesterday about using AI and modern genetic engineering technology, with one application being the de-extinction of species. I had not seen the news from yesterday about a company that just announced it has cloned three dire wolves...
Quanta Magazine
‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of the conjecture in three dimensions illuminates a whole crop of related problems. The post ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture first appeared on...
NeuroLogica Blog
Tong Test for Artificial General Intelligence Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing...
a year ago
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a year ago
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”....
NeuroLogica Blog
Should Japan Release Radioactive Water Into The Pacific? Japan is planning on releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into...
a year ago
22
a year ago
Japan is planning on releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into the ocean. They claim this will be completely safe, but there are protests going on in both Japan and South Korea, and China has just placed a ban on seafood from Japan. In a perfect...
NeuroLogica Blog
How To Keep AIs From Lying We had a fascinating discussion on this week’s SGU that I wanted to bring here – the subject of...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
We had a fascinating discussion on this week’s SGU that I wanted to bring here – the subject of artificial intelligence programs (AI), specifically large language models (LLMs), lying. The starting point for the discussion was this study, which looked at punishing LLMs as a...
Light from Space
Lagoon and the Hourglass A view of the center region of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8, Sharpless 25). There's several other...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
A view of the center region of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8, Sharpless 25). There's several other objects visible, notably the Hourglass Nebula and open star cluster NGC 6530, as well as numerous Bok globules (the small dark clouds, that will one day form new stars). Click...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Moon Race is On Back in the 1960 there was a race to land people on the Moon between the US and the Soviet Union....
a year ago
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a year ago
Back in the 1960 there was a race to land people on the Moon between the US and the Soviet Union. This was very much a part of the cold war, with each country interested in showing off its technical prowess to the world with a technology closely related to that needed to deliver...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th. The post An Eclipse...
a year ago
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a year ago
A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th. The post An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Asterisk
Methods Section
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
JET Fusion Experiment Sets New Record Don’t get excited. It’s always nice to see incremental progress being made with the various fusion...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Don’t get excited. It’s always nice to see incremental progress being made with the various fusion experiments happening around the world, but we are still a long way off from commercial fusion power, and this experiment doesn’t really bring us any close, despite the headlines....
Quanta Magazine
How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler...
10 months ago
51
10 months ago
In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler explains that the origin of mass in the universe has a lot to do with music. The post How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles first appeared on...
NeuroLogica Blog
2023 Hottest Year on Record What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we...
a year ago
40
a year ago
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we can also say that the last 10 years are the hottest decade on record. 2023 dethrones 2016 as the previous warmest year and bumps 2010 out of the top 10. Further, in the last half of...
Interaction Magic -...
Think outside the screen Nobody likes stroking a pane of glass, so why do we love touchscreens so much? Let's build...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Nobody likes stroking a pane of glass, so why do we love touchscreens so much? Let's build distributed interfaces that work.
SubAnima
Could There Be Laws Of Biology? Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles or axioms for biology?
The Roots of...
Can we “cure” cancer? In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes: Ask most biologists...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes: Ask most biologists about the cure for cancer, and they will tell you it doesn’t exist: cancer is many diseases that are mostly unrelated to each other, and that all have to be cured one at a...
Quanta Magazine
How Is Cell Death Essential to Life? Cells in our bodies are constantly dying — and these countless tiny deaths are essential to human...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
Cells in our bodies are constantly dying — and these countless tiny deaths are essential to human health and multicellular life itself. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with cellular biologist Shai Shaham about what makes a cell “alive” and the latest developments...
Asterisk
Feeding the World Without Sunlight In 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history led to harvest failures across the globe....
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
In 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history led to harvest failures across the globe. Today, a nuclear winter could bring the global food system crashing down. Is it possible to feed the world in the aftermath of a catastrophe?
symmetry magazine
Celebrating Dark Matter Day in Latin America Scientists, artists, communicators and physics fans find creative ways to mark the unofficial...
a year ago
25
a year ago
Scientists, artists, communicators and physics fans find creative ways to mark the unofficial holiday devoted to dark matter.
ToughSF
Hypervelocity Macron Accelerators We look at the various ways of accelerating micro-scale projectiles up to hypervelocity (10-10,000...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
We look at the various ways of accelerating micro-scale projectiles up to hypervelocity (10-10,000 km/s) and their use in space. Going small to go fast Macrons or macroscopic particles are tiny projectiles that sit on the border between the complex structures we see under a...
Light from Space
The Dense & Dusty Orion Nebula Next to the Andromeda Galaxy, the Orion Nebula (also referred to as “Great Nebula in Orion” in older...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Next to the Andromeda Galaxy, the Orion Nebula (also referred to as “Great Nebula in Orion” in older texts) is likely the first target for any fledgling amateur astrophotographer in the Northern Hemisphere. It's so bright it actually appears to the naked eye essentially like a
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Bicycle There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling...
over a year ago
141
over a year ago
There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling to move forward and turning the handlebars to steer makes bike riding an effortless activity. In the demonstration below, you can guide the rider with the slider, and you can also...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
But actually good 2024 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
Breck's Blog
A funny thing about the original Microsoft Source Code
2 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Did They Find Amelia Earhart’s Plane Is this sonar image taken at 16,000 feet below the surface about 100 miles from Howland island, that...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Is this sonar image taken at 16,000 feet below the surface about 100 miles from Howland island, that of a downed Lockheed Model 10-E Electra plane? Tony Romeo hopes it is. He spent $9 million to purchase an underwater drone, the Hugan 6000, then hired a crew and scoured 5,200...
The Works in...
The End of Combustion Vehicles The final section of Ch.2 of Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Risky Giant Steps Can Solve Optimization Problems Faster New results break with decades of conventional wisdom for the gradient descent algorithm. ...
a year ago
23
a year ago
New results break with decades of conventional wisdom for the gradient descent algorithm. The post Risky Giant Steps Can Solve Optimization Problems Faster first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: An environmentalist gets lunch Why being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one
over a year ago
The Roots of...
What does it mean to “trust science”? And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me...
a year ago
25
a year ago
And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, science definitely exists—I’ve seen it. But not everything that calls itself science is science, and even good science sometimes gets wrong results. –Megan McArdle Should...
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...
a year ago
21
a year ago
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 Roots of...
If you wish to make an apple pie, you must first become dictator of the universe The word “robot” is derived from the Czech robota, which means “serfdom.” It was introduced over a...
a year ago
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a year ago
The word “robot” is derived from the Czech robota, which means “serfdom.” It was introduced over a century ago by the Czech play R.U.R., for “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” In the play, the smartest and best-educated of the robots leads a slave revolt that wipes out most of...
Quanta Magazine
In the Quantum World, Even Points of View Are Uncertain The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once — an insight with potentially major ramifications. The post In the Quantum World, Even Points of View Are Uncertain first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Oops
a year ago
The Works in...
Communities of Practice: The Soul of Maintaining a New Machine The first section of Ch. 3 of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance on Books in Progress
10 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Have Current AI Reached Their Limit? We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications,...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications, specifically the large language models and so-called “transformers” like Chat GPT. Transformers are a deep learning model that use self-attention to differentially weight the...
Quanta Magazine
For Algorithms, a Little Memory Outweighs a Lot of Time One computer scientist’s “stunning” proof is the first progress in 50 years on one of the most...
a month ago
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a month ago
One computer scientist’s “stunning” proof is the first progress in 50 years on one of the most famous questions in computer science. The post For Algorithms, a Little Memory Outweighs a Lot of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Novel Architecture Makes Neural Networks More Understandable By tapping into a decades-old mathematical principle, researchers are hoping that Kolmogorov-Arnold...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
By tapping into a decades-old mathematical principle, researchers are hoping that Kolmogorov-Arnold networks will facilitate scientific discovery. The post Novel Architecture Makes Neural Networks More Understandable first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
What’s Inside a Manhole? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] For as straightforward as they...
4 months ago
58
4 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] For as straightforward as they are, there’s a lot of mystery to sewers. They’re mostly out of sight, out of mind, and ideally out of smell too. But there’s one familiar place you can get a hint of what’s...
Yale e360
Deconstructing Buildings: The Quest for New Life for Old Wood A growing number of cities have launched initiatives to reuse the wood waste from construction and...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
A growing number of cities have launched initiatives to reuse the wood waste from construction and demolition that now ends up in landfills. The challenge, proponents say, is to deploy new techniques for disassembling old buildings and markets for repurposing the salvaged...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Pitching to payers, pilots, and what makes Blue Cross distinct with Tricia Garland | Out-Of-Pocket so you want to know what health insurers are looking for?
a year ago
Asterisk
Making Sense of Moral Change A conversation about abolitionism, moral progress, and the pitfalls of historical counterfactuals.
over a year ago
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over a year ago
A conversation about abolitionism, moral progress, and the pitfalls of historical counterfactuals.
Quanta Magazine
Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a...
a year ago
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a year ago
How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, first arose billions of years ago in bacteria with a primitive sociality. The post Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? first...
Quanta Magazine
The (Often) Overlooked Experiment That Revealed the Quantum World A century ago, the Stern-Gerlach experiment established the truth of quantum mechanics. Now it’s...
a year ago
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a year ago
A century ago, the Stern-Gerlach experiment established the truth of quantum mechanics. Now it’s being used to probe the clash of quantum theory and gravity. The post The (Often) Overlooked Experiment That Revealed the Quantum World first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
The Wild Story of the Taum Sauk Dam Failure [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Early in the morning of...
8 months ago
92
8 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Early in the morning of December 14, 2005, pumps were nearly finished filling the upper reservoir at the Taum Sauk power station, marking the end of the daily cycle. Water rose to the top of the rockfill...
Yale e360
China’s Mega Dam Project Poses Big Risks for Asia’s Grand Canyon China’s plans to build a massive hydro project in Tibet have sparked fears about the environmental...
a month ago
1
a month ago
China’s plans to build a massive hydro project in Tibet have sparked fears about the environmental impacts on the world’s longest and deepest canyon. It has also alarmed neighboring India, which fears that China could hold back or even weaponize river water it depends on. Read...
The Works in...
The breaking of Britain's National Grid A story of aging infrastructure and perverse incentives
2 months ago
Asterisk
Modeling the End of Monkeypox The journalistic and public health response to the US monkeypox outbreak was noisy and contentious....
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
The journalistic and public health response to the US monkeypox outbreak was noisy and contentious. What tools do we have for predicting its spread?
NeuroLogica Blog
Managing Plastic Waste The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is recycled, while 25% is mismanaged or littered. About 1.7 million tons ends up in the ocean. This is not sustainable, but whose responsibility is it to deal with this issue? The debate...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Curious Case of Professional Employer Organizations | Out-Of-Pocket A tale about complexity, risk skimming, and what counts as an “employee” or “company”
9 months ago
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Cooling Towers Shaped Like That? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is not smoke. And this...
7 months ago
93
7 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is not smoke. And this isn’t a smoke stack (at least not the kind we normally think of). It serves a totally different purpose at a power plant than smoke stacks whose job is moving combustion products...
nanoscale views
The 2025 Wolf Prize in Physics One nice bit of condensed matter/nanoscale physics news:  This year's Wolf Prize in Physics has gone...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
One nice bit of condensed matter/nanoscale physics news:  This year's Wolf Prize in Physics has gone to three outstanding scientists, Jim Eisenstein, Moty Heiblum, and Jainendra Jain, each of whom have done very impactful work involving 2D electron gases - systems of electrons...
Breck's Blog
Mind Changers
2 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some cool AI healthcare projects | Out-Of-Pocket What was built at the OOP hackathon?
11 months ago
Yale e360
World Likely to Breach 1.5-Degree Target, Research Finds The world is set to blow past its goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C, new research shows. Read...
4 months ago
Asterisk
Crash Testing GPT-4 Can we tell if an AI model is safe before it’s released? The group that tested GPT–4 is trying to...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Can we tell if an AI model is safe before it’s released? The group that tested GPT–4 is trying to figure out how.
Quanta Magazine
Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its...
a year ago
33
a year ago
A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its direction and move toward it. The post Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The Mathematician Who Finds the Poetry in Math and the Math in Poetry The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now...
a year ago
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a year ago
The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now turning a mathematical eye to literature. The post The Mathematician Who Finds the Poetry in Math and the Math in Poetry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Out-Of-Pocket’s 2025 Predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I’m like 50% right every year, I just never know which 50%
6 months ago
Yale e360
India Doubled its Tiger Population in a Little More Than a Decade The number of tigers in India roughly doubled in a little more than a decade, a conservation success...
4 months ago
5
4 months ago
The number of tigers in India roughly doubled in a little more than a decade, a conservation success that is due in part to communities learning to live alongside the animals, new research finds. Read more on E360 →
Stephen Wolfram...
Computing the Eclipse: Astronomy in the Wolfram Language Basic Eclipse Computation It’s taken millennia to get to the point where it’s possible to accurately...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Basic Eclipse Computation It’s taken millennia to get to the point where it’s possible to accurately compute eclipses. But now—as a tiny part of making “everything in the world” computable—computation about eclipses is just a built-in feature of the Wolfram Language. The core...
Yale e360
Entries Invited for Yale Environment 360 Film Contest The 12th annual Yale Environment 360 Film Contest is now accepting entries. Read more on E360 →
2 months ago
Chris Grossack's...
Explicitly Computing The Action Lie Algebroid for $SL_2(\mathbb{R}) \curvearrowright \mathbb{R}^2$ This is going to be a very classic post, where we’ll chat about a computation my friend Shane did...
a week ago
5
a week ago
This is going to be a very classic post, where we’ll chat about a computation my friend Shane did earlier today. His research is largely about symplectic lie algebroids, and recently we’ve been trying to understand the rich connections between poisson geometry, lie algebroids,...
Wanderingspace
Venus from Earth (with Stacking) Image taken by @TheVastReaches. According to the photographer, “It takes just a few minutes to...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
Image taken by @TheVastReaches. According to the photographer, “It takes just a few minutes to collect all the frames. This started as 6 video files, 45,000 frames total. Then they are stacked and combined.”
Damn Interesting
The Anticipated Future of the Moon When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day was approximately five hours long. During the intervening billions of years, the dragging effect of the moon’s gravity slowed the Earth’s spin to the 24-hour day we now observe....
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: In pursuit of decent coffee No great stagnation in home espresso
over a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Completely new healthcare markets and what to build for them | Out-Of-Pocket that new new
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways...
6 months ago
54
6 months ago
Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup. The post Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Casey Handmer's blog
The Los Angeles wildfires are self-inflicted I don’t ordinarily write about events “in the moment” but for this I will make an exception, as I...
5 months ago
58
5 months ago
I don’t ordinarily write about events “in the moment” but for this I will make an exception, as I was personally affected. Caveats aside, my family and I are safe, we evacuated for several days, and due to heroic efforts by professional firefighters and psychotically brave...
Quanta Magazine
These Moons Are Dark and Frozen. So How Can They Have Oceans? The moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn appear to have subsurface oceans — tantalizing targets in the...
a year ago
28
a year ago
The moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn appear to have subsurface oceans — tantalizing targets in the search for life beyond Earth. But it’s not clear why these seas exist at all. The post These Moons Are Dark and Frozen. So How Can They Have Oceans? first appeared on...
Blog - Practical...
What's the Difference Between Paint and Coatings? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] There’s a popular myth that...
over a year ago
58
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] There’s a popular myth that I’ve heard about several bridges (including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Forth Bridge in eastern Scotland) that they paint the structure continuously from end to...
ToughSF
Cold, Laser-Coupled Particle Beams This is a follow-up to the Particle Beams in Space post. This time, we look at two concepts that...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
This is a follow-up to the Particle Beams in Space post. This time, we look at two concepts that can massively increase the effective range of particle beam: one is being applied every day in modern accelerators, and the other is an outgrowth of a tool used in...
Quanta Magazine
An Old Conjecture Falls, Making Spheres a Lot More Complicated The telescope conjecture gave mathematicians a handle on ways to map one sphere to another. Now that...
a year ago
38
a year ago
The telescope conjecture gave mathematicians a handle on ways to map one sphere to another. Now that it has been disproved, the universe of shapes has exploded. The post An Old Conjecture Falls, Making Spheres a Lot More Complicated first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Nuclear Reactor Lasers: from Fission to Photon Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no intermediate conversion steps.  We work out just how effective they can be, and how they stack up against conventional electrically-powered lasers. You might want to re-think your...
NeuroLogica Blog
Elizabeth Holmes Going to Prison I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it...
over a year ago
61
over a year ago
I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it took 7 years to follow this story through to the end. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the company Theranos, was  convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to 11 years in prison....
ToughSF
Lasers, Mirrors and Star Pyramids Lasers can hit targets at extreme ranges, at the fastest speed possible. They are ideal weapons for...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Lasers can hit targets at extreme ranges, at the fastest speed possible. They are ideal weapons for space warfare.  However, everyone knows that lasers bounce off mirrors... does this make lasers useless? The post is inspired by the discussion that arose from the conclusions...
Yale e360
Spread of Dark Algae Could Hasten Melt of Greenland Ice Sheet Dark algae are spreading across the Greenland ice sheet as snow retreats. Their dark color causes...
4 months ago
5
4 months ago
Dark algae are spreading across the Greenland ice sheet as snow retreats. Their dark color causes ice to absorb more heat from the sun, accelerating melting, and according to a new study, the harsh conditions atop the ice sheet will do little to slow their advance. Read more on...
NeuroLogica Blog
Boeing Starliner Launches Soon If all goes well, Boeing’s Starliner capsule will launch on Monday May 6th with two crew members...
a year ago
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a year ago
If all goes well, Boeing’s Starliner capsule will launch on Monday May 6th with two crew members aboard, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will be spending a week aboard the ISS. This is the last (hopefully) test of the new capsule, and if successful it will become officially...
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,...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
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
Quanta Magazine
The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps...
4 months ago
51
4 months ago
Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps collectively construct a variety of coral shapes. The post The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
What Asian Development Can Teach the World The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US Tariffs, China’s Future, EU Protectionism, Japan’s Zombie Debt, Argentina’s Arrested Development, and more
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Views of Mars from NASA’s Mars Observer – July 27, 1993 Having enthusiastically followed NASA’s Viking mission to Mars as a teenager during the late-1970s,...
a year ago
28
a year ago
Having enthusiastically followed NASA’s Viking mission to Mars as a teenager during the late-1970s, the lack of any new NASA missions to Mars during the 1980s […]
Asterisk
Aperitif
over a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum computing vs. Grubhub pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my...
over a year ago
66
over a year ago
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my eyebrows. I’d be participating in a panel discussion with Mike Evans, the founder of Grubhub? But I hadn’t created an app that’s a household name. I … Continue reading →
Uncharted...
GeoHistory News | Q3 2024 Longshoremen strike, Mexico – Spain conflict, how Islam propelled Europe more than Protestantism,...
8 months ago
27
8 months ago
Longshoremen strike, Mexico – Spain conflict, how Islam propelled Europe more than Protestantism, and more
The Works in...
The entrepreneurial state How state competition – through war – can drive institutional progress
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What does longevity medicine actually mean? | Out-Of-Pocket An interview with a practicing longevity medicine doctor
8 months ago
Explorations of an...
2024 (Part 1 of 2) Another year has come and gone. As is tradition, I have written a couple of blog posts documenting...
6 months ago
17
6 months ago
Another year has come and gone. As is tradition, I have written a couple of blog posts documenting some of my natural history highlights throughout the year.  January Pre-dawn on January 1, 2024 saw me heading south towards Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia in search of a Gray Heron,...
Yale e360
Deadly Encounter: Mountain Lion Attacks Spark Controversy A mountain lion attack that killed a young California man last year has reignited a debate over how...
5 months ago
3
5 months ago
A mountain lion attack that killed a young California man last year has reignited a debate over how the big cats should be managed. Some are calling for renewed hunting of the animals, while others are advocating nonlethal methods of instilling a fear of humans in the big...
Quanta Magazine
The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise To catch even a whiff of the universe’s earliest epochs — an age of darkness, and one of new light —...
a year ago
25
a year ago
To catch even a whiff of the universe’s earliest epochs — an age of darkness, and one of new light — Cynthia Chiang builds her own equipment. Then she deploys it at the ends of the Earth. The post The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise first...
Yale e360
Bill McKibben on Climate Activism in the Age of Trump 2.0 Activist Bill McKibben says Americans upset by the Trump administration’s gutting of U.S. climate...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
Activist Bill McKibben says Americans upset by the Trump administration’s gutting of U.S. climate efforts need to move beyond despair. In an interview with e360, he talks about rethinking the role of protest, the global push on clean energy, and why he sees reason for hope. Read...
Yale e360
In War-Torn Sudan, a Gold Mining Boom Takes a Human Toll As civil war rages in Sudan, a surge in gold production is helping finance and arm the warring...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
As civil war rages in Sudan, a surge in gold production is helping finance and arm the warring factions. Most of the mining is done on a small scale by villagers who process the gold using mercury and cyanide, posing serious threats to their health and to the environment. Read...
IEEE Spectrum
Meet Mr. Internet: Vint Cerf It was June 1973. For the past three months, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn had been working together on a...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
It was June 1973. For the past three months, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn had been working together on a problem Kahn had been pondering for some time: how to connect ground-based military computers seamlessly to communications satellites and mobile radios. The two had been...
Yale e360
Turning Farmland Back to Peatland: Can It Slow CO2 Emissions? Farmers have long drained peatlands for agriculture, but the dried-out soils release vast quantities...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
Farmers have long drained peatlands for agriculture, but the dried-out soils release vast quantities of CO2. To halt this process, new initiatives in Germany are not only rewetting peatlands but also creating markets for the native grasses, reeds, and sedges they support. Read...
brr
Frost Everyday objects, but cold.
over a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
England Allows Gene-Edited Crops This has been somewhat of a quiet revolution, but a new law in England may bring it to the...
over a year ago
70
over a year ago
This has been somewhat of a quiet revolution, but a new law in England may bring it to the foreground. The Precision Breeding Act will now allow gene-edited plants to be developed and marketed in England (not Northern Ireland, Wales, or Scotland). The innovation is that the law...
SubAnima
Evolution Isn't Always For The Best Evolution is not, I repeat, NOT natural selection
over a year ago
Confessions of a...
Shark Bay: a pristine template for marine ecosystems worldwide Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity.  As such,...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity.  As such, we have a coastline dominated by many different species of seagrasses – from large, temperate seagrasses like Posidonia australis to small, tropical species like Halodule...
Asterisk
Lies, Damned Lies, and Manometer Readings America’s HVAC labor force is plagued by dishonesty and frequently incapable of meeting industry...
a year ago
17
a year ago
America’s HVAC labor force is plagued by dishonesty and frequently incapable of meeting industry standards. Interventions in indoor air quality are the next frontier in pandemic prevention — but are they up to the task?
nanoscale views
Pushing back on US science cuts: Now is a critical time Every week has brought more news about actions that, either as a collateral effect or a deliberate...
4 weeks ago
10
4 weeks ago
Every week has brought more news about actions that, either as a collateral effect or a deliberate goal, will deeply damage science and engineering research in the US.  Put aside for a moment the tremendously important issue of student visas (where there seems to be a policy of...
Quanta Magazine
The Simple Geometry That Predicts Molecular Mosaics By treating molecules as geometric tessellations, scientists devised a new way to forecast how 2D...
over a year ago
41
over a year ago
By treating molecules as geometric tessellations, scientists devised a new way to forecast how 2D materials might self-assemble. The post The Simple Geometry That Predicts Molecular Mosaics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Should more people be using urgent care? | Out-Of-Pocket is the rise of urgent care a good or bad thing?
a year ago
Yale e360
Toxic Algae Spurs Sea Lion Attacks in Southern California A sea lion sickened by toxic algae attacked a teenage girl in Long Beach, California, on Sunday, the...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
A sea lion sickened by toxic algae attacked a teenage girl in Long Beach, California, on Sunday, the latest episode of erratic behavior from affected animals. Read more on E360 →
Uncharted...
The Players of the Syrian Chessboard What will Israel, Russia, Turkey, the Kurds, Europe, and Lebanon do?
6 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The weird CPT code process you need to understand | Out-Of-Pocket “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words are billed CPT 99245”
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes...
a year ago
33
a year ago
In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align. The post New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
AI – Is It Time to Panic? I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential...
over a year ago
45
over a year ago
I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential as powerful tools. I am also concerned about unintended consequences. As with any really powerful tool, there is the potential for abuse and also disruption. But I also think that...
Uncharted...
The Top 50 US Cities: Why Are They Where They Are? The geographic and historical reasons that have made some spots in the country the most populated...
5 months ago
nanoscale views
March Meeting 2025, Day 2 I spent a portion of today catching up with old friends and colleagues, so fewer highlights, but...
3 months ago
22
3 months ago
I spent a portion of today catching up with old friends and colleagues, so fewer highlights, but here are a couple: Like a few hundred other people, I went to the invited talk by Chetan Nayak, leader of Microsoft's quantum computing effort. It was sufficiently crowded that the...
Quantum Frontiers
A (quantum) complex legacy: Part deux I didn’t fancy the research suggestion emailed by my PhD advisor. A 2016 email from John Preskill...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
I didn’t fancy the research suggestion emailed by my PhD advisor. A 2016 email from John Preskill led to my publishing a paper about quantum complexity in 2022, as I explained in last month’s blog post. But I didn’t explain … Continue reading →
Blog - Practical...
Endeavour's Wild Journey Through the Streets of Los Angeles [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In May of 1992, the Space...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In May of 1992, the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched to low earth orbit on its very first flight. That first mission was a big one: the crew captured a wayward communications satellite stuck in the wrong orbit,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare Ideas That Look Good But Are Bad | Out-Of-Pocket clinical trial matching, "find a specialist", and more
a year ago
Yale e360
In This Storied Egyptian City, Rising Seas are Causing Buildings to Crumble As waters rise along the Egyptian coast, hundreds of buildings in the historic port city of...
3 months ago
5
3 months ago
As waters rise along the Egyptian coast, hundreds of buildings in the historic port city of Alexandria have collapsed. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Running Tests on Generative AI with Autoblocks | Out-Of-Pocket How can we keep these bots in check??
2 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Dwarf Planet Ring Mystery Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence consistent with existing theories, providing further confirmation, but it’s exciting to find evidence that cannot be explained with existing theories. Astronomers may have found such...
Quanta Magazine
Behold Modular Forms, the ‘Fifth Fundamental Operation’ of Math Modular forms are one of the most beautiful and mysterious objects in mathematics. What are they? ...
a year ago
54
a year ago
Modular forms are one of the most beautiful and mysterious objects in mathematics. What are they? The post Behold Modular Forms, the ‘Fifth Fundamental Operation’ of Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Why Is Everyone Suddenly Furious About AI Regulation? Please tell us, because we're stumped.
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
What Really Happened During the Yellowstone Park Flood? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Every year, a deluge of...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Every year, a deluge of tourists stream into Yellowstone National Park, America’s first and possibly most famous national park, and (I would argue) one of the most beautiful and geographically rich places on...
NeuroLogica Blog
Animals Adapting to Cities Humans are dramatically changing the environment of the Earth in many ways. Only about 23% of the...
yesterday
2
yesterday
Humans are dramatically changing the environment of the Earth in many ways. Only about 23% of the land surface (excluding Antarctica) is considered to be “wilderness”, and this is rapidly decreasing. What wilderness is left is also mostly managed conservation areas. Meanwhile,...
Quanta Magazine
The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators,...
9 months ago
50
9 months ago
Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen and more. New experiments explore how evolution may have influenced this phenomenon. The post The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology first appeared...
Quanta Magazine
The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent...
a year ago
98
a year ago
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent parts. A new framework has researchers hopeful that a solution is near. The post The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges first appeared on Quanta Magazine