Asterisk
The Transistor Cliff
Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
a year ago
Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 2)
Internet Harvest is a selection of the most succulent links on the internet that I’ve recently...
over a year ago
Internet Harvest is a selection of the most succulent links on the internet that I’ve recently plucked from its fruitful boughs. Feel free to discuss the links in the comments. Also, semi-intentionally, none of the links in this harvest are COVID-19-related. If you want some...
Blog - Practical...
Why Engineers Can't Control Rivers
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Old River Control...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Old River Control Structure, a relatively innocuous complex of floodgates and levees off the Mississippi River in central Louisiana. It was built in the 1950s to solve a serious problem. Typically...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Race And Healthcare: Recognizing And Addressing the Issues Facing Black Patients | Out-Of-Pocket
The systemic issues that plague black communities are extremely prevalent in healthcare, and we...
a year ago
The systemic issues that plague black communities are extremely prevalent in healthcare, and we should think about how to address them
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: The world that has never been
Introducing Speculative Technologies
a year ago
Introducing Speculative Technologies
NeuroLogica Blog
Podcast Pseudoscience
A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for...
a week ago
A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for ourselves. The BBC investigated the number one ranked UK podcast, Diary of a CEO with host Steven Bartlett, for the accuracy of the medical claims recently made on the show. While...
pcloadletter
Agile is a tainted term
Oh no, not another agile article.
But at least this one isn't attempting to teach or reconcile. I'm...
10 months ago
Oh no, not another agile article.
But at least this one isn't attempting to teach or reconcile. I'm not going to talk about the difference between agile and Agile™ nor will I try to convince you of my favorite flavor of Agile™.
Instead, I'm here to assert that agile is a tainted...
wadertales
Inland feeding by coastal godwits
Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect...
over a year ago
Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect estuaries but the same is not necessarily true for Black-tailed Godwits. In a 2022 paper in the journal Wader Study, Clément Jourdan and colleagues describe the movements of ten tagged...
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...
9 months 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...
symmetry magazine
From inventor to entrepreneur
Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for...
a year ago
Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for physicists and engineers, but the help of experts can improve their chances.
NeuroLogica Blog
Wood Vaulting for Carbon Sequestration
I can’t resist a good science story involving technology that we can possibly use to stabilize our...
2 months ago
I can’t resist a good science story involving technology that we can possibly use to stabilize our climate in the face of anthropogenic global warming. This one is a fun story and an interesting, and potentially useful, idea. As we map out potential carbon pathways into the...
nanoscale views
Thoughts on undergrad solid-state content
Figuring out what to include in an undergraduate introduction to solid-state physics course is...
8 months ago
Figuring out what to include in an undergraduate introduction to solid-state physics course is always a challenge. Books like the present incarnation of Kittel are overstuffed with more content than can readily fit in a one-semester course, and because that book has grown...
Asterisk
From Warp Speed to 100 Days
During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is...
a year ago
During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is testing that they work. To get even faster, we need innovations in clinical trial design.
The Works in...
Fixing retail with land value capture
How to create beautiful shopping streets everywhere
6 months ago
How to create beautiful shopping streets everywhere
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, October 2023
A ~monthly feature. Last month was busy for me with a lot of travel and a lot of focus on The Roots...
a year ago
A ~monthly feature. Last month was busy for me with a lot of travel and a lot of focus on The Roots of Progress as a nonprofit organization, so I haven’t had as much time as I prefer for research and writing. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Yet Another Teladongo Take | Out-Of-Pocket
You haven't read enough of them
a year ago
You haven't read enough of them
IEEE Spectrum
The Tremendous VR and CG Systems—of the 1960s
Ivan Sutherland has blazed a truly unique trail through computing over the past six decades. One of...
a year ago
Ivan Sutherland has blazed a truly unique trail through computing over the past six decades. One of the most influential figures in the story of computing, he helped to open new pathways for others to explore and dramatically extend: interactive computer graphics, virtual...
Quanta Magazine
Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy...
10 months ago
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy clusters. If confirmed, the approach could be used to reveal where cosmic magnetic fields come from.
The post Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields...
Probably...
What are the odds?
Whenever something unlikely happens, it is tempting to ask, “What are the odds?” In some very...
a year ago
Whenever something unlikely happens, it is tempting to ask, “What are the odds?” In some very limited cases, we can answer that question. For example, if someone deals you five cards from a well-shuffled deck, and you want to know the odds of getting a royal flush, we can answer...
Blog - Practical...
What Happens When a Reservoir Goes Dry?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In June of 2022, the level in...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In June of 2022, the level in Lake Mead, the largest water reservoir in the United States formed by the Hoover Dam, reached yet another all-time low of 175 feet or 53 meters below full, a level that hasn’t been...
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
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
Explorations of an...
Uruguay Part 3: Lagoon Shorebirding
February 28, 2023
Our first few days in Uruguay had been very successful. We had been able to...
a year ago
February 28, 2023
Our first few days in Uruguay had been very successful. We had been able to experience a few days in the beautiful rural countryside, staying at a wonderful hacienda. We had found our first Uruguayan snake. And we had found most of the potential bird lifers that...
IEEE Spectrum
Saving the Big Bang (Antenna)
The antenna that discovered a cosmic microwave background coming from all directions in...
a year ago
The antenna that discovered a cosmic microwave background coming from all directions in space—cementing the theory that the universe was created in a big bang—now stares down its own topsy-turvy future. Its owner says the hardware will be preserved, but the fate of the historical...
Light from Space
The Helping Hand of LDN 1355
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark...
over a year ago
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark dust obscuring the reflection nebula behind it.
Total exposure time: 58h 50' (211,800s)
Image resolution: 5,216 × 3,909px (1.924″/px)
Shot from my driveway
Probably...
Download the World in Data
Our World in Data recently announced that they are providing APIs to access their data....
4 weeks ago
Our World in Data recently announced that they are providing APIs to access their data. Coincidentally, I am using one of their datasets in my workshop on time series analysis at PyData Global 2024. So I took this opportunity to update my example using the new API – this notebook...
Quanta Magazine
The Social Benefits of Getting Our Brains in Sync
Our brain waves can align when we work and play closely together. The phenomenon, known as...
8 months ago
Our brain waves can align when we work and play closely together. The phenomenon, known as interbrain synchrony, suggests that collaboration is biological.
The post The Social Benefits of Getting Our Brains in Sync first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
Why the Art of Invention Is Always Being Reinvented
Every invention begins with a problem—and the creative act of seeing a problem where others might...
a month ago
Every invention begins with a problem—and the creative act of seeing a problem where others might just see unchangeable reality. For one 5-year-old, the problem was simple: She liked to have her tummy rubbed as she fell asleep. But her mom, exhausted from working two jobs, often...
The Works in...
The concept of sustainment
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
NeuroLogica Blog
Clickbait and Misinformation
Which is worse – clickbaity headlines for news articles that are factually correct, but may be...
6 months ago
Which is worse – clickbaity headlines for news articles that are factually correct, but may be playing up a sensational angle, or straight-up misinformation? It depends on what you mean by “worse”. A new study tries to address this information, with some interesting findings....
NeuroLogica Blog
Spotting Misinformation
There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they...
7 months ago
There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they verify information they encounter in the news and on social media, and 96% of Americans say that we need to limit the spread of misinformation online. And yet, the spread of...
brr
Sunset
Hunkering down for the winter!
a year ago
Hunkering down for the winter!
Quanta Magazine
In the Milky Way’s Stars, a History of Violence
Our galaxy's stars keep a record of its past. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning...
a year ago
Our galaxy's stars keep a record of its past. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning more about how the Milky Way came to be — and about the galaxy we live in today.
The post In the Milky Way’s Stars, a History of Violence first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Reality of Real-World Evidence | Out-Of-Pocket
Real recognize real...sort of
a year ago
Real recognize real...sort of
Drew Ex Machina
Epsilon Indi’s Super Jovian Exoplanet – Background & New Observations by JWST
On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max...
4 months ago
On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max Plank Institute for Astronomy, announced that they had used […]
Marine Madness
Farming Fiasco: The world’s first commercial octopus breeding programme
It seems ironic that shortly after an amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill stating...
over a year ago
It seems ironic that shortly after an amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill stating octopuses to be ‘sentient beings’ capable of a range of human-like emotions such as joy, pleasure, excitement, as well as pain, distress, and harm, plans of the word’s first commercial...
The Works in...
The eye of the tiger
What makes tigers different from one another?
a year ago
What makes tigers different from one another?
Quantum Frontiers
Discoveries at the Dibner
This past summer, our quantum thermodynamics research group had the wonderful opportunity to visit...
10 months ago
This past summer, our quantum thermodynamics research group had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Dibner Rare Book Library in D.C. Located in a small corner of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, tucked away behind flashier exhibits, the Dibner is … Continue...
IEEE Spectrum
Edith Clarke: Architect of Modern Power Distribution
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career...
5 months ago
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career at General Electric in 1922, she was determined to develop stable, more reliable power grids.
During her first years at GE she invented what came to be known as the Clarke...
Quanta Magazine
The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes
Making ice requires more than subzero temperatures. The unpredictable process takes microscopic...
6 months ago
Making ice requires more than subzero temperatures. The unpredictable process takes microscopic scaffolding, random jiggling and often a little bit of bacteria.
The post The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The Electron Is So Round That It’s Ruling Out Potential New Particles
If the electron’s charge wasn’t perfectly round, it could reveal the existence of hidden particles....
a year ago
If the electron’s charge wasn’t perfectly round, it could reveal the existence of hidden particles. A new measurement approaches perfection.
The post The Electron Is So Round That It’s Ruling Out Potential New Particles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Multipurpose Superconducting Highway
When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very...
a year ago
When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very bottom of the pyramid is pure speculation, just throwing out “what if” ideas to feed the conceptual pipeline. A subset of these ideas will pass the sniff test enough to justify...
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
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
Provider Directories, Physician data, and Ribbon Health | Out-Of-Pocket
why can't I find any important info about my doctor lol
a year ago
why can't I find any important info about my doctor lol
Asterisk
Through a Glass Darkly
Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
a year ago
Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
The Works in...
Where inflation comes from
How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences...
a month ago
How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences in how well-off we think we are.
Quanta Magazine
New Proof Finds the ‘Ultimate Instability’ in a Solar System Model
For the first time, mathematicians have proved that planetary orbits in a solar system will always...
a year ago
For the first time, mathematicians have proved that planetary orbits in a solar system will always be unstable.
The post New Proof Finds the ‘Ultimate Instability’ in a Solar System Model first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Reject Math Supremacy
The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool...
a week ago
The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool for teaching and learning — and many ideas that are commonly presented in math notation can be more clearly presented in code. In the draft third edition of Think Stats there is...
IEEE Spectrum
The Forgotten Story of How IBM Invented the Automated Fab
In 1970, Bill Harding envisioned a fully automated wafer-fabrication line that would produce...
3 weeks ago
In 1970, Bill Harding envisioned a fully automated wafer-fabrication line that would produce integrated circuits in less than one day. Not only was such a goal gutsy 54 years ago, it would be bold even in today’s billion-dollar fabs, where the fabrication time of an advanced IC...
IEEE Spectrum
Smellovision Gets a Refresh
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE...
a year ago
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore.
Modern virtual reality is a feast for the eyes and ears—but coming in a distant fourth (behind haptic touch technologies), smell has been nearly completely ignored.
Earlier this...
Quanta Magazine
A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do
Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene...
10 months ago
Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene regulation.
The post A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Superconducting Kagome Metals
Superconductivity is an extremely interesting, and potentially extremely useful, physical...
3 months ago
Superconductivity is an extremely interesting, and potentially extremely useful, physical phenomenon. It refers to a state in which current flows through a material without resistance, and therefore without any loss of energy or waste heat. As our civilization is increasingly run...
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...
8 months 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...
Asterisk
Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed...
over a year ago
The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed economists for decades. What makes it so hard to answer?
Willem Pennings
ClockSquared improvements
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply...
a year ago
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply called the “Birthday word clock”. I haven’t spent much time on the project in recent years, but I’ve upgraded the internals a while ago and finally felt like writing a post about it....
NeuroLogica Blog
New Platform for Timed Drug Release
This is one of those technologies that most people probably never think about, but could potentially...
a year ago
This is one of those technologies that most people probably never think about, but could potentially have a significant impact on our lives – timed drug release. The concept is nothing new, but there is a lot of room for improvement on current technologies. We already have...
Quanta Magazine
How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction
Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even...
a year ago
Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even after centuries of solar observations.
The post How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The Potential of AI + CRISPR
In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors...
3 months ago
In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I discuss the incredible potential of information-based technologies. As we increasingly transition to digital technology, we can leverage the increasing power of computer...
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 3)
Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of...
over a year ago
Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of butterflies, and more.
Cremieux Recueil
Focusing on Healthcare’s Administrative Costs Is Misguided
Substantial thinking about healthcare reform starts with acknowledging that administrative bloat...
2 weeks ago
Substantial thinking about healthcare reform starts with acknowledging that administrative bloat isn't the big problem
brr
The Beer Can
Connecting old and new.
a year ago
Uncharted...
100 Billion Humans
The world can carry them!
a month ago
The world can carry them!
Blog - Practical...
How Long Would Society Last During a Total Grid Collapse?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In February 2021, a winter...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In February 2021, a winter storm that swept through Texas caused one of the most severe power crises in American history. The cold weather created shockingly high electricity demands as people tried to keep...
Damn Interesting
Breaking a Bit
It’s been a busy summer, and the large shortfall in donations last month has been demoralizing, so...
a year ago
It’s been a busy summer, and the large shortfall in donations last month has been demoralizing, so we’re taking a week off to rest and recuperate. The curated links section will be (mostly) silent, and behind the scenes we’ll be taking a brief break from our usual researching,...
The Works in...
Britain’s interwar apartment boom
A decade of Art Deco densification
9 months ago
A decade of Art Deco densification
symmetry magazine
Imagining the future of gravitational-wave research
To understand why scientists are excited about detecting a new background, just look to the history...
a year ago
To understand why scientists are excited about detecting a new background, just look to the history of studies of the CMB.
NeuroLogica Blog
Eating Methane
Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce...
a year ago
Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce anthropogenic climate change, we talk about decarbonizing our electrical and transport sectors, and carbon removal. But methane is also a greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming,...
nanoscale views
Meetings this week
This week is the 2023 DOE experimental condensed matter physics PI meeting - in the past I’ve...
a year ago
This week is the 2023 DOE experimental condensed matter physics PI meeting - in the past I’ve written up highlights of these here (2021), here (2019), here (2017), here (2015), and here (2013). This year, I am going to have to present remotely, however, because I am giving a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Light and Distance in an Expanding Universe
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that...
6 months ago
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that distant galaxy for 13 and a half billion years, which I assume is true, but this neither represents the original nor the current distance to that galaxy in terms of light years. I...
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tours Adventure To Sulawesi
The island of Sulawesi must be on the bucket list for any naturalist with a strong interest in...
a year ago
The island of Sulawesi must be on the bucket list for any naturalist with a strong interest in biogeography. Though Borneo is situated only a few hundred kilometers to the west, and the Moluccas are not far to the east, the species composition of Sulawesi is significantly...
Quanta Magazine
An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds
The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents...
a year ago
The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents to NASA’s preparations for visits to other ocean worlds in our solar system.
The post An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds first appeared on...
nanoscale views
Intriguing papers - exquisite thermal measurements + automated materials discovery/synthesis
It's a busy time, but I wanted to point out a couple of papers from this past week.
First, I want...
a year ago
It's a busy time, but I wanted to point out a couple of papers from this past week.
First, I want to point to this preprint on the arxiv, where the Weizmann folks do an incredibly technically impressive thing. I'd written recently about the thermal Hall effect, when a...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 10: The Owlet Lodge (February 11 and 12, 2024)
February 11, 2024
Laura and I were looking forward to our one-night visit to the Owlet Lodge. Up to...
5 months ago
February 11, 2024
Laura and I were looking forward to our one-night visit to the Owlet Lodge. Up to this point we had only stayed at cheap hotels, while we had also eaten simply, with at least two meals each day consisting of sandwiches/snacks that we prepared. For once, someone...
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving
This year we give thanks for one of the very few clues we have to the quantum nature of spacetime:...
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for one of the very few clues we have to the quantum nature of spacetime: black hole entropy. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory,...
Quanta Magazine
Why Is It So Hard to Define a Species?
The idea of a species is fundamental to the way that many people understand the structure of life on...
a month ago
The idea of a species is fundamental to the way that many people understand the structure of life on Earth. But ask 10 specialists how they define the concept and you might get 10 answers. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with evolutionary biologist Kevin de Queiroz...
IEEE Spectrum
How the Designer of the First Hydrogen Bomb Got the Gig
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE...
3 months ago
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE Life Fellow has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, France’s La Grande Médaille de l’Académie des Sciences, and is one of just a handful of people...
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
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
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Can patients be good healthcare shoppers? | Out-Of-Pocket
Should their be limits to patient agency?
4 months ago
Should their be limits to patient agency?
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
7 months ago
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
NeuroLogica Blog
Boeing Starliner Launches Soon
If all goes well, Boeing’s Starliner capsule will launch on Monday May 6th with two crew members...
7 months 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...
IEEE Spectrum
Quantum Technology’s Unsung Heroes
In a world where quantum technologies are on the rise in computing, cryptography, materials,...
a year ago
In a world where quantum technologies are on the rise in computing, cryptography, materials, sensors, telecom, biomed, and AI, it’s easy to forget that not so long ago the words “quantum” and “technology” rarely fit comfortably into a sentence together. A range of trailblazers...
nanoscale views
Seeing through tissue and Kramers-Kronig
There is a paper in Science this week that is just a great piece of work. The authors find that by...
3 months ago
There is a paper in Science this week that is just a great piece of work. The authors find that by dyeing living tissue with a particular biocompatible dye molecule, they can make that tissue effectively transparent, so you can see through it. The paper includes images (and...
Many Worlds
After Seven Years Away Exploring an Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx is Landing Soon with Precious Samples
Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the...
a year ago
Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft should be landing in the Utah desert later this month. The delivery will be a first for NASA — its first sample return from an asteroid and one of a very...
Quanta Magazine
A Century Later, New Math Smooths Out General Relativity
Mathematicians prove a theorem that illuminates the geometry of universes with tiny amounts of mass....
a year ago
Mathematicians prove a theorem that illuminates the geometry of universes with tiny amounts of mass.
The post A Century Later, New Math Smooths Out General Relativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Light from Space
The Soul of the Heart Nebula
A spectacular emission Nebula, the Heart Nebula is one of the classics of Northern Hemisphere...
over a year ago
A spectacular emission Nebula, the Heart Nebula is one of the classics of Northern Hemisphere amateury astronomy.
In the gallery below, I've highlighted 3 very different areas of the image:
Left: Planetary Nebula WeBo-1
Middle: Melotte 15 in the... heart of the Heart...
Chris Grossack's...
Talk -- What is Algebraic Geometry and Why Should You Care?
So an embarrassing amount of time ago (Feburary 17?) I gave a talk for the
undergraduate math club...
a year ago
So an embarrassing amount of time ago (Feburary 17?) I gave a talk for the
undergraduate math club titled
“What is Algebraic Geometry, and Why Should You Care?”. I think it went quite
well, and the audience seemed like they had a good time. I really wanted to
have the talk...
Probably...
Bertrand’s Boxes
An early draft of Probably Overthinking It included two chapters about probability. I still think...
7 months ago
An early draft of Probably Overthinking It included two chapters about probability. I still think they are interesting, but the other chapters are really about data, and the examples in these chapters are more like brain teasers — so I’ve saved them for another book. Here’s an...
The Works in...
The road from serfdom
Using opt-ins to reform Russia's backwards tsarist agricultural sector
9 months ago
Using opt-ins to reform Russia's backwards tsarist agricultural sector
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Pharmacies Inside-and-Out With John Capecelatro | Out-Of-Pocket
How does a pharmacy actually work?
a year ago
How does a pharmacy actually work?
Drew Ex Machina
Star Way of Humanity: American Space Art
During the COVID-19 shutdown three years ago, I spent a lot of my time at home digging through my...
a year ago
During the COVID-19 shutdown three years ago, I spent a lot of my time at home digging through my archives discovering all sorts of items I […]
Many Worlds
The Evolving Science of Technosignatures
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began decades ago as an effort to pick up radio...
a year ago
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began decades ago as an effort to pick up radio signals from distant civilizations. The effort was centered at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia and was by today’s standards quite rudimentary. A much broader search...
Quanta Magazine
Sparse Networks Come to the Aid of Big Physics
A novel type of neural network is helping physicists with the daunting challenge of data analysis. ...
a year ago
A novel type of neural network is helping physicists with the daunting challenge of data analysis.
The post Sparse Networks Come to the Aid of Big Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text
Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills...
11 months ago
Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills to understand the words they’re processing.
The post New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Starship Explodes in Successful Launch
A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The...
a year ago
A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The irony comes from how we might define “success”. On April 20th SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of the fully assembled Starship, including a Starship rocket on top of a super heavy...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird health insurance concepts | Out-Of-Pocket
Intercompany eliminations, copay shenanigans, and reference-based pricing
a month ago
Intercompany eliminations, copay shenanigans, and reference-based pricing
Out-of-Pocket Blog
SWORD Health And Virtual Musculoskeletal Care | Out-Of-Pocket
A first person account
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on Quantum Computers
There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still...
a year ago
There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still a technology that is slowly advancing in the background, while actual applications have been limited. There is a threshold effect at play – at some point, quantum computers will be...
Explorations of an...
The Quest For The Rufous-throated Dipper
The east slope of the Andes is one of my favourite places in the world to explore. As I've mentioned...
a year ago
The east slope of the Andes is one of my favourite places in the world to explore. As I've mentioned before on this blog, this is due to several factors, but prime among them is that this slope receives a high level of rainfall. Turn on the taps, and you turn on the biodiversity....
Probably...
Young Americans are Marrying Later or Never
I’ve written before about changes in marriage patterns in the U.S., and it’s one of the examples in...
a week ago
I’ve written before about changes in marriage patterns in the U.S., and it’s one of the examples in Chapter 13 of the new third edition of Think Stats. My analysis uses data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Today they released the most recent data, from surveys...
Inverted Passion
Why time seems to pass faster as we age
1/ I’ve been mega-obsessed with this feeling. A year as a 36-year-old seems so much shorter as...
9 months ago
1/ I’ve been mega-obsessed with this feeling. A year as a 36-year-old seems so much shorter as compared to when I was a kid or even as a teen. It seems cosmically unfair – we have fewer years to live, and each year flies by faster. 2/ But, why is that happening? My tentative...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Viz.ai and why workflow > tech | Out-Of-Pocket
Also ?? about AI business models
a year ago
Also ?? about AI business models
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...
3 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...
Quanta Magazine
Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes
The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s...
4 months ago
The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s expansion may be weakening. One community of theoretical physicists expected as much.
The post Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part IV
Part 4 This will be the final installment of this mini-debate about climate change and health...
a year ago
Part 4 This will be the final installment of this mini-debate about climate change and health effects, following a typical format of each person getting to make a statement and a response. Scott makes a lot of complaints about tone, format and fairness while simultaneously trying...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Tikalon Blog Archive
Tikalon Blog is now in archive mode. Here's a directory of links to easily printed and saved...
3 months ago
Tikalon Blog is now in archive mode. Here's a directory of links to easily printed and saved articles. If you're willing to wait a while for the download, a zip file of all the blog articles can be found at the link below. Note, however, that these articles are copyrighted and...
The Works in...
Two Assault Rifles
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Asterisk
The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google
Over the past two decades, Google has hosted two different internal platforms for predictions. Why...
a month ago
Over the past two decades, Google has hosted two different internal platforms for predictions. Why did the first one fail — and will the other endure?
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...
a month 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...
Quanta Magazine
What Causes Alzheimer’s? Scientists Are Rethinking the Answer. (Pt 2)
If plaques of amyloid protein in the brain aren’t the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease, what is?...
a year ago
If plaques of amyloid protein in the brain aren’t the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease, what is? Researchers investigating alternative possibilities have faced resistance from the biomedical establishment for decades, but intriguing theories about the role of defects in protein...
NeuroLogica Blog
Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Ready for Testing
It was six years ago that I first wrote about NASA’s X-59 QueSST project, contracted to Lockheed...
a year ago
It was six years ago that I first wrote about NASA’s X-59 QueSST project, contracted to Lockheed Martin. Now the plane has finally been built and is ready for testing. At the time it was reported that NASA “had a design” for a quiet supersonic jet, one that would not create a...
symmetry magazine
Applications of quantum mechanics at the beach
How does sunscreen work on the atomic level?
a year ago
How does sunscreen work on the atomic level?
Light from Space
The Rosette Nebula
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring...
a year ago
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring astrophotographer. Located not too far from Orion in Monoceros, this large H II region has spectacular features, centered around a star cluster.
Click or tap to...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Black Hole Has Daily Meals Worthy of Thanksgiving
You think you ate too much? No matter how stuffed you were after Thanksgiving (or another...
3 weeks ago
You think you ate too much? No matter how stuffed you were after Thanksgiving (or another celebratory meal), it’s nothing compared to Quasar J0529-4351, which astronomers observed earlier this year to be consuming the mass of our entire Sun EACH and every day! They called it...
Quanta Magazine
The New Quest to Control Evolution
Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it. ...
a year ago
Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it.
The post The New Quest to Control Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
The Fault in Our Forecasts
It’s impossible to predict when an earthquake will strike. This puts seismologists in a nearly...
6 months ago
It’s impossible to predict when an earthquake will strike. This puts seismologists in a nearly impossible bind: how can they convince the public to take earthquakes seriously without crying wolf?
Inverted Passion
Getting things done by not trying
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned....
2 months ago
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned. It’s an unconventional self-help book disguised as a computer science research exposition (that’s why the publisher is Springer). I strongly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of...
Uncharted...
The Latest on Healthcare Research
Cancer research, AI in healthcare, aging research, and much more
a month ago
Cancer research, AI in healthcare, aging research, and much more
Out-of-Pocket Blog
ARISE ERISA | Out-Of-Pocket
Levity in the time of Coronavirus
a year ago
Levity in the time of Coronavirus
ToughSF
Moto-Orion: Mechanized Nuclear Pulse Propulsion
The Orion nuclear pulse propulsion concept has been around for over six decades now. It is powerful...
over a year ago
The Orion nuclear pulse propulsion concept has been around for over six decades now. It is powerful and robust, but lacks the flexibility and features we expect from many more modern designs.
Can we give it those additional capabilities?
That cutaway is one of Matthew Paul...
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 5
This is the fifth and final episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
This is the fifth and final episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
ToughSF
Fusion Highways in Space
A transport system that can get spacecraft to Jupiter in 10 days, but without a massive onboard...
over a year ago
A transport system that can get spacecraft to Jupiter in 10 days, but without a massive onboard reactor, using antimatter fuel or riding a gigantic laser beam?
What we need instead is a Fusion Highway to connect the Solar System in unprecedented ways.
The art above is by...
Quantum Frontiers
Announcing the quantum-steampunk short-story contest!
The year I started studying calculus, I took the helm of my high school’s literary magazine....
over a year ago
The year I started studying calculus, I took the helm of my high school’s literary magazine. Throughout the next two years, the editorial board flooded campus with poetry—and poetry contests. We papered the halls with flyers, built displays in the … Continue reading →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Musings on CVS, two-way negotiation, and venture studios | Out-Of-Pocket
+ we're hosting another dinner! and courses ending!
8 months ago
+ we're hosting another dinner! and courses ending!
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Machine Vision, Robots, and Endoscopes with Matt Schwartz | Out-Of-Pocket
When GI met AI
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Apologizing for Uri Geller
A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed...
a year ago
A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed spoon-bending magician, by simply telling a one-sided narrative. From my perspective as a skeptic, this was a terrible article that missed the real issue, glossed over glaring defects in...
Quanta Magazine
Math’s ‘Game of Life’ Reveals Long-Sought Repeating Patterns
John Conway’s Game of Life, a famous cellular automaton, has been found to have periodic patterns of...
11 months ago
John Conway’s Game of Life, a famous cellular automaton, has been found to have periodic patterns of every possible length.
The post Math’s ‘Game of Life’ Reveals Long-Sought Repeating Patterns first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
New Theory Unites Gravity and Quantum Mechanics
One of the greatest mysteries of modern science is how to unite the two overarching theories of...
a year ago
One of the greatest mysteries of modern science is how to unite the two overarching theories of physics – quantum mechanics and general relativity. If physicists could somehow unite these two theories, which currently do not play well together, then we might get to a deeper “one...
Confessions of a...
My Teaching Philosophy
As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern...
over a year ago
As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern as part of the PTIS scheme. Central to this portfolio is a personal teaching philosophy, detailing why teaching is important to me, what my objectives are as a teacher, what...
Quanta Magazine
The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time
These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental. ...
2 months ago
These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental.
The post The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Items of interest
For the first post of the new calendar year, here are a few items that I thought were...
11 months ago
For the first post of the new calendar year, here are a few items that I thought were interesting:
Here is a feature article in Science that talks about the experimental quest for detecting Majorana fermions in solid state systems, bookended by the story of Majorana's...
Quanta Magazine
How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps.
The post How Math Has...
a year ago
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps.
The post How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The Biggest Smallest Triangle Just Got Smaller
A new proof breaks a decades-long drought of progress on the problem of estimating the size of...
a year ago
A new proof breaks a decades-long drought of progress on the problem of estimating the size of triangles created by cramming points into a square.
The post The Biggest Smallest Triangle Just Got Smaller first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The Lunar Cycle and Suicide
Does the lunar cycle affect human behavior? This seems to be a question that refuses to die, no...
a year ago
Does the lunar cycle affect human behavior? This seems to be a question that refuses to die, no matter how hard it is to confirm any actual effect. It’s now a cultural idea, deeply embedded and not going anywhere. A recent study, however, seems to show a correlation between...
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
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
Marine Madness
Culture Club: Time to let the cetaceans in?
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent...
over a year ago
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent studies shine a light on the fact that non-human animals including Cetaceans (dolphins and whales), may also possess it. They live in tightly-knit social communities, exhibit...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare should NOT be local | Out-Of-Pocket
Let's think bigger
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
Why Railroads Don't Need Expansion Joints
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
One of the most common...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
One of the most common attributes folks imagine when they think of trains is the clickety-clack sound they make as they roll down the tracks. The thing is, most trains don’t make that sound anymore. Or really,...
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...
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...
Inverted Passion
Notes from the book “Hooked”
I re-read the book Hooked by Nir Eyal and these are my notes. 1/ The key question that the book...
12 months ago
I re-read the book Hooked by Nir Eyal and these are my notes. 1/ The key question that the book answers is: how to make habit-forming products. And its answer is a model that involves four stages: a) trigger; b) action; c) variable reward; d) investment 2/ Why should products be...
Explorations of an...
A Rare Hummingbird Twitch In Ecuador
October 22, 2023
I recently returned from Ecuador where I had spent the previous couple of weeks....
a year ago
October 22, 2023
I recently returned from Ecuador where I had spent the previous couple of weeks. The main purpose of the trip was to lead a tour for Worldwide Quest to the Galápagos archipelago, but I made some time for a little extra-curricular birding as well. If I was going...
Drew Ex Machina
GOES Video of Solar Eclipse – October 14, 2023
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14,...
a year ago
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023 was no different. Unlike a total solar eclipse where the […]
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Drone Madness: Here is the Antidote
For those of us who, through the years, have been through wave after wave of uncritical and...
6 days ago
For those of us who, through the years, have been through wave after wave of uncritical and sensational UFO stories in the media, the current obsession with (and jumping to unwarranted conclusions about) mysterious drones seems all too familiar. As before, untrained observers,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some crypto x healthcare ideas | Out-Of-Pocket
Decentralized EMRs, Insurance DAOs, and Drug Picking Models
a year ago
Decentralized EMRs, Insurance DAOs, and Drug Picking Models
The Works in...
Issue 11: Nuclear sandboxes
Plus: Why Britain can’t seem to fix its housing market, gene-edited super-rice, and one weird trick...
a year ago
Plus: Why Britain can’t seem to fix its housing market, gene-edited super-rice, and one weird trick to reverse climate change.
Drew Ex Machina
USAF Project Able-1: The First Attempt to Reach the Moon
In the years leading up to the beginning of the Space Age, there were many studies made in the West...
over a year ago
In the years leading up to the beginning of the Space Age, there were many studies made in the West about lunar missions which gripped the […]
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder – July 4, 1997
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to...
over a year ago
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to the television set watching live […]
Blog - Practical...
Where Does Grounded Electricity Actually Go?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Imagine this scenario: You...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Imagine this scenario: You have a diesel-powered generator on a stand that is electrically isolated from the ground. Run a wire from the energized slot of an outlet to an electrode driven into the ground. Don’t...
nanoscale views
A busy and contentious week in condensed matter physics
There were a couple of interesting and controversial things afoot this week in the condensed matter...
a year ago
There were a couple of interesting and controversial things afoot this week in the condensed matter world.
There was a new preprint from the group of Prof. Hemley at the University of Illinois Chicago featuring electronic transport measurements in samples of the putative room...
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...
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...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Baseball Mud
A manufactured baseball has a smooth surface with very little friction, and this makes it hard for a...
6 months ago
A manufactured baseball has a smooth surface with very little friction, and this makes it hard for a baseball pitcher to throw with great accuracy. Pitchers in the early days of baseball enhanced the friction by several ad hoc techniques that included rubbing with tobacco juice...
Blog - Practical...
East Palestine Train Derailment Explained
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On the evening of Friday,...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On the evening of Friday, February 3, 2023, 38 of 149 cars of a Norfolk Southern Railway freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Five of the derailed cars were carrying vinyl chloride, a hazardous...
IEEE Spectrum
Inside the Three-Way Race to Create the Most Widely Used Laser
The semiconductor laser, invented more than 60 years ago, is the foundation of many of today’s...
5 months ago
The semiconductor laser, invented more than 60 years ago, is the foundation of many of today’s technologies including barcode scanners, fiber-optic communications, medical imaging, and remote controls. The tiny, versatile device is now an IEEE Milestone.
The possibilities of...
Quanta Magazine
A Mutation Turned Ants Into Parasites in One Generation
A new genetics study of ant “social parasites” shows how complex sets of features can emerge rapidly...
a year ago
A new genetics study of ant “social parasites” shows how complex sets of features can emerge rapidly and potentially split species.
The post A Mutation Turned Ants Into Parasites in One Generation first appeared on Quanta Magazine
pcloadletter
Write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am
The older I get, the more I dislike clever code. This is not a controversial take; it is pretty-well...
7 months ago
The older I get, the more I dislike clever code. This is not a controversial take; it is pretty-well agreed upon that clever code is bad.
But I particularly like the on-call responsiblity framing: write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am.
If you have never...
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...
a month 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
NeuroLogica Blog
A Greener Li-Ion Battery
It is increasingly obvious that battery technology is one of the keys to transitioning our...
6 months ago
It is increasingly obvious that battery technology is one of the keys to transitioning our civilization away from burning fossil fuels. Batteries facilitate the use of cheap, green, but intermittent energy sources. They also allow for the electrification of technology sectors...
Quanta Magazine
How Can Math Help Beat Cancer?
Cancer treatment has come a long way in recent decades. But finding the best course of treatment for...
2 months ago
Cancer treatment has come a long way in recent decades. But finding the best course of treatment for each case of this diverse, dynamic disease remains a challenge. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with computational biologist Franziska Michor about how math,...
NeuroLogica Blog
World Events and the Conspiracy Instinct
By now most people have heard that on Saturday there was a failed assassination attempt on candidate...
5 months ago
By now most people have heard that on Saturday there was a failed assassination attempt on candidate Trump at a rally. While it has only been a few days, preliminary investigation has found that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, using a AR style rifle purchased legally by his...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Part 2: How To Build Patient Communities | Out-Of-Pocket
And my investments in Most Days + Little Otter
a year ago
And my investments in Most Days + Little Otter
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How Healthcare Payments Work with Candid Health | Out-Of-Pocket
A walkthrough of how money flows between payers and providers
a year ago
A walkthrough of how money flows between payers and providers
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six Healthcare Startup Ideas | Out-Of-Pocket
In collaboration with The Generalist
a year ago
In collaboration with The Generalist
Probably...
Probably the Book
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting a keynote at posit::conf(2024). When the video is...
4 months ago
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting a keynote at posit::conf(2024). When the video is available, I will post it here. In the meantime, you can read the slides, if you don’t mind spoilers. For people at the conference who don’t know me, this might be a good time to...
Quanta Magazine
‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers
The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis. ...
5 months ago
The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis.
The post ‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
Utah Highway LiDAR Scans
Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces...
over a year ago
Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces and area surrounding 15,000 miles of its roads.
symmetry magazine
Seeing the full picture with line-intensity mapping
Astronomers are championing a relatively new technique as a method to understand the structure of...
a year ago
Astronomers are championing a relatively new technique as a method to understand the structure of the early universe in three dimensions.
Quanta Magazine
New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal
By eliminating a hidden inefficiency, computer scientists have come up with a new way to multiply...
9 months ago
By eliminating a hidden inefficiency, computer scientists have come up with a new way to multiply large matrices that’s faster than ever.
The post New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Mysticism & Empiricism
The best way to predict if you’ll benefit from psychedelic therapy is a questionnaire asking if...
a year ago
The best way to predict if you’ll benefit from psychedelic therapy is a questionnaire asking if you’ve met God. Where did it come from, and what is it really measuring?
Quanta Magazine
The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community
Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on...
11 months ago
Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on their species but on the roles they play.
The post The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, June 2023
A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find...
a year ago
A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find them in my links digests. In all quotes below, any emphasis in bold was added by me.
Books
Thomas S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution, 1760–1830 (1948). A classic in the field,...
Quantum Frontiers
My experimental adventures in quantum thermodynamics
Imagine a billiard ball bouncing around on a pool table. High-school level physics enables us to...
9 months ago
Imagine a billiard ball bouncing around on a pool table. High-school level physics enables us to predict its motion until the end of time using simple equations for energy and momentum conservation, as long as you know the initial conditions … Continue reading →
IEEE Spectrum
Ethernet is Still Going Strong After 50 Years
The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California has spawned many pioneering computer technologies...
a year ago
The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California has spawned many pioneering computer technologies including the Alto—the first personal computer to use a graphical user interface—and the first laser printer.
The PARC facility also is known for the invention of Ethernet, a...
Quanta Magazine
Computation Is All Around Us, and You Can See It if You Try
Computer scientist Lance Fortnow writes that by embracing the computations that surround us, we can...
6 months ago
Computer scientist Lance Fortnow writes that by embracing the computations that surround us, we can begin to understand and tame our seemingly random world.
The post Computation Is All Around Us, and You Can See It if You Try first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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...
Asterisk
Intelligence Testing
Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how...
a year ago
Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how much.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Particle Health And Pulling Patient Data | Out-Of-Pocket
One API, one dream
a year ago
Asterisk
Emotional Intelligence Amplification
Love in the time of chatbots.
a year ago
Love in the time of chatbots.
Interaction Magic -...
The last design you'll ever make
Designing from cradle to grave is no longer good enough. We need to postpone that grave as long as...
over a year ago
Designing from cradle to grave is no longer good enough. We need to postpone that grave as long as possible. This is how to design for a right to repair.
Asterisk
Debugging Tech Journalism
A huge proportion of tech journalism is characterized by scandals, sensationalism, and shoddy...
8 months ago
A huge proportion of tech journalism is characterized by scandals, sensationalism, and shoddy research. Can we fix it?
Quanta Magazine
Researchers Refute a Widespread Belief About Online Algorithms
Three computer scientists have disproved a long-standing conjecture about a fundamental problem...
a year ago
Three computer scientists have disproved a long-standing conjecture about a fundamental problem involving imperfect information.
The post Researchers Refute a Widespread Belief About Online Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold
Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently.
The post How...
5 months ago
Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently.
The post How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem
Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A...
3 months ago
Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A surprisingly simple construction has given them an answer.
The post Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem first appeared on Quanta...
nanoscale views
What is a glass?
I want to write about a recently published paper, but to do so on an accessible level, I should...
a year ago
I want to write about a recently published paper, but to do so on an accessible level, I should really lay some ground work first.
At the primary school level, typically people are taught that there are three states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. (Plasma may be introduced...
NeuroLogica Blog
Harvesting Energy from Water Vapor
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about...
a year ago
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about it. UMASS researchers have produced a device that generates electricity by harvesting charge from water vapor. They write: The common feature of these materials is that they are...
Quanta Magazine
What Can Cave Life Tell Us About Alien Ecosystems?
Extremophiles, or microbes that live in the most seemingly hostile environments, are the darlings of...
2 months ago
Extremophiles, or microbes that live in the most seemingly hostile environments, are the darlings of astrobiologists, who study the potential for life beyond Earth. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with astrobiologist and cave explorer Penelope Boston about how life...
symmetry magazine
A call to cite Black women and gender minorities
Theoretical astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein recently unveiled the Cite Black Women+ in...
a year ago
Theoretical astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein recently unveiled the Cite Black Women+ in Physics and Astronomy Bibliography.
IEEE Spectrum
This Engineer Became a Star in Technology Publishing
Donald Christiansen, who transformed IEEE Spectrum from a promising but erratic technology magazine...
2 months ago
Donald Christiansen, who transformed IEEE Spectrum from a promising but erratic technology magazine into a repeat National Magazine Award winner, died on 2 October 2024, at the age of 97, in Huntington, N.Y.
served aboard the aircraft carrier San Jacinto, an experience that led...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Good Meteor Shower Coming August 11-12
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer
The post Good...
4 months ago
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer
The post Good Meteor Shower Coming August 11-12 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Quanta Magazine
How Will We Know We’re Not Alone?
The first planet beyond our solar system was identified just 30 years ago. Since then, thousands...
3 days ago
The first planet beyond our solar system was identified just 30 years ago. Since then, thousands have been found and characterized. As we look for more, exoplanet experts are also probing for signs of alien biospheres hundreds of light-years away. In this episode, co-host Janna...
Blog - Practical...
Why Some Roadways Are Made of Styrofoam
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
If you’ve ever driven or...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
If you’ve ever driven or ridden in an automobile, there’s a near 100% chance you’ve hit a bump in the road as you transition onto or off of a bridge. In fact, some studies estimate that it happens on a quarter...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Clinical Pharmacists, Generative AI, and InpharmD | Out-Of-Pocket
Going under the hood of a generative AI product
11 months ago
Going under the hood of a generative AI product
Beautiful Public...
Design for the People: The US Web Design System and the Public Sans Typeface
The United States has an official web design system and a custom typeface that belongs to the...
5 months ago
The United States has an official web design system and a custom typeface that belongs to the people. This thoughtful public design system aims to make government websites not only look good, but to make them accessible and functional for all.
IEEE Spectrum
Tiny Exploding Houses Promoted 18th-Century Lightning Rods
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological...
a year ago
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological concept to the general public. Done right, tech literacy might soar! A compelling visual example can really help people understand the applications and implications of new...
Quanta Magazine
He Seeks Mystery Magnetic Fields With His Quantum Compass
Alex Sushkov is updating an old technology with new quantum tricks in hopes of sensing the magnetic...
7 months ago
Alex Sushkov is updating an old technology with new quantum tricks in hopes of sensing the magnetic influence of dark matter.
The post He Seeks Mystery Magnetic Fields With His Quantum Compass first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory
Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists...
a year ago
Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists reimagined their whole field.
The post The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
How ‘Embeddings’ Encode What Words Mean — Sort Of
Machines work with words by embedding their relationships with other words in a string of numbers. ...
3 months ago
Machines work with words by embedding their relationships with other words in a string of numbers.
The post How ‘Embeddings’ Encode What Words Mean — Sort Of first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Desalination: a Future of Infinite Water
Desalination is finally cheap, and it’s only getting cheaper. Will this usher a world of plentiful...
a month ago
Desalination is finally cheap, and it’s only getting cheaper. Will this usher a world of plentiful water everywhere? Will we be able to build in the Sahara?
Interaction Magic -...
3 tips for co-designing with kids
Designing future sports products with a group of 11 year olds.
a year ago
Designing future sports products with a group of 11 year olds.
NeuroLogica Blog
Hybrid Biopolymer Transistors – Implications for Brain Machine Interface
There are several technologies which seem likely to be transformative in the coming decades. Genetic...
a year ago
There are several technologies which seem likely to be transformative in the coming decades. Genetic bioengineering gives us the ability to control the basic machinery of life, including ourselves. Artificial intelligence is a suite of active, learning, information tools....
Blog - Practical...
Every Type of Railcar Explained in 15 Minutes
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
A train is a simple thing at...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
A train is a simple thing at first glance: a locomotive (or several) pull a string of cars along a railroad. But not all those railcars are equal, and there are some fascinating details if you take minute to...
symmetry magazine
Kétévi Assamagan pays it forward
Kétévi Assamagan's contributions to physics go beyond his research at the Large Hadron...
a year ago
Kétévi Assamagan's contributions to physics go beyond his research at the Large Hadron Collider.
Kétévi Assamagan first became interested in physics in high school—because he had to be. His school in Togo, in West Africa, required students to declare a major....
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Radiology, Residency, and Physician Tools with Henry Li | Out-Of-Pocket
What's actually happening in the hospital?
a year ago
What's actually happening in the hospital?
Sean Carroll
Energy Conservation and Non-Conservation in Quantum Mechanics
Conservation of energy is a somewhat sacred principle in physics, though it can be tricky in certain...
over a year ago
Conservation of energy is a somewhat sacred principle in physics, though it can be tricky in certain circumstances, such as an expanding universe. Quantum mechanics is another context in which energy conservation is a subtle thing — so much so that it’s still worth writing papers...
NeuroLogica Blog
Deepfake Doctor Endorsements
This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a...
5 months ago
This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a recent BMJ study documents the scale of this fraud. The study focused on the UK, detailing instances of deepfakes of celebrity doctors endorsing dubious products. For example,...
ToughSF
Advanced Solar Energy in Space: Part II
In this post, we continue looking at high power density options for solar energy.
Brayton...
over a year ago
In this post, we continue looking at high power density options for solar energy.
Brayton cycle
We commonly see the Brayton cycle used to convert heat into work in jet engines and the steam turbines of power plants. There are three main components: a compressor, a heat...
Asterisk
Sins of the Children
The circle of life on Chelicer 14d.
5 months ago
The circle of life on Chelicer 14d.
Quanta Magazine
How Quantum Physicists Explained Earth’s Oscillating Weather Patterns
By treating Earth as a topological insulator — a state of quantum matter — physicists found a...
a year ago
By treating Earth as a topological insulator — a state of quantum matter — physicists found a powerful explanation for the movements of the planet’s air and seas.
The post How Quantum Physicists Explained Earth’s Oscillating Weather Patterns first appeared on Quanta...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 5: Portal Back To Phoenix
September 4, 2024
Our day began with coffee and breakfast on the deck, watching the bird feeders hum...
2 months ago
September 4, 2024
Our day began with coffee and breakfast on the deck, watching the bird feeders hum with activity. It was, sadly, our final morning in this region and we packed up and headed out. It would have been nice to have an extra night or two here, though you could say...
Probably...
Life in a Lognormal World
At PyData Global 2023 I will present a talk, “Extremes, outliers, and GOATs: On life in a lognormal...
a year ago
At PyData Global 2023 I will present a talk, “Extremes, outliers, and GOATs: On life in a lognormal world”. It is scheduled for Wednesday 6 December at 11 am Eastern Time. Here is the abstract: The fastest runners are much faster than we expect from a Gaussian distribution, and...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Alzheimer’s Revolution
Decades of complex research and persevering through repeated disappointment appears to be finally...
a year ago
Decades of complex research and persevering through repeated disappointment appears to be finally paying off for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In 2021 Aduhelm was the first drug approved by the FDA (granted contingent accelerated approval) that is...
ToughSF
Riding Sunbeams with Solar Sails
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the...
a year ago
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the Solar System, as many times as you want, any time of the year.
Solar sails can carry passengers and they have a nearly unlimited number of uses. You just have to... think...
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....
6 months 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...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Tour Extension To Peninsular Malaysia
After the main Borneo tour had finished, eight of the travellers joined Laura and I on a tour...
a year ago
After the main Borneo tour had finished, eight of the travellers joined Laura and I on a tour extension to peninsular Malaysia. We split our time between two distinct regions: the foothill forests at Fraser’s Hill, and the steamy lowlands of Taman Negara.
Dusky Leaf Monkey -...
Quanta Magazine
The Year in Physics
Physicists discovered strange supersolids, constructed new kinds of superconductors, and continued...
5 days ago
Physicists discovered strange supersolids, constructed new kinds of superconductors, and continued to make the case that the cosmos is far weirder than anyone suspected.
The post The Year in Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Rip-off ETF?
An article in a recent issue of The Economist suggests, right in the title, “Investors should avoid...
3 months ago
An article in a recent issue of The Economist suggests, right in the title, “Investors should avoid a new generation of rip-off ETFs”. An ETF is an exchange-traded fund, which holds a collection of assets and trades on an exchange like a single stock. For example, the SPDR S&P...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Video Games x Healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket
Video games should be our models for engagement
a year ago
Video games should be our models for engagement
IEEE Spectrum
35 Years Ago, Researchers Used Brain Waves to Control a Robot
Using the brain to directly control an object was long the stuff of science fiction, and in 1988 the...
a year ago
Using the brain to directly control an object was long the stuff of science fiction, and in 1988 the vision became a reality.
IEEE Life Senior Member Stevo Bozinovski and Members Mihail Sestakov and Dr. Liljana Bozinovska used a student volunteer’s electroencephalogram (EEG)...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Christian Health Insurance | Out-Of-Pocket
Love thy neighbor, pay for thy neighbor
a year ago
Love thy neighbor, pay for thy neighbor
Beautiful Public...
Vehicle Crash Test Films from the 1970's and 1980s
Deep in the public archives of the NHTSA, there are thousands of films of some classic (and some...
over a year ago
Deep in the public archives of the NHTSA, there are thousands of films of some classic (and some ugly) 70’s and 80’s cars being smashed into smithereens.
The Works in...
Rust never sleeps
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Explorations of an...
Birding Near The Bolivia Border
January 22, 2023 (continued)
Laura and I left the humid east slope of the Andes behind and worked...
a year ago
January 22, 2023 (continued)
Laura and I left the humid east slope of the Andes behind and worked our way north along the paved highway through the incredible Quebrada de Humahuaca. This valley is famous for its scenery and it was easy to see why. The contrasts, textures and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Marmosets Call Each Other By Name
Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has...
3 months ago
Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has only been identified in a few other species, dolphins, elephants, and some parrots. Interestingly, it has never been documented in our closest relatives, non-human primates – that...
NeuroLogica Blog
DNA Directed Assembly of Nanomaterials
Arguably the type of advance that has the greatest impact on technology is material science....
11 months ago
Arguably the type of advance that has the greatest impact on technology is material science. Technology can advance by doing more with the materials we have, but new materials can change the game entirely. It is no coincidence that we mark different technological ages by the...
Quanta Magazine
The Two Faces of Space-Time
A mysterious phenomenon known as duality often leads to new discoveries in physics. This time,...
2 months ago
A mysterious phenomenon known as duality often leads to new discoveries in physics. This time, space-time itself can sometimes be two things at once.
The post The Two Faces of Space-Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Issue 09: Cheap shots and killer bots
Plus: Why scientific writing is so bad, how to stop snakebites from killing 100,000 people every...
over a year ago
Plus: Why scientific writing is so bad, how to stop snakebites from killing 100,000 people every year, and what science can learn from the fight against global poverty.
NeuroLogica Blog
Is AI Sentient Revisited
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s...
a year ago
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s LaMDA may be sentient, based on his interactions with it. This was a fascinating discussion, and even though I think we did a pretty deep dive in the time we had, it also felt...
NeuroLogica Blog
T-rex Had Lips
One of the challenges of paleontology is that we are trying to infer and entire animal just from the...
a year ago
One of the challenges of paleontology is that we are trying to infer and entire animal just from the hard parts that fossilize, mostly bones and teeth (and sometimes just teeth). But if we look at animals today there are a lot of details we could not guess from their bones alone...
Drew Ex Machina
The Largest Launch Vehicles in Service – 1957 to the Present
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title...
over a year ago
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title “the largest launch vehicle in service”: the […]
NeuroLogica Blog
ChatGPT Almost Passes Medical Licensure Exams
The emergence of several AI applications for public use, such as Dalle-2, Midjourney, and ChatGPT,...
a year ago
The emergence of several AI applications for public use, such as Dalle-2, Midjourney, and ChatGPT, had made AI one of the biggest science news items of the past year. I have written about it here extensively myself, and have been using these applications extensively to get a feel...
Wanderingspace
JUPITER FROM JUNO
An unusual perspective, captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft in 2018.
a year ago
An unusual perspective, captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft in 2018.
nanoscale views
Faculty positions at Rice, + annual Nobel speculation
Trying to spread the word:
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University in Houston,...
a year ago
Trying to spread the word:
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University in Houston, Texas invites applications for two tenure-track faculty positions, one experimental and one theoretical, in the area of quantum science using atomic, molecular, or optical methods....
nanoscale views
What is a spin glass?
As mentioned previously, structural glasses are materials in which there is no periodic lattice (no...
a year ago
As mentioned previously, structural glasses are materials in which there is no periodic lattice (no long-range spatial order) and the building blocks get "stuck" in some configuration, kinetically unable to get to the true energetic minimum state which would almost certainly be a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Reading The Mind with fMRI and AI
This is pretty exciting neuroscience news – Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from...
a year ago
This is pretty exciting neuroscience news – Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings. What this means is that researchers have been able to, sort of, decode the words that subjects were thinking of simply by reading their fMRI scan. They...
Casey Handmer's blog
Entrepreneurship changed the way I think
A quick note with some self reflection on the eve of my 37th year and after nearly three years of...
3 months ago
A quick note with some self reflection on the eve of my 37th year and after nearly three years of running a hardware start up. I never saw myself as a founder. At some point a few years ago I realized nearly all my friends were founders or managers of their own business, but I...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Gender Boxing Hubub
Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at...
4 months ago
Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at the 2024 Olympics. This has caused a controversy because both boxers, according to reports, have some form of DSD – difference of sex development. This means they have been caught...
nanoscale views
Really doing mechanics at the quantum level
A helpful ad from Science Made Stupid.
Since before the development of micro- and...
a month ago
A helpful ad from Science Made Stupid.
Since before the development of micro- and nanoelectromechanical techniques, there has been an interest in making actual mechanical widgets that show quantum behavior. There is no reason that we should not be able to make a mechanical...
NeuroLogica Blog
Decarbonizing Aviation and Agriculture
When we talk about reducing carbon release in order to slow down and hopefully stop anthropogenic...
2 months ago
When we talk about reducing carbon release in order to slow down and hopefully stop anthropogenic global warming much of the focus is on the energy and transportation sectors. There is a good reason for this – the energy sector is responsible for 25% of greenhouse gas (GHG)...
Casey Handmer's blog
Anti-aging tech fixes demographic collapse
With the latest studies on GLP-1 drugs showing not just a drop in all-cause mortality but also an...
3 months ago
With the latest studies on GLP-1 drugs showing not just a drop in all-cause mortality but also an apparent slowing of aging, I thought I’d write a quick note on how I think this technology, if it replicates, can drastically improve our lives. It’s hard to believe I’m writing...
brr
Showering at the South Pole
Potable water, and not much of it.
a year ago
Potable water, and not much of it.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What does longevity medicine actually mean? | Out-Of-Pocket
An interview with a practicing longevity medicine doctor
a month ago
An interview with a practicing longevity medicine doctor
Beautiful Public...
Nuclear Weapon Test Films
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories has an archive of an estimated 10,000 films of nuclear...
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.
Casey Handmer's blog
Why do we need a Department of Government Efficiency?
President Trump’s recent sweeping electoral victory is a clear mandate for change. There is some...
2 weeks ago
President Trump’s recent sweeping electoral victory is a clear mandate for change. There is some urgency, and Trump has assembled the early stages of a team and coalition that can deliver it. It’s not exactly a mystery what Elon and Vivek plan for The Department of Government...
The Roots of...
What is progress?
In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another...
9 months ago
In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another sense, it contains an entire worldview.
The most basic meaning of “progress” is simply advancement along a path, or more generally from one state to another that is considered more...
The Works in...
The Maintenance Race was just the beginning
A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
a year ago
A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
NeuroLogica Blog
Living Under the Sea
One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely...
a year ago
One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely under a vast alien ocean. You have the advantage of advanced technology, but even then you are under constant threat of running out of oxygen, or having your habitat implode because...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Wiedemann-Franz Law
Science is most useful when it makes predictions. Predictions are based on theory, and one problem...
6 months ago
Science is most useful when it makes predictions. Predictions are based on theory, and one problem with most theories in materials science is that they are based on data that might not exist for all of the intended class of materials. Simple rules were developed to remedy this...
Quantum Frontiers
Caltech’s Ginsburg Center
Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and...
a year ago
Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement, which will open in 2025. At a lunch following the ceremony, John Preskill made these remarks. Hello everyone. … Continue...
Quanta Magazine
Invisible ‘Demon’ Discovered in Odd Superconductor
Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all...
a year ago
Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all but invisible. Now physicists have spotted these “demon modes.”
The post Invisible ‘Demon’ Discovered in Odd Superconductor first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
New paper - plasmons, excitons, and steering energy
We have a new paper out in Nano Letters (arxiv version here), and I wanted to explain a bit about it...
a year ago
We have a new paper out in Nano Letters (arxiv version here), and I wanted to explain a bit about it and why I think it's a really cool result.
I've written before about the Purcell Effect. When we study quantum mechanics, we learn that the rates of processes, like the...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI – Is It Time to Panic?
I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential...
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...
Wanderingspace
Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the...
over a year ago
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the rest are thought to be active volcanos on the Io surface. The moons are not a primary target of the Juno mission, but they do occasionally take a peek to try and monitor such...
Quanta Magazine
Meet Strange Metals: Where Electricity May Flow Without Electrons
For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new...
a year ago
For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart.
The post Meet Strange Metals: Where Electricity May Flow Without Electrons first...
Many Worlds
The Makeup of Red Dwarf Solar Systems May Seriously Limit the Formation of Habitable Planets
Jupiter is often described as the “big brother” planet of our solar system that made the formation...
a year ago
Jupiter is often described as the “big brother” planet of our solar system that made the formation and evolution of Earth possible. In the early days of the solar system, massive Jupiter helped the planet grow rapidly while serving as a gravity well that shielded the planet from...
Inverted Passion
Usefulness grounds truth
Are LLMs intelligent? Debates on this question often, but not always, devolve into debates on what...
5 months ago
Are LLMs intelligent? Debates on this question often, but not always, devolve into debates on what LLMs can or cannot do. To a limited extent, the original question is useful because it creates an opening for people to go into specific. But, beyond that initial use, the question...
Wanderingspace
The Green Light of Day
Image of tire tracks on Mars with an unusual green tone. . Taken by Perseverance on February 4th.
over a year ago
Image of tire tracks on Mars with an unusual green tone. . Taken by Perseverance on February 4th.
Quanta Magazine
Math That Lets You Think Locally but Act Globally
Knowing a little about the local connections on flight maps and other networks can reveal a lot...
a year ago
Knowing a little about the local connections on flight maps and other networks can reveal a lot about a system’s global structure.
The post Math That Lets You Think Locally but Act Globally first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Ecologists Struggle to Get a Grip on ‘Keystone Species’
More than 50 years after Bob Paine’s experiment with starfish, hundreds of species have been...
8 months ago
More than 50 years after Bob Paine’s experiment with starfish, hundreds of species have been pronounced “keystones” in their ecosystems. Has the powerful metaphor lost its mathematical meaning?
The post Ecologists Struggle to Get a Grip on ‘Keystone Species’ first...
Asterisk
Why Isn’t Solar Scaling in Africa?
The World Bank designed the Scaling Solar program to set Africa on a course to sustainable energy....
10 months ago
The World Bank designed the Scaling Solar program to set Africa on a course to sustainable energy. Instead, it shed light on how a lack of transparency in the climate and development industry hampers progress.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Random Uncontrolled Trials/Tweets | Out-Of-Pocket
I need to deactivate my Twitter smh
a year ago
I need to deactivate my Twitter smh
brr
Brr Wants A Job
8 months post-ice, it's time for something new!
5 months ago
8 months post-ice, it's time for something new!
The Works in...
Issue 17: No great stagnation in cruise ships
Plus: animals as chemical factories, how progress lost its glamour, and how Madrid built 120 miles...
2 weeks ago
Plus: animals as chemical factories, how progress lost its glamour, and how Madrid built 120 miles of metro in twelve years.
Quanta Magazine
Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit
Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new...
a year ago
Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation.
The post Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit first appeared on Quanta...
Explorations of an...
2022 Part 5: October, November, December (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand)
October
I was only home from Peru for a week when it was time to leave on the next adventure. While...
a year ago
October
I was only home from Peru for a week when it was time to leave on the next adventure. While Laura jetted off to Scotland to attend a friend's wedding, I flew to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, located on the island of Borneo to lead a tour for Worldwide Quest. I really enjoyed...
Quanta Magazine
What Happens in the Brain to Cause Depression?
Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now...
7 months ago
Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now the spotlight is turning to other aspects of brain chemistry. In this episode, the neuropharmacologist John Krystal shares findings that are overturning our understanding of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Problems with the Institute Of Noetic Sciences
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of...
a year ago
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Overall the article is very good, and author Maddie Bender was fair and reasonable in how I was quoted. I can’t always take that as a given. No matter how...
Light from Space
The Path to the Pillars of Creation
Famously photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, here's my first look at the Pillars of Creation...
over a year ago
Famously photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, here's my first look at the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16).
Total exposure time: 16h 5m
Shot from my driveway near Tucson, AZ in April & May 2022
Telescope: William Optics RedCat 51 (250mm focal length ƒ
Probably...
Probably Overthinking It Notebooks
To celebrate one month since the launch of Probably Overthinking It, I’m releasing the Jupyter...
11 months ago
To celebrate one month since the launch of Probably Overthinking It, I’m releasing the Jupyter notebooks I used to create the book. There’s one per chapter, and they contain all of the code I used to do the analysis and generate the figures. So if you are curious about the...
symmetry magazine
Encouraging a new community
Physicists advocate for getting community college students involved in research.
a year ago
Physicists advocate for getting community college students involved in research.
nanoscale views
ARPA-E Roadshow
Today, Rice hosted the ARPA-E Roadshow, a series of presentations by ARPA-E program officers, MC-ed...
a year ago
Today, Rice hosted the ARPA-E Roadshow, a series of presentations by ARPA-E program officers, MC-ed by the director, Prof. Evelyn Wang. It was all about the energy transition, and it was pretty fascinating, particularly hearing from leaders of startups who were making...
Cremieux Recueil
Food Deserts Are Not Real
They're more like bad habit neighborhoods
3 months ago
They're more like bad habit neighborhoods
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI To Create Virtual Environments
Generative AI applications seem to be on the steep part of the development curve – not only is the...
8 months ago
Generative AI applications seem to be on the steep part of the development curve – not only is the technology getting better, but people are finding more and more uses for it. It’s a new powerful tool with broad applicability, and so there are countless startups and researchers...
Asterisk
What Comes After COVID
The next pandemic is coming. Is it possible to say when?
a year ago
The next pandemic is coming. Is it possible to say when?
Blog - Practical...
How The Channel Tunnel Works
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
2024 marks thirty years since...
11 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
2024 marks thirty years since the opening of the channel tunnel, or chunnel, or as they say in Calais, Le tunnel sous la Manche. This underground/undersea railroad tunnel connects England with France, crossing...
NeuroLogica Blog
How To Prove Prevention Works
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious...
10 months ago
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Thank you, dear. Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. Homer: Oh, how does it work? Lisa: It doesn’t work. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa:...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Dental Insurance, Value-Based Dental, and Beam Benefits | Out-Of-Pocket
Why doesn’t dental have value-based care?
a year ago
Why doesn’t dental have value-based care?
Quantum Frontiers
Beyond NISQ: The Megaquop Machine
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a...
a week ago
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a transcript of my remarks. The slides I presented are here. NISQ and beyond I’m honored to be back at Q2B for … Continue reading →
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Green Ammonia
Ammonia is an important industrial chemical with an estimated worldwide production exceeding 150...
5 months ago
Ammonia is an important industrial chemical with an estimated worldwide production exceeding 150 million metric tons. About 70% of ammonia is used to make nitrate fertilizers. Unfortunately, the production of ammonia is energy and it's a major source of carbon dioxide emission. ...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Breakfast with g
IQ, lived experience, and my boyfriend’s underpants
over a year ago
IQ, lived experience, and my boyfriend’s underpants
The Works in...
Issue 10: One word—plastics.
Plus: France's baby bust, why we empathise with animals, building infrastructure faster, and more.
a year ago
Plus: France's baby bust, why we empathise with animals, building infrastructure faster, and more.
The Roots of...
Why no Roman Industrial Revolution?
Why didn’t the Roman Empire have an industrial revolution?
Bret Devereaux has an essay addressing...
a year ago
Why didn’t the Roman Empire have an industrial revolution?
Bret Devereaux has an essay addressing that question, which multiple people have pointed me to at various times. In brief, Devereaux says that Britain industrialized through a very specific path, involving coal mines,...
nanoscale views
Large magnetic fields as a scientific tool
When I was at Berkeley at the beginning of the week to give a seminar, I was fortunate enough to...
10 months ago
When I was at Berkeley at the beginning of the week to give a seminar, I was fortunate enough to overlap with their departmental physics colloquium by Greg Boebinger, an accomplished scientist who is also an extremely engaging and funny speaker. Since 2004 he has been the...
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour Of Jamaica
The Caribbean island of Jamaica is a naturalist’s paradise. Situated south of eastern Cuba, east of...
8 months ago
The Caribbean island of Jamaica is a naturalist’s paradise. Situated south of eastern Cuba, east of Honduras and north of Colombia, Jamaica has an interesting assemblage of species with different origins. Jamaica was never connected to the mainland throughout its long geological...
wadertales
How successful are headstarted waders
We know that headstarting (hatching eggs in captivity and rearing chicks through to fledging) can...
2 months ago
We know that headstarting (hatching eggs in captivity and rearing chicks through to fledging) can boost the number of young waders in a population. However, the sustainability of this intervention is dependent upon several factors that apply after the point of release. A paper in...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Cold Brew Coffee
While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory...
5 months ago
While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory cost-benefit analysis shows that they get back more than they spend. Coffee's caffeine content boosts a person's focus and attention, and it reduces mental fatigue, all of these...
NeuroLogica Blog
Virtual Walking
When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have...
9 months ago
When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have my avatar walk while I am not walking. I general play standing up which means I can move around the space in my office mapped by my VR software – so I am physically walking to...
Asterisk
Prediction Markets Have an Elections Problem
Weeks after it was clear that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, you could still make pennies on...
10 months ago
Weeks after it was clear that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, you could still make pennies on the dollar betting Joe Biden would win. Why doesn’t smart money drive out dumb money in election markets?
nanoscale views
A couple of links + a thought experiment about spin
A couple of interesting things to read:
As someone interested in lost ancient literature and also...
10 months ago
A couple of interesting things to read:
As someone interested in lost ancient literature and also science, I really liked this news article from Nature about progress in reading scrolls excavated from Herculaneum. The area around the Bay of Naples was a quite the spot for posh...
The Works in...
Special Issue 01: Lost in Stagnation
Dude, where is my flying car?
over a year ago
Dude, where is my flying car?
Quanta Magazine
Cryptographers Solve Decades-Old Privacy Problem
Three researchers have found a long-sought way to pull information from large databases secretly,...
a year ago
Three researchers have found a long-sought way to pull information from large databases secretly, moving us closer to fully private internet searches.
The post Cryptographers Solve Decades-Old Privacy Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
How do wader chicks respond to being handled?
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they...
2 months ago
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they are studying. Given that most shorebird species are in trouble or causing concern, conservation science is a tricky balancing act between ‘need to understand’ and ‘disturbance’. In...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Out-Of-Pocket Game plan | Out-Of-Pocket
How to build the on-boarding system for healthcare
a year ago
How to build the on-boarding system for healthcare
Asterisk
Behind Closed Doors
In 2020, we worried that COVID lockdowns might lead to an increase in domestic violence. Instead,...
a year ago
In 2020, we worried that COVID lockdowns might lead to an increase in domestic violence. Instead, the opposite occurred. Why did this happen — and why was it so hard to figure out?
NeuroLogica Blog
Managing Plastic Waste
The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is...
a month 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...
Explorations of an...
Marsh Birding In Ceibas And Otamendi
February 18, 2023
Laura and I left Parque Nacional El Palmar and continued south towards Buenos...
a year ago
February 18, 2023
Laura and I left Parque Nacional El Palmar and continued south towards Buenos Aires and beyond. We had just five days remaining in our Argentina trip, with ferry tickets purchased that would take us to Uruguay on February 23. At this point in the trip, potential...
NeuroLogica Blog
Everything Will Evaporate
What will be the ultimate fate of our universe? There are a number of theories and possibilities,...
a year ago
What will be the ultimate fate of our universe? There are a number of theories and possibilities, but at present the most likely scenario seems to be that the universe will continue to expand, most mass will eventually find its way into a black hole, and those black holes will...
Asterisk
China’s Policy Failures
China’s experimental policy regime catalyzed the country’s economic ascent. Today, the system seems...
10 months ago
China’s experimental policy regime catalyzed the country’s economic ascent. Today, the system seems incapable of providing effective governance.
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Quantum Year 2025
Children decide early in life to become scientists when they find that topics such as the...
4 months ago
Children decide early in life to become scientists when they find that topics such as the Pythagorean theorem and the hydrological cycle are more interesting and more important than knowing which state is noted for corn. My childhood was notable for witnessing the launch of the...
Beautiful Public...
The GOES-16 Weather Satellite
Satellites used to observe weather are so ubiquitous it is easy to take them for granted. GOES-16 is...
over a year ago
Satellites used to observe weather are so ubiquitous it is easy to take them for granted. GOES-16 is worthy of your attention.
The Works in...
Issue 14: A peasant surprise
Plus: Giving yourself the Zika virus, cut-and-cover railway tunnels, and more reasons to donate your...
10 months ago
Plus: Giving yourself the Zika virus, cut-and-cover railway tunnels, and more reasons to donate your organs.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What's The Deal With Telemedicine? | Out-Of-Pocket
we're in the weird in-between stage of adoption
a year ago
we're in the weird in-between stage of adoption
Quanta Magazine
Most Life on Earth is Dormant, After Pulling an ‘Emergency Brake’
Many microbes and cells are in deep sleep, waiting for the right moment to activate. Biologists...
6 months ago
Many microbes and cells are in deep sleep, waiting for the right moment to activate. Biologists discovered a widespread protein that abruptly shuts down a cell’s activity — and turns it back on just as fast.
The post Most Life on Earth is Dormant, After Pulling an...
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