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The Works in...
The prophet of parking A eulogy for the great Donald Shoup
5 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare should NOT be local | Out-Of-Pocket Let's think bigger
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Alef Flying Car The flying car is an icon of futuristic technology – in more ways than one. This is partly why I...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
The flying car is an icon of futuristic technology – in more ways than one. This is partly why I can’t resist a good flying car story. I was recently sent this YouTube video on the Alef flying car. The company says his is a street-legal flying car, with vertical take off and...
Asterisk
Culture Studies Montessori classrooms don’t have much in common with the Jesuit colleges of early modern Europe. But...
12 months ago
17
12 months ago
Montessori classrooms don’t have much in common with the Jesuit colleges of early modern Europe. But students in both settings learn more than a core curriculum — instead they’re taught a distinctive culture. And then they pass it on.
Quanta Magazine
A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of complex quantum systems. The post A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Pentagon Report – No UFOs In response to a recent surge in interest in alien phenomena and claims that the US government is...
a year ago
52
a year ago
In response to a recent surge in interest in alien phenomena and claims that the US government is hiding what it knows about extraterrestrials, the Pentagon established a committee to investigate the question – the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). They have recently...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Race Question As a scientific concept – does race exist? Is it a useful construct, or is it more misleading than...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
As a scientific concept – does race exist? Is it a useful construct, or is it more misleading than useful? I wrote about this question in 2016, and my thinking has evolved a bit since then. My bottom line conclusion has not changed – the answer is, it depends. There is no fully...
Yale E360
How Climate Change Puts the Safety of Drinking Water at Risk Wildfires, floods, intense heat, droughts, and other extreme events fueled by climate change are...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Wildfires, floods, intense heat, droughts, and other extreme events fueled by climate change are threatening water systems in the U.S. and around the globe. Experts warn of the increasing threat of contamination and the need to improve infrastructure to keep drinking water...
Quanta Magazine
Fossilized Molecules Reveal a Lost World of Ancient Life A new analysis of ancient sediments fills a gap in the fossil record — revealing a massive dynasty...
a year ago
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a year ago
A new analysis of ancient sediments fills a gap in the fossil record — revealing a massive dynasty of ancient eukaryotes, which may have reigned for 800 million years and shaped the history of life of Earth. The post Fossilized Molecules Reveal a Lost World of Ancient...
Yale E360
In Uganda, Deadly Landslides Force an Agricultural Reckoning As growing populations denude its slopes and heavy rain intensifies, Mount Elgon has become...
a week ago
8
a week ago
As growing populations denude its slopes and heavy rain intensifies, Mount Elgon has become increasingly vulnerable to landslides. In response, Ugandan farmers are planting native trees and changing the crops they plant in efforts to build resilience against future...
Quanta Magazine
The Researcher Who Explores Computation by Conjuring New Worlds Russell Impagliazzo studies hard problems, the limits of cryptography, the nature of randomness and...
a year ago
45
a year ago
Russell Impagliazzo studies hard problems, the limits of cryptography, the nature of randomness and more. The post The Researcher Who Explores Computation by Conjuring New Worlds first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Young Adults Want Fewer Children The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at people born in the 2000s as young adults and an updated view of people born in the 1990s at the peak of their child-bearing years. Compared to previous generations at the same ages,...
Quanta Magazine
Elliptic Curves Yield Their Secrets in a New Number System Ana Caraiani and James Newton have extended an important result in number theory to the imaginary...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Ana Caraiani and James Newton have extended an important result in number theory to the imaginary realm. The post Elliptic Curves Yield Their Secrets in a New Number System first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
How Restored Wetlands Can Protect Europe from Russian Invasion The flooding of Ukraine’s Irpin valley thwarted Russia’s assault on Kyiv in 2022. Now, scientists...
a month ago
3
a month ago
The flooding of Ukraine’s Irpin valley thwarted Russia’s assault on Kyiv in 2022. Now, scientists are proposing Europe create a band of restored and protected wetlands along its eastern borders to deter future Russian aggression, and military strategists are taking notice. Read...
Asterisk
Does AI Progress Have a Speed Limit? A conversation about the factors that might slow down the pace of AI development, what could happen...
2 months ago
17
2 months ago
A conversation about the factors that might slow down the pace of AI development, what could happen next, and whether we’ll be able to see it coming.
Quanta Magazine
Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in...
2 weeks ago
14
2 weeks ago
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan. The post Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms first appeared on Quanta...
Quanta Magazine
The Fastest Way Yet to Color Graphs Researchers have devised a scheme for painting the edges of a graph that’s almost as speedy as...
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
Researchers have devised a scheme for painting the edges of a graph that’s almost as speedy as possible. The post The Fastest Way Yet to Color Graphs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Experimental techniques: bridge measurements When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss over the fact that there are specialized techniques for this - it's more than just hooking up a battery and an ammeter.  If you want to get high precision results, such as measuring...
Quanta Magazine
‘Metaphysical Experiments’ Probe Our Hidden Assumptions About Reality Experiments that test physics and philosophy "as a single whole" may be our only route to surefire...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Experiments that test physics and philosophy "as a single whole" may be our only route to surefire knowledge about the universe. The post ‘Metaphysical Experiments’ Probe Our Hidden Assumptions About Reality first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Is Desalination Everywhere Realistic? Which countries are doing it already? Are they happy? Is desalinated water safe to drink? Does it...
8 months ago
35
8 months ago
Which countries are doing it already? Are they happy? Is desalinated water safe to drink? Does it taste good? Does it pollute too much? Can we shrink its cost?
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part II Yesterday’s post was the first in an exchange about the effects of climate change on public health....
over a year ago
45
over a year ago
Yesterday’s post was the first in an exchange about the effects of climate change on public health. Today’s post is my response. Part II Climate change is a critically important topic for society today, and it’s important that the public have a working knowledge of the facts,...
Quanta Magazine
Game Theory Can Make AI More Correct and Efficient Researchers are drawing on ideas from game theory to improve large language models and make them...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Researchers are drawing on ideas from game theory to improve large language models and make them more consistent. The post Game Theory Can Make AI More Correct and Efficient first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Vacuum of Space to Decay Sooner Than Expected (but Still Not Soon) One of the quantum fields that fills the universe is special because its default value seems poised...
12 months ago
116
12 months ago
One of the quantum fields that fills the universe is special because its default value seems poised to eventually change, changing everything. The post Vacuum of Space to Decay Sooner Than Expected (but Still Not Soon) first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
Preregistration Is No Panacea Stopping scientific cheaters requires setting up systems that can't be gamed
7 months ago
Quanta Magazine
Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order? Two new notions of infinity challenge a long-standing plan to define the mathematical universe. ...
4 weeks ago
18
4 weeks ago
Two new notions of infinity challenge a long-standing plan to define the mathematical universe. The post Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
World Likely to Breach 1.5-Degree Target, Research Finds The world is set to blow past its goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C, new research shows. Read...
5 months ago
Yale E360
Taiwan to Ramp Up Gas Imports After Shuttering Last Nuclear Plant Having shut down its last remaining nuclear plant Saturday, Taiwan is working to secure new imports...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Having shut down its last remaining nuclear plant Saturday, Taiwan is working to secure new imports of natural gas. Read more on E360 →
Blog - Practical...
How Would a Nuclear EMP Affect the Power Grid? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Late in the morning of April...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Late in the morning of April 28, 1958, the USS Boxer aircraft carrier ship was about 70 miles off the coast of the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The crew of the Boxer was preparing to launch a...
Quanta Magazine
Researchers Uncover Hidden Ingredients Behind AI Creativity Image generators are designed to mimic their training data, so where does their apparent creativity...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Image generators are designed to mimic their training data, so where does their apparent creativity come from? A recent study suggests that it’s an inevitable by-product of their architecture. The post Researchers Uncover Hidden Ingredients Behind AI Creativity first...
Damn Interesting
The Ancient Order of Bali In the 1970s, the Indonesian island of Bali went through a period of rapid change. Along the...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
In the 1970s, the Indonesian island of Bali went through a period of rapid change. Along the stunning beaches on the southern side of the island, tourism boomed. Parking lots were put up, together with swinging hot spots and hotels of various colours. Hip young travellers from...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare, but funny | Out-Of-Pocket US healthcare is a joke. Let's make it funny.
a year ago
The Works in...
Apply to come to Invisible College Our new residential seminar for 18 to 22-year-olds, during August 2024
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird issues in value-based care | Out-Of-Pocket Thoughts on value-based care from people actually building in it
9 months ago
Stephen Wolfram...
What Can We Learn about Engineering and Innovation from Half a Century of the Game of Life Cellular... Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow...
4 months ago
53
4 months ago
Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow there’s an arc of progress that’s formed. But are there what amount to “laws of innovation” that govern that arc of progress? There are some exponential and other laws that purport to...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Retail and community pharmacies are changing | Out-Of-Pocket COVID tailwinds are changing the role of the pharmacy and pharmacist
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
The Surprisingly Simple Math Behind Puzzling Matchups If Anna beats Benji in a game and Benji beats Carl, will Anna beat Carl? The post The...
a year ago
46
a year ago
If Anna beats Benji in a game and Benji beats Carl, will Anna beat Carl? The post The Surprisingly Simple Math Behind Puzzling Matchups first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
a year ago
40
a year 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:...
Asterisk
Fracking Eyeballs How an alliance between psychologists and advertisers at the turn of the 20th century taught us how...
a year ago
16
a year ago
How an alliance between psychologists and advertisers at the turn of the 20th century taught us how to measure (and monetize) human attention.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Curious Case of Professional Employer Organizations | Out-Of-Pocket A tale about complexity, risk skimming, and what counts as an “employee” or “company”
10 months ago
Quanta Magazine
Physicists Puzzle Over Emergence of Strange Electron Aggregates Electrons have been seen uniting into entities with fractions of electric charge, this time without...
a year ago
112
a year ago
Electrons have been seen uniting into entities with fractions of electric charge, this time without a magnetic field coaxing them into it. The post Physicists Puzzle Over Emergence of Strange Electron Aggregates first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Feeding the World Without Sunlight In 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history led to harvest failures across the globe....
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
In 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history led to harvest failures across the globe. Today, a nuclear winter could bring the global food system crashing down. Is it possible to feed the world in the aftermath of a catastrophe?
Yale E360
World Likely to Breach 1.5-Degree Target, Research Finds The world is set to blow past its goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C, new research shows. Read...
5 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
AI in healthcare - defensibility, capabilities, and cost reduction | Out-Of-Pocket
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Why Mathematicians Re-Prove What They Already Know It’s been known for thousands of years that the primes go on forever, but new proofs give fresh...
over a year ago
60
over a year ago
It’s been known for thousands of years that the primes go on forever, but new proofs give fresh insights into how theorems depend on one another. The post Why Mathematicians Re-Prove What They Already Know first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: 2. Starbase A city of dreams
6 months ago
Yale E360
China Allows New Coal Plants, but With More Limited Role China will allow the construction of new coal power plants through at least 2027 but with...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
China will allow the construction of new coal power plants through at least 2027 but with restrictions aimed at limiting emissions and boosting renewables, according to a newly released action plan. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Completely new healthcare markets and what to build for them | Out-Of-Pocket that new new
a year ago
Yale E360
In Test, A.I. Weather Model Fails to Predict Freak Storm Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than conventional forecasts and are faster and cheaper to produce. But new research shows A.I. may fail to predict unprecedented weather events, a troubling finding as warming fuels new...
NeuroLogica Blog
Bury Broadband and Electricity We may have a unique opportunity to make an infrastructure investment that can demonstrably save...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
We may have a unique opportunity to make an infrastructure investment that can demonstrably save money over the long term – by burying power and broadband lines. This is always an option, of course, but since we are in the early phases of rolling out fiber optic service, and also...
Yale E360
A.I. Model Can Predict When Lightning Will Spark Wildfires Researchers have developed an AI model that can predict with 90 percent accuracy when and where...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
Researchers have developed an AI model that can predict with 90 percent accuracy when and where lightning will ignite wildfires. Read more on E360 →
nanoscale views
CHIPS and Science - the reality vs the aspiration I already wrote about this issue here back in August, but I wanted to highlight a policy statement...
9 months ago
13
9 months ago
I already wrote about this issue here back in August, but I wanted to highlight a policy statement that I wrote with colleagues as part of Rice's Baker Institute's Election 2024: Policy Playbook, which "delivers nonpartisan, expert insights into key issues at stake on the 2024...
Uncharted...
Reaction to Your Comments on German Elections Election results, german nuclear, slower maps, and more
4 months ago
Asterisk
Pew Problems A conversation about religion, fertility, and the American family.
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Checkup on Climate Change There is good evidence that if you want to lose weight, you need to weigh yourself at least weekly....
over a year ago
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over a year ago
There is good evidence that if you want to lose weight, you need to weigh yourself at least weekly. You need the constant feedback of the scale to adjust your behavior. This is a good general principle – having outcome feedback to measure the effect of what you are doing so you...
Light from Space
Vaporwave Crescent Shooting space with a monochrome camera means using various filters—when choosing narrowband filters...
over a year ago
45
over a year ago
Shooting space with a monochrome camera means using various filters—when choosing narrowband filters (those with only a few nanometers of bandpass) one can limit the sensor capturing only very specific wavelengths of light, namely the emissions of certain gasses (basically,...
symmetry magazine
Vera C. Rubin Observatory brings the universe to everyone The Rubin Observatory is making education and outreach a top priority.
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans,...
6 months ago
76
6 months ago
Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, suggesting that the world is far more interconnected than anyone realized. The post The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria first appeared on Quanta...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Airfoil The dream of soaring in the sky like a bird has captivated the human mind for ages. Although many...
a year ago
97
a year ago
The dream of soaring in the sky like a bird has captivated the human mind for ages. Although many failed, some eventually succeeded in achieving that goal. These days we take air transportation for granted, but the physics of flight can still be puzzling. In this article we’ll...
The Works in...
The road from serfdom Using opt-ins to reform Russia's backwards tsarist agricultural sector
a year ago
The Works in...
The entrepreneurial state How state competition – through war – can drive institutional progress
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
How Were the Pyramids Built? The Egyptian pyramids, and especially the Pyramids at Giza, have fascinated people probably since...
a year ago
75
a year ago
The Egyptian pyramids, and especially the Pyramids at Giza, have fascinated people probably since their construction between 4700 and 3700 years ago. They are massive structures, and it boggles the mind that an ancient culture, without the benefit of any industrial technology,...
symmetry magazine
Physics fashion and collider couture Symmetry is back with more physics-themed Halloween costumes.
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Dwarf Planet Ring Mystery Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence consistent with existing theories, providing further confirmation, but it’s exciting to find evidence that cannot be explained with existing theories. Astronomers may have found such...
Quanta Magazine
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...
a year ago
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a year 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
Uncharted...
Why Is Canada’s Population so Concentrated? In three spots that are disconnected?
2 months ago
Asterisk
AI Isn’t Coming for Tech Jobs—Yet LLMs can make a developer’s job easier and faster. When might they make them obsolete?
over a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
ChatGPT Almost Passes Medical Licensure Exams The emergence of several AI applications for public use, such as Dalle-2, Midjourney, and ChatGPT,...
over a year ago
40
over 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...
Yale E360
In Vermont, a Push to Prevent Flooding or Get Out of the Way An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont...
5 months ago
7
5 months ago
An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont especially hard. As disaster declarations mount, state officials and community groups are collaborating to restore floodplains, reduce runoff from slopes, and buy out vulnerable...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Gender Boxing Hubub Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at...
11 months ago
58
11 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Lifecycle Analysis of Electric Vehicles This article is part of my informal series on EVs, sorting through the claims, reality, and...
a year ago
35
a year ago
This article is part of my informal series on EVs, sorting through the claims, reality, and propaganda. There are many complicated factors to sort through, but overall, in my opinion, most concerns about EVs are outdated or overblown. There are definitely locations and use...
Quanta Magazine
How a DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes A novel type of “jumping gene” may explain why the genomes of complex cells aren’t all equally...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
A novel type of “jumping gene” may explain why the genomes of complex cells aren’t all equally stuffed with noncoding sequences. The post How a DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
Counting breeding shorebirds using listening devices With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments...
7 months ago
83
7 months ago
With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments such as wind turbines and monoculture forestry, conservationists are often asked to assess the potential effects of landscape change. Do passive acoustic devices have a role to play...
Quanta Magazine
A Very Big Small Leap Forward in Graph Theory Four mathematicians have found a new upper limit to the “Ramsey number,” a crucial property...
over a year ago
167
over a year ago
Four mathematicians have found a new upper limit to the “Ramsey number,” a crucial property describing unavoidable structure in graphs. The post A Very Big Small Leap Forward in Graph Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
Listening to the radio on the far side of the moon LuSEE-Night will demonstrate whether an experiment to search for ancient radio signals can survive...
a year ago
41
a year ago
LuSEE-Night will demonstrate whether an experiment to search for ancient radio signals can survive the moon’s unforgiving environment.
Many Worlds
Webb Telescope Finds No Signs of a Thick Atmosphere Around a Second TRAPPIST-1 Planet Among the most eagerly awaited results from the early observations of the James Webb Space Telescope...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Among the most eagerly awaited results from the early observations of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is whether or not the seven rocky planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system have atmospheres. The TRAPPIST-1 planets are close to us (40 light-years away), are all solid rather than...
Probably...
What’s a Chartist? Recently I heard the word “chartist” for the first time in my life (that I recall). And then later...
8 months ago
9
8 months ago
Recently I heard the word “chartist” for the first time in my life (that I recall). And then later the same day, I heard it again. So that raises two questions: To answer the second question first, it’s someone who supported chartism, which was “a working-class movement for...
NeuroLogica Blog
Anxiety Biomarkers Psychiatry, psychology, and all aspects of mental health are a challenging area because the clinical...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
Psychiatry, psychology, and all aspects of mental health are a challenging area because the clinical entities we are dealing with are complex and mostly subjective. Diagnoses are perhaps best understood as clinical constructs – a way of identifying and understanding a mental...
IEEE Spectrum
How Engineers at Digital Equipment Corp. Saved Ethernet I’ve enjoyed reading magazine articles about Ethernet’s 50th anniversary, including one in the The...
a year ago
99
a year ago
I’ve enjoyed reading magazine articles about Ethernet’s 50th anniversary, including one in the The Institute. Invented by computer scientists Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs, Ethernet has been extraordinarily impactful. Metcalfe, an IEEE Fellow, received the 1996 IEEE Medal of...
IEEE Spectrum
The Do-or-Die Moments That Determined the Fate of the Internet CES) and the Game Developers Conference have become regular features of the digital world. ARPANET...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
CES) and the Game Developers Conference have become regular features of the digital world. ARPANET in 1972, or the mid-1980s conferences now known as Interop, alerted experts to new technologies, and, in some cases, altered the balance between competing approaches. Packet...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare Data Camp Applications Due Today | Out-Of-Pocket Plus future hackathon ideas?
a month ago
Beautiful Public...
The Army and Navy Style Guides These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed...
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
‘A-Team’ of Math Proves a Critical Link Between Addition and Sets A team of four prominent mathematicians, including two Fields medalists, proved a conjecture...
a year ago
59
a year ago
A team of four prominent mathematicians, including two Fields medalists, proved a conjecture described as a “holy grail of additive combinatorics.” The post ‘A-Team’ of Math Proves a Critical Link Between Addition and Sets first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
The Marimba Virtuoso’s Desktop Planetarium The United States was at the time approaching “peak space.” The previous year, cosmonaut Yuri...
a year ago
24
a year ago
The United States was at the time approaching “peak space.” The previous year, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human to reach outer space, and on 12 September 1962 President Kennedy would announce the United States’ intention to put a man on the moon before the...
Quanta Magazine
New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient Quantum computing is still really, really hard. But the rise of a powerful class of error-correcting...
a year ago
39
a year ago
Quantum computing is still really, really hard. But the rise of a powerful class of error-correcting codes suggests that the task might be slightly more feasible than many feared. The post New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient first appeared...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six Healthcare Startup Ideas | Out-Of-Pocket In collaboration with The Generalist
a year ago
Chris Grossack's...
Proving Another "Real Theorem" with Topos Theory Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol. Somebody asked whether...
a year ago
51
a year ago
Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol. Somebody asked whether maximizing over a compact set is a continuous thing to do. That is, given a continuous function $f : K \times X \to \mathbb{R}$ is the function $x \mapsto \max_{k \in K} f(k,x)$...
nanoscale views
Quick survey - machine shops and maker spaces Recent events are very dire for research at US universities, and I will write further about those,...
a month ago
23
a month ago
Recent events are very dire for research at US universities, and I will write further about those, but first a quick unrelated survey for those at such institutions.  Back in the day, it was common for physics and some other (mechanical engineering?) departments to have machine...
Wanderingspace
Dust Storm On Mars A dust storm in Olympia Planum's north polar dune fields was triggered by a late Martian summer cold...
a year ago
69
a year ago
A dust storm in Olympia Planum's north polar dune fields was triggered by a late Martian summer cold front. As the northern polar cap shrinks fast, it releases cold air that sometimes moves south, like on Earth. These cold fronts strengthen in late summer and early fall due to...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Selective breeding and chicken welfare We've bred larger and larger chickens. Now can we breed happier ones?
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient...
a year ago
69
a year ago
At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient essential for life. The pair are in the process of merging into a single organism. The post Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient first appeared on Quanta...
Yale E360
Toxic Algae Spurs Sea Lion Attacks in Southern California A sea lion sickened by toxic algae attacked a teenage girl in Long Beach, California, on Sunday, the...
3 months ago
6
3 months ago
A sea lion sickened by toxic algae attacked a teenage girl in Long Beach, California, on Sunday, the latest episode of erratic behavior from affected animals. Read more on E360 →
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Dec. 21 is Winter Solstice — Why We Have Seasons on Earth Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with...
7 months ago
85
7 months ago
Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with which we mark the beginning of the winter season in the Earth’s northern hemisphere.  It’s interesting to note that the planets Venus and Jupiter do not have seasons like the...
Beautiful Public...
The Mirror Fusion Test Facility A decade-long effort to build a machine to unlock the promise of nuclear fusion fell victim to...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
A decade-long effort to build a machine to unlock the promise of nuclear fusion fell victim to budget constraints and competing science, and was shut down the day it was dedicated. It was never turned on.
Chris Grossack's...
Estimating a Difference of Products Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last quick analysis trick....
a year ago
20
a year ago
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last quick analysis trick. But I’ve been itching to write more blog posts lately, and I thought that something quick and easy like this would be a good way to get back into it without the kind of effort...
Asterisk
The First Day
3 months ago
Blog - Practical...
How French Drains Work [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February of 2017, one of...
11 months ago
111
11 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February of 2017, one of the largest spillways in the world, the one at Oroville Dam in northern California, was severely damaged during releases from heavy rain. You might remember this. I made a video...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Experience Machine Thought Experiment In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the...
a year ago
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a year ago
In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the following thought experiment: If you could be plugged into an “experience machine” (what we would likely call today a virtual reality or “Matrix”) that could perfectly replicate real-life...
SubAnima
Why do bees die when they sting you? Suicide is a truly bizarre evolutionary strategy. Why does it exist?
over a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Should we charge for patient messaging? | Out-Of-Pocket guess I'm texting my resident friends
a year ago
Beautiful Public...
The Style Guide for America’s Highways: The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices Driving across America, you will encounter a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people and...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Driving across America, you will encounter a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people and animals. But the one consistent thing that will stay the same from Maine to California are the signs you pass on the highway. That is because America’s roads and highways have a big, fat...
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...
a year ago
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a year 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...
Eukaryote Writes...
There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From 'dendro', the ancient Greek root for tree.
Yale E360
How a Former Herder Protected Mongolia's Vast Grasslands Batmunkh Luvsandash has fought to protect more than a million acres of steppe lands in his native...
2 months ago
3
2 months ago
Batmunkh Luvsandash has fought to protect more than a million acres of steppe lands in his native Mongolia. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he explains how, by drawing on the knowledge of local herders, he was able to take on the powerful mining industry and win. Read...
Blog - Practical...
This Bridge Should Have Been Closed Years Before It Collapsed [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On January 28, 2022, about an...
a year ago
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a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On January 28, 2022, about an hour before dawn, the four-lane Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, collapsed without warning. Five vehicles, including an articulating bus, fell with the bridge, and...
Yale E360
In This Storied Egyptian City, Rising Seas are Causing Buildings to Crumble As waters rise along the Egyptian coast, hundreds of buildings in the historic port city of...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
As waters rise along the Egyptian coast, hundreds of buildings in the historic port city of Alexandria have collapsed. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Germany and Nuclear Power Germany has been thrown around a lot as an example of both what to do and what not to do in terms of...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
Germany has been thrown around a lot as an example of both what to do and what not to do in terms of addressing global warming by embracing green energy technology. It’s possible to look back now and review the numbers, to see what the effect was of its decision to embrace...
Quanta Magazine
Simple Equation Predicts the Shapes of Carbon-Capturing Wetlands To calculate the amount of carbon stored inside peatlands, researchers developed a unified theory of...
a year ago
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a year ago
To calculate the amount of carbon stored inside peatlands, researchers developed a unified theory of “bog physics” applicable around the world. The post Simple Equation Predicts the Shapes of Carbon-Capturing Wetlands first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How Data Transformed Small Group Underwriting | Out-Of-Pocket Paper forms be gone, now we anonymize and risk it all (literally).
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life When seawater gets cold, it gets viscous. This fact could explain how single-celled ocean creatures...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
When seawater gets cold, it gets viscous. This fact could explain how single-celled ocean creatures became multicellular when the planet was frozen during “Snowball Earth,” according to experiments. The post The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life...
Quanta Magazine
Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to ‘Peak’ Fitness Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful...
a year ago
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a year ago
Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful adaptations. But a new study of “fitness landscapes” and antibiotic resistance in bacteria shows that life still finds a way. The post Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 13: Quebrada El Limón And The Last Of The Northwest (February 16-18,... February 16, 2024 The town of Olmos isn't the most picturesque in Peru. Situated in the coastal...
5 months ago
23
5 months ago
February 16, 2024 The town of Olmos isn't the most picturesque in Peru. Situated in the coastal desert, the streets are dusty, the wind is always present and the roads are potholed. It is certainly not a town that caters to tourists, and I doubt many stop here. But an advantage...
Breck's Blog
A funny thing about the original Microsoft Source Code
3 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
AI in healthcare - defensibility, capabilities, and cost reduction | Out-Of-Pocket fine fine I'll write about AI
a year ago
nanoscale views
Recent papers to distract.... Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers...
8 months ago
15
8 months ago
Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers who are US citizens:  vote if you have not already done so!). Reaching back, this preprint by Aharonov, Collins, Popescu talks about a thought experiment in which angular...
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...
over a year ago
25
over 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New (Experimental) Ways To Tackle The Mental Health Crisis | Out-Of-Pocket let's try some new stuff to scale mental health care
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Exits & Outcomes Is Good | Out-Of-Pocket moar newsletters
a year ago
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Copper and Green Energy The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The...
a year ago
22
a year ago
The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The current list of 54 materials includes elements that are presently critical to a transition to green energy, such as the rare earth elements important to turbine generators, and...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Plant Sounds My early adulthood coincided with the New Age movement and its belief in many discredited past...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
My early adulthood coincided with the New Age movement and its belief in many discredited past ideas, such as astrology. One New Age idea that seemed strange at the time was that talking to plants helped them to grow. What could be more New Age than a hippie chick talking to a...
Beautiful Public...
US Government UFO (UAP) Footage For decades, the public suspected that the US Government was hiding secret intelligence about UFOs —...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
For decades, the public suspected that the US Government was hiding secret intelligence about UFOs — (now known as UAPs). Turns out…it kind of was.
wadertales
UK waders: “Into the Red” If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most conservation concern in the UK, they would probably not include Dunlin. Curlew may well be top of their lists, even though the most recent population estimate is 58,500 breeding pairs, but...
Quanta Magazine
Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its...
a year ago
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a year ago
A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its direction and move toward it. The post Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
Connecting Solar to the Grid is Harder Than You Think [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On June 4, 2022, a small piece...
a year ago
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a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On June 4, 2022, a small piece of equipment (called a lightning arrestor) at a power plant in Odessa, Texas failed, causing part of the plant to trip offline. It was a fairly typical fault that happens from...
Quanta Magazine
How Simple Math Moves the Needle The spatial intuition behind a three-point turn offers an on-ramp to a century-old geometry problem....
a year ago
29
a year ago
The spatial intuition behind a three-point turn offers an on-ramp to a century-old geometry problem. The post How Simple Math Moves the Needle first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Environmental Enforcement Slows Under Trump Federal enforcement of environmental laws has slowed significantly under President Trump. Read more...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
Federal enforcement of environmental laws has slowed significantly under President Trump. Read more on E360 →
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 2: The Huachucas September 1, 2024 For the first and only time in the trip I managed a much-needed seven hours of...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
September 1, 2024 For the first and only time in the trip I managed a much-needed seven hours of sleep. Unfortunately, some of the others were woken up earlier than they would have liked. The owner of Beatty's Guest Ranch (he lives in a different building on the property) owns a...
Drew Ex Machina
Drew Ex Machina 10th Anniversary: Top Ten Posts I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my...
a year ago
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a year ago
I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my then-new website, Drew Ex Machina. […]
Asterisk
Crash Testing GPT-4 Can we tell if an AI model is safe before it’s released? The group that tested GPT–4 is trying to...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Can we tell if an AI model is safe before it’s released? The group that tested GPT–4 is trying to figure out how.
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
44
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
Answers: Should Physicians Create Lifestyle Plans? | Out-Of-Pocket some real-world stories from people dealing with this
a year ago
Asterisk
The Highway to NIMBYism San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up...
a year ago
20
a year ago
San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up by highways. Today, that same legacy prevents the city from building what it desperately needs: more housing.
Yale E360
To Protect Amazon from Drug Traffickers, Title Indigenous Lands, Report Says Drug traffickers are violently seizing Indigenous lands in the Peruvian Amazon to clear rainforest...
a month ago
3
a month ago
Drug traffickers are violently seizing Indigenous lands in the Peruvian Amazon to clear rainforest and grow coca. To combat the drug trade, a new report calls for titling Indigenous territories along major trafficking routes.  Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain whole underground ecosystems. The post Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Cool Ideas For Dentistry + Medicine With Nisarg Patel | Out-Of-Pocket plus what actually happens in the operating room?
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
The Physicist Working to Build Science-Literate AI By training machine learning models with enough examples of basic science, Miles Cranmer hopes to...
4 months ago
40
4 months ago
By training machine learning models with enough examples of basic science, Miles Cranmer hopes to push the pace of scientific discovery forward. The post The Physicist Working to Build Science-Literate AI first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Why we stopped building subways cheaply We used to dig up roads to put trains underneath
a month ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Flooding is Increasing Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm was intense enough to cause flash flooding, which washed out roads and bridges and shut down traffic in many areas. The epicenter of the rainfall was in Oxford, CT (where my...
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...
7 months ago
46
7 months 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...
Quanta Magazine
A New Geometry for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity A team of mathematicians based in Vienna is developing tools to extend the scope of general...
3 days ago
8
3 days ago
A team of mathematicians based in Vienna is developing tools to extend the scope of general relativity. The post A New Geometry for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Renewables Did Not Cause Spanish Blackout, Investigations Find In the aftermath of a massive blackout that hit Spain and Portugal in April, some pundits were quick...
4 weeks ago
3
4 weeks ago
In the aftermath of a massive blackout that hit Spain and Portugal in April, some pundits were quick to blame wind and solar for the loss of power. But official inquiries have found that a shortfall in conventional power led to the outages. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
U.S. Wind and Solar Overtake Coal Power In a first, the U.S. saw wind and solar supply more power than coal last year, according to a new...
6 months ago
6
6 months ago
In a first, the U.S. saw wind and solar supply more power than coal last year, according to a new analysis. But even as renewables made gains, U.S. emissions stayed flat owing to rising demand for energy. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Emerging healthcare business models and the new vendors they need | Out-Of-Pocket looking for an idea to build? look at these areas
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Is vision insurance a scam? | Out-Of-Pocket the weird, verticalized world of vision "insurance"
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
First-Year Graduate Student Finds Paradoxical Set No two pairs have the same sum; add three numbers together, and you can get any whole number. ...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
No two pairs have the same sum; add three numbers together, and you can get any whole number. The post First-Year Graduate Student Finds Paradoxical Set first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
ARIA: Betting on science An inside look at Britain's new DARPA
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Avi Wigderson, Complexity Theory Pioneer, Wins Turing Award The prolific researcher found deep connections between randomness and computation and spent a career...
a year ago
71
a year ago
The prolific researcher found deep connections between randomness and computation and spent a career influencing cryptographers, complexity researchers and more. The post Avi Wigderson, Complexity Theory Pioneer, Wins Turing Award first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
Stephen Wolfram...
Computing the Eclipse: Astronomy in the Wolfram Language Basic Eclipse Computation It’s taken millennia to get to the point where it’s possible to accurately...
a year ago
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a year ago
Basic Eclipse Computation It’s taken millennia to get to the point where it’s possible to accurately compute eclipses. But now—as a tiny part of making “everything in the world” computable—computation about eclipses is just a built-in feature of the Wolfram Language. The core...
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...
a year ago
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a year 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
OOP Slack final reminder | Out-Of-Pocket it's the final countdownnnnn
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
How Public Key Cryptography Really Works, Using Only Simple Math The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part...
8 months ago
59
8 months ago
The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part of your encryption to make your information much more secure. The post How Public Key Cryptography Really Works, Using Only Simple Math first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Frozen Embryos Are Not People Amid much controversy, the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children. They...
a year ago
72
a year ago
Amid much controversy, the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children. They did not support their decision with compelling logic, with cited precedence (their decision is literally unprecedented), with practical considerations, or with sound ethical...
Uncharted...
Where to Build 10 New Cities in the US, Part 1 Plus vote on new types of content for Uncharted Territories!
6 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Change Healthcare Debacle | Out-Of-Pocket what are clearinghouses and do we still need them?
a year ago
The Works in...
Womb for improvement Pregnancy can be painful and, for some women, impossible. New technology may allow more women to...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Pregnancy can be painful and, for some women, impossible. New technology may allow more women to have children and save the lives of prematurely born infants.
The Roots of...
Who regulates the regulators? IRBs Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review...
over a year ago
85
over a year ago
IRBs Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review the ethics of medical trials: From Oversight to Overkill, by Dr. Simon Whitney. From the title alone, you can see where this is going. IRBs are supposed to (among other things)...
NeuroLogica Blog
Thermoelectric Cooling – It’s Cooler Than You Think I am fascinated by the technologies that live largely behind the scenes. These are not generally...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
I am fascinated by the technologies that live largely behind the scenes. These are not generally consumer devices, but they may be components of consumer products, or may largely have a role in industry – but they make our modern world possible, or make it much better. In...
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s...
a year ago
107
a year ago
By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s first moments. The post Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
India Doubled its Tiger Population in a Little More Than a Decade The number of tigers in India roughly doubled in a little more than a decade, a conservation success...
5 months ago
8
5 months ago
The number of tigers in India roughly doubled in a little more than a decade, a conservation success that is due in part to communities learning to live alongside the animals, new research finds. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
How to Build an Origami Computer Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible...
a year ago
66
a year ago
Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible computation. The post How to Build an Origami Computer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Latest Gallup Creationism Poll Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people...
11 months ago
67
11 months ago
Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people answer. But it is useful to ask the exact same question over a long period of time, because that can indicate how public attitudes are changing. This is one of the benefits of...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th. The post An Eclipse...
a year ago
38
a year ago
A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th. The post An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Quanta Magazine
How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that differ from their reflected forms. The post How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image 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...
8 months ago
69
8 months 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...
Quanta Magazine
Some Neural Networks Learn Language Like Humans Researchers uncover striking parallels in the ways that humans and machine learning models acquire...
over a year ago
85
over a year ago
Researchers uncover striking parallels in the ways that humans and machine learning models acquire language skills. The post Some Neural Networks Learn Language Like Humans first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Chris Grossack's...
Life in Johnstone's Topological Topos 3 -- Bonus Axioms In the first post of the series, we talked about what the topological topos is, and how we can...
a year ago
82
a year ago
In the first post of the series, we talked about what the topological topos is, and how we can think about its objects (and, importantly, how we can relate computations in the topos $\mathcal{T}$ to computations with topological spaces in “the real world”). In part two, we...
NeuroLogica Blog
2023 Hottest Year on Record What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we...
a year ago
42
a year ago
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we can also say that the last 10 years are the hottest decade on record. 2023 dethrones 2016 as the previous warmest year and bumps 2010 out of the top 10. Further, in the last half of...
IEEE Spectrum
How Vannevar Bush Engineered the 20th Century In the summer of 1945, Robert J. Oppenheimer and other key members of the Manhattan Project gathered...
a year ago
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a year ago
In the summer of 1945, Robert J. Oppenheimer and other key members of the Manhattan Project gathered in New Mexico to witness the first atomic bomb test. Among the observers was Vannevar Bush, who had overseen the Manhattan Project and served as the sole liaison to U.S. President...
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
Casey Handmer's blog
California’s path to redemption California is by far the richest and most powerful polity led by Progressive ideals, and it has...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
California is by far the richest and most powerful polity led by Progressive ideals, and it has taken a beating of late. In this post, I discuss a practical roadmap by which California must reclaim its mantle as the shining city on the hill, an embodiment of the positive...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Eclipse of the Sun Coming in One Week Saturday Oct. 14 North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun. The post Eclipse of the Sun...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Saturday Oct. 14 North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun. The post Eclipse of the Sun Coming in One Week appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
nanoscale views
The latest on US science funding The US House and Senate appropriations subcommittees have now completed their markups on the bills...
5 hours ago
2
5 hours ago
The US House and Senate appropriations subcommittees have now completed their markups on the bills relevant to the FY26 appropriations for NSF, NASA, and NIST.  The AAAS has an interactive dashboard with current information here if you want to click and look at all the...
Yale E360
Chimps Found Treating Each Other's Wounds Chimpanzees in Uganda were found treating the injuries of other, unrelated chimps, including those...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Chimpanzees in Uganda were found treating the injuries of other, unrelated chimps, including those caught in hunting snares.  Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Mental Health And The Weird Fixation With Employers | Out-Of-Pocket an uncomfortable conversation about mental health access
a year ago
Asterisk
The Transistor Cliff Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
over a year ago
nanoscale views
The National Science Foundation - this is not business as usual The National Science Foundation was created 75 years ago, at the behest of Vannevar Bush, who put...
4 months ago
23
4 months ago
The National Science Foundation was created 75 years ago, at the behest of Vannevar Bush, who put together the famed study, Science, The Endless Frontier, in 1945.  The NSF has played a critical role in a huge amount of science and engineering research since its inception,...
Asterisk
China’s Silicon Future China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts will succeed is far from clear.
Quanta Magazine
How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are...
a year ago
103
a year ago
Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are rigorously defined. The post How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
In Vermont, a Push to Prevent Flooding or Get Out of the Way An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont especially hard. As disaster declarations mount, state officials and community groups are collaborating to restore floodplains, reduce runoff from slopes, and buy out vulnerable...
Blog - Practical...
How Engineers Straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Long ago, maybe upwards of 1-2...
a year ago
128
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Long ago, maybe upwards of 1-2 million years ago, a river in the central part of what’s now Italy, emptied into what’s now the Ligurian Sea. It still does, by the way, but it did back then too. As the sea rose...
The Works in...
A $50 million foundation model to predict earthquakes Achieving a 10-minute warning would save thousands of lives
3 days ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
An update about Out-Of-Pocket | Out-Of-Pocket lemme sell some of your attention plz
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
Now published: Building Quantum Computers Building Quantum Computers: A Practical Introduction by Shayan Majidy, Christopher Wilson, and...
9 months ago
80
9 months ago
Building Quantum Computers: A Practical Introduction by Shayan Majidy, Christopher Wilson, and Raymond Laflamme has been published by Cambridge University Press and will be released in the US on September 30. The authors invited me to write a Foreword for … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence and the Nanny State One side benefit of our federalist system is that the US essentially has 50 experiments in...
a year ago
38
a year ago
One side benefit of our federalist system is that the US essentially has 50 experiments in democracy. States hold a lot of power, which provides an opportunity to compare the effects of different public policies. There are lots of other variables at play, such as economics, rural...
Yale E360
Peruvian Farmer Sues German Energy Giant Over Its Role in Climate Change Hearings began Monday in a landmark climate case in Hamm, Germany, where a Peruvian farmer is suing...
4 months ago
3
4 months ago
Hearings began Monday in a landmark climate case in Hamm, Germany, where a Peruvian farmer is suing energy giant RWE over its role in warming. Read more on E360 →
The Roots of...
Video: Intro to progress studies at Learning Night Boston I got invited to speak at Learning Night Boston and give an intro to progress studies: why study...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I got invited to speak at Learning Night Boston and give an intro to progress studies: why study progress, and why do we need a new philosophy of progress? There are then a few minutes of Q&A. (It was in a bar and the audio quality is poor, sorry.)
Wanderingspace
Space-X Looking Like 2001 Space Odyssey Amazing shot. Looks like a movie.
a year ago
Uncharted...
Become a World-Class Communicator I’m running a 2nd cohort of my course: How to Become a World-Class Communicator, starting in two...
8 months ago
37
8 months ago
I’m running a 2nd cohort of my course: How to Become a World-Class Communicator, starting in two weeks, on November 4th!
NeuroLogica Blog
The Science of Gift Giving There is a lot of social psychology out there providing information that can inform our everyday...
a year ago
21
a year ago
There is a lot of social psychology out there providing information that can inform our everyday lives, and most people are completely unaware of the research. Richard Wiseman makes this point in his book, 59 Seconds – we actually have useful scientific information, and yet we...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Type of Black Hole Discovered ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not surprising, as that is Gaia’s mission – to precisely map the three-dimensional position of two billion objects in our galaxy, using three separate instruments. The process is called...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
GPT-3 x Healthcare: Democratizing AI | Out-Of-Pocket ICD-10 vs. GPT-3, who will win?
a year ago
Beautiful Public...
Cold War Military Slides A reporter stumbled upon a treasure trove of Department of Defense slides from the 1970s and 1980s...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
A reporter stumbled upon a treasure trove of Department of Defense slides from the 1970s and 1980s depicting data from missile systems, Soviet capabilities and America’s nuclear arsenal.
nanoscale views
Items for discussion, including google's latest quantum computing result As we head toward the end of the calendar year, a few items: Google published a new result in...
7 months ago
17
7 months ago
As we head toward the end of the calendar year, a few items: Google published a new result in Nature a few days ago.  This made a big news splash, including this accompanying press piece from google themselves, this nice article in Quanta, and the always thoughtful blog post by...
Drew Ex Machina
An ISS Success Story: CyMISS (Tropical Cyclone Intensity Measurements from the ISS) to the Hurricane... The team at Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA), where this author is the Chief Scientist, had the...
11 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence and the Nanny State Part II In Part I of this post I outlined some basic considerations in deciding how much the state should...
a year ago
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a year ago
In Part I of this post I outlined some basic considerations in deciding how much the state should impose regulations on people and institutions in order to engineer positive outcomes. In the end the best approach, it seems to me, is a balanced one, where we consider the burden of...
Marine Madness
Penguin Problems: Are human-induced food shortages driving population declines? We all love penguins. Clumsy and awkward on land, stealthy and precise underwater- these charismatic...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
We all love penguins. Clumsy and awkward on land, stealthy and precise underwater- these charismatic creatures have captured our hearts ever since the release of March of the Penguins. Unfortunately, penguin populations across the globe (especially in South Africa and Antarctica)...
Quanta Magazine
Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.” The post Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Can You Trust An AI Press Release? Of course not. Here’s how leading AI labs mislead consumers, journalists, and each other.
a year ago
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: The world that has never been Introducing Speculative Technologies
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in...
a year ago
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a year ago
Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in science to date, accelerating molecular research and kindling deep questions about why we do science. The post How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It...
NeuroLogica Blog
SpaceX Tests Super Heavy Booster Last Thursday SpaceX successfully conducted the most significant test firing of its Heavy Booster...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
Last Thursday SpaceX successfully conducted the most significant test firing of its Heavy Booster rocket to date. The rocket sports 33 Raptor 2 engines. During the test, 31 of them fired. One engine failed, and one was shut down. According to SpaceX, even with 31 engines the...
Quanta Magazine
She Tracks the DNA of Elusive Species That Hide in Harsh Places On Mount Everest and in the Peruvian Andes, Tracie Seimon uses DNA to study how species and...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
On Mount Everest and in the Peruvian Andes, Tracie Seimon uses DNA to study how species and ecosystems respond to climate change, pathogens and other influences. The post She Tracks the DNA of Elusive Species That Hide in Harsh Places first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Cold, Laser-Coupled Particle Beams This is a follow-up to the Particle Beams in Space post. This time, we look at two concepts that...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
This is a follow-up to the Particle Beams in Space post. This time, we look at two concepts that can massively increase the effective range of particle beam: one is being applied every day in modern accelerators, and the other is an outgrowth of a tool used in...
Blog - Practical...
Why There's a Legal Price for a Human Life [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] One of the very first...
a year ago
98
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] One of the very first documented engineering disasters happened in 27 AD in the early days of the Roman Empire. A freed slave named Atilius built a wooden amphitheater in a town called Fidenae outside of Rome....
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunger Circuitry One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature...
a year ago
20
a year ago
One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature of being alive – maintaining homeostatic equilibrium both internally and externally. Homeostatic systems usually involve multiple feedback loops that maintain some physiological...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How do hospitals spend money? | Out-Of-Pocket it's time to look at a financial statement
a year ago
Yale E360
As Bird Flu Spreads, Vaccine Shows Promise for Protecting Cattle Since bird flu was first discovered in U.S. cattle last year, the virus has spread to more than...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Since bird flu was first discovered in U.S. cattle last year, the virus has spread to more than 1,000 herds across the country. A new vaccine for cattle has performed well in early tests, raising hopes that it could protect livestock and help prevent an outbreak in humans. Read...
IEEE Spectrum
Tragedy Spurred the First Effective Land-Mine Detector Land mines have been around in one form or another for more than a thousand years. By now, you’d...
6 months ago
64
6 months ago
Land mines have been around in one form or another for more than a thousand years. By now, you’d think a simple and safe way of locating and removing the devices would’ve been engineered. But that’s not the case. In fact, up until World War II, the most common method for finding...
Chris Grossack's...
Some Doodles I'm Proud of -- The Capping Algorithm for Embedded Graphs This will be a really quick one! Over the last two weeks I’ve been finishing up a big project to...
3 months ago
27
3 months ago
This will be a really quick one! Over the last two weeks I’ve been finishing up a big project to make DOIs for all the papers published in TAC, and my code takes a while to run. So while testing I would hit “go” and have like 10 minutes to kill… which means it’s time to start...
nanoscale views
How badly has NSF funding already been effectively cut? This NY Times feature lets you see how each piece of NSF's funding has been reduced this year...
a month ago
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a month ago
This NY Times feature lets you see how each piece of NSF's funding has been reduced this year relative to the normalized average spanning in the last decade.  Note: this fiscal year, thanks to the continuing resolution, the actual agency budget has not actually been cut like...
NeuroLogica Blog
Reading The Mind with fMRI and AI This is pretty exciting neuroscience news – Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from...
over a year ago
68
over 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...
Uncharted...
The Latest on Healthcare Research Cancer research, AI in healthcare, aging research, and much more
8 months ago
Quanta Magazine
The Biggest-Ever Digital Camera Is This Cosmologist’s Magnum Opus Tony Tyson’s cameras revealed the universe’s dark contents. Now, with the Rubin Observatory’s...
a week ago
9
a week ago
Tony Tyson’s cameras revealed the universe’s dark contents. Now, with the Rubin Observatory’s 3.2-billion-pixel camera, he’s ready to study dark matter and dark energy in unprecedented detail. The post The Biggest-Ever Digital Camera Is This Cosmologist’s Magnum Opus...
Quantum Frontiers
Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem! In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a...
7 months ago
87
7 months ago
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a River. The Rat explains how the River permeates his life: “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
AI – Is It Time to Panic? I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential as powerful tools. I am also concerned about unintended consequences. As with any really powerful tool, there is the potential for abuse and also disruption. But I also think that...
The Works in...
Rust never sleeps A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes...
a year ago
35
a year ago
In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align. The post New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The Year in Math Landmark results in geometry and number theory marked an exciting year for mathematics, at a time...
7 months ago
117
7 months ago
Landmark results in geometry and number theory marked an exciting year for mathematics, at a time when advances in artificial intelligence are starting to transform the subject’s future. The post The Year in Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
New Whale Fossil – Possibly Heaviest Animal Ever The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale,...
a year ago
20
a year ago
The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale, which is extant today. The blue whale is larger than any dinosaur, even the giant sauropods. The average weight of a blue whale is 160 tons, with the largest specimen being 190 tons,...
IEEE Spectrum
The Invention That Let Fiber Optics Span the Globe Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten:...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten: New Coke, “We Are the World,” the rise of desktop publishing. But one at-the-time obscure invention from that year has long eclipsed the frothy headlines of its time, because it...
Yale E360
Cambodian Forest Defenders at Risk for Exposing Illegal Logging The lush forests that have long sustained Cambodia’s Indigenous people have steadily fallen to...
a month ago
3
a month ago
The lush forests that have long sustained Cambodia’s Indigenous people have steadily fallen to illicit logging. Now, community members face intimidation and risk arrest as they patrol their forests to document the losses and try to push the government to stop the cutting. Read...
NeuroLogica Blog
Gene Editing Chickens to Resist Bird Flu There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat....
a year ago
24
a year ago
There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat. They are a high efficiency source of high quality protein. It’s the kind of thing we need to do if we want to feed 8 billion people. Similarly we have planted 4.62 billion acres of...
Explorations of an...
2024 (Part 1 of 2) Another year has come and gone. As is tradition, I have written a couple of blog posts documenting...
6 months ago
19
6 months ago
Another year has come and gone. As is tradition, I have written a couple of blog posts documenting some of my natural history highlights throughout the year.  January Pre-dawn on January 1, 2024 saw me heading south towards Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia in search of a Gray Heron,...
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
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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...
Sean Carroll
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 23. Criticality and Complexity Spherical cows are important because they let us abstract away all the complications of the real...
over a year ago
62
over a year ago
Spherical cows are important because they let us abstract away all the complications of the real world and think about underlying principles. But what about when the complications are the point? Then we enter the realm of complex systems — which, interestingly, has its own...
ToughSF
Permanent and Perfect Stealth in Space Despite the commonly accepted truth in Hard Science Fiction, spacecraft are able to evade detection...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Despite the commonly accepted truth in Hard Science Fiction, spacecraft are able to evade detection in space in many circumstances. The Hydrogen Steamer was a design that used liquid hydrogen evaporative cooling to keep a non-reflective surface practically invisible.  However,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
OOP’s 2025 Healthcare AI Hackathon Projects | Out-Of-Pocket Copilots for parents, Chaining Agents, Talking to Your Genome, and more.
a month ago
Casey Handmer's blog
To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization [Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
[Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate that we had kicked off the process of recompiling the foundation layer of our entire industrial...
SubAnima
How information and individuality are connected Discrete categorisation of individuals and non-individuals is like herding cats. Thinking about...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Discrete categorisation of individuals and non-individuals is like herding cats. Thinking about individuality more generally offers some solutions
Yale E360
Renewables Did Not Cause Spanish Blackout, Investigations Find In the aftermath of a massive blackout that hit Spain and Portugal in April, some pundits were quick...
4 weeks ago
11
4 weeks ago
In the aftermath of a massive blackout that hit Spain and Portugal in April, some pundits were quick to blame wind and solar for the loss of power. But official inquiries have found that a shortfall in conventional power led to the outages. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
Severe Cold Spells May Persist Because of Warming, Not in Spite of It Huge swaths of North America are facing subfreezing temperatures this week as cold Arctic air pushes...
6 months ago
1
6 months ago
Huge swaths of North America are facing subfreezing temperatures this week as cold Arctic air pushes southward. Paradoxically, such cold spells may persist or even become more common as the planet warms, scientists say. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More weird rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket 3 liters of blood, sequential billing, COBRA, and more
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Factory Farming is Better Than Organic Farming Some narratives are simply ubiquitous in our culture (every culture has its universal narratives)....
7 months ago
79
7 months ago
Some narratives are simply ubiquitous in our culture (every culture has its universal narratives). Sometimes these narratives emerge out of shared values, like liberty and freedom. Sometimes they emerge out of foundational beliefs (the US still has a puritanical bent). And...
Quanta Magazine
How the Ancient Art of Eclipse Prediction Became an Exact Science The timing of the total eclipse on April 8, 2024, will be known to within a second, thousands of...
a year ago
66
a year ago
The timing of the total eclipse on April 8, 2024, will be known to within a second, thousands of years after fearful humans first started trying to anticipate these cosmic events. The post How the Ancient Art of Eclipse Prediction Became an Exact Science first...
Eukaryote Writes...
A love letter to civilian OSINT What is civilian OSINT, and could it be used altruistically?
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
A Brief History of Tricky Mathematical Tiling The discovery earlier this year of the “hat” tile marked the culmination of hundreds of years of...
a year ago
63
a year ago
The discovery earlier this year of the “hat” tile marked the culmination of hundreds of years of work into tiles and their symmetries. The post A Brief History of Tricky Mathematical Tiling first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
9 months ago
15
9 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...
Cremieux Recueil
Storks Take Orders From the State Pronatal benefits and economic booms lead to greater numbers of births
2 months ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Dittemore’s Law A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror...
6 months ago
62
6 months ago
A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center in Florida commemorates the 25 US astronauts who have died in flight.  Ron Dittemore is the retired former Space Shuttle program manager who was...
NeuroLogica Blog
Let’s Talk About Cement Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production...
a year ago
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a year ago
Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production (25%) and transportation (28%). We talk a lot about transportation and energy, but industrial carbon is a harder nut to crack. Also, the 23% is direct carbon release from industrial...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Decentralizing Journals and Peer Review DAOs | Out-Of-Pocket the evolution of legitimacy in scientific publishing
a year ago
The Works in...
Gentrification as a housing problem The root cause of displacement is inflexible supply
a year ago
Asterisk
Michael Lewis’s Blind Side In Going Infinite, the famed chronicler of American finance proves he’s more interested in myths...
a year ago
21
a year ago
In Going Infinite, the famed chronicler of American finance proves he’s more interested in myths than morals — or even math.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How To Self-Publish A Children's Book and How Much You Can Expect To Make | Out-Of-Pocket spoiler: you will make very little lol
a year ago
Melting Asphalt
Social Status II: Cults and Loyalty So my previous post on social status was recently treated to a review/​critique by Scott Alexander...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
So my previous post on social status was recently treated to a review/​critique by Scott Alexander over at Slate Star Codex. I expect most of my readers are already big fans of Scott's blog (as am I). But for those… Read more ›
Breck's Blog
Movement
3 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Yet Another Teladongo Take | Out-Of-Pocket You haven't read enough of them
a year ago
Yale E360
'Green Grab': Solar and Wind Boom Sparks Conflicts on Land Use Solar and wind farms are proliferating and increasingly taking up land worldwide, prompting...
4 months ago
3
4 months ago
Solar and wind farms are proliferating and increasingly taking up land worldwide, prompting criticism from rural communities and environmentalists. Solutions range from growing crops or grazing livestock under PV panels to putting floating solar farms on lakes and...
Quanta Magazine
Clashing Cosmic Numbers Challenge Our Best Theory of the Universe As measurements of distant stars and galaxies become more precise, cosmologists are struggling to...
a year ago
54
a year ago
As measurements of distant stars and galaxies become more precise, cosmologists are struggling to make sense of sparring values. The post Clashing Cosmic Numbers Challenge Our Best Theory of the Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI for Teaching A recent BBC article reminded me of one of my enduring technology disappointments over the last 40...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
A recent BBC article reminded me of one of my enduring technology disappointments over the last 40 years – the failure of the educational system to reasonably (let alone fully) leverage multimedia and computer technology to enhance learning. The article is about a symposium in...
Confessions of a...
Marine Ecology or Marine Biology….what’s the difference!?!?!? A few of you may be wondering why the blog is called ‘Confessions of a Marine Ecologist” and not...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
A few of you may be wondering why the blog is called ‘Confessions of a Marine Ecologist” and not ‘Confessions of a Marine Biologist”.  After all, if you ask a group of school kids what they want to be when they grow up, more than a handful would happily answer “marine biologist”,...
Yale E360
In Europe, Solar Power Overtakes Coal For the first time in the EU, solar supplied more power than coal did last year, a new analysis...
5 months ago
5
5 months ago
For the first time in the EU, solar supplied more power than coal did last year, a new analysis finds. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Samuel Hughes on The Great Downzoning Episode one of The Works in Progress Podcast is out now
3 weeks ago
Sean Carroll
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a new book out! The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion is Volume One of a planned three-volume series. It grew out of the videos that I did in 2020, trying to offer...
wadertales
How are migration sites connected? Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
6 months ago
119
6 months ago
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering locations linked? Forty-four authors have collaborated to bring together ringing, colour-ringing and GPS tracking data in a paper entitled Site-level connectivity identified from...
Yale E360
Warming Brings Heavy Snowfall to Greenland, Replenishing Some Lost Ice A single storm in 2022 dumped enough snow on Greenland to replace 8 percent of ice lost that year....
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
A single storm in 2022 dumped enough snow on Greenland to replace 8 percent of ice lost that year. With warming, the Arctic is seeing stronger atmospheric rivers, which could deliver enough snow to slow the loss of ice, according to a new study. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How are hospitals actually organized | Out-Of-Pocket We’re gonna need a whiteboard for this one
5 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What does Innovaccer actually do? A look under the hood | Out-Of-Pocket A conversation about EHRs, who their customers actually are, and building apps
a month ago
Yale E360
Extreme Heat May Cause People to Age Faster New research suggests that extreme heat may cause people to age faster at a molecular level. Read...
7 months ago
5
7 months ago
New research suggests that extreme heat may cause people to age faster at a molecular level. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
Why U.S. Geothermal May Advance, Despite Political Headwinds The Trump administration is outwardly hostile to clean energy sourced from solar and wind. But...
3 weeks ago
3
3 weeks ago
The Trump administration is outwardly hostile to clean energy sourced from solar and wind. But thanks to close ties to the fossil fuel industry and new technological breakthroughs, U.S. geothermal power may survive the GOP assaults on support for renewables and even thrive. Read...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Euclid Space Telescope Delivers Great Images The first images are coming in from the new Euclid Space Telescope and they are spectacular. The...
a year ago
28
a year ago
The first images are coming in from the new Euclid Space Telescope and they are spectacular. The post Euclid Space Telescope Delivers Great Images appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Interaction Magic -...
The last design you'll ever make Designing from cradle to grave is no longer good enough. We need to postpone that grave as long as...
over a year ago
16
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.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Problem with Self-Diagnosis The recent discussions about autism have been fascinating, partly because there is a robust...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
The recent discussions about autism have been fascinating, partly because there is a robust neurodiversity community who have very deep, personal, and thoughtful opinions about the whole thing. One of the issues that has come up after we discussed this on the SGU was that of...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Fight over Education There is an ongoing culture war, and not just in the US, over the content of childhood education,...
over a year ago
128
over a year ago
There is an ongoing culture war, and not just in the US, over the content of childhood education, both public and private. This seems to be flaring up recently, but is never truly gone. Republicans in the US have recently escalated this war by banning over 500 books in several...
Quanta Magazine
The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have...
a month ago
15
a month ago
By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have made great strides toward building a “grand unified theory” of math. The post The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Heat and Fire Making Pollution Worse Across Much of the U.S. By several measures, air pollution is getting worse in the U.S., a trend due in large part to more...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
By several measures, air pollution is getting worse in the U.S., a trend due in large part to more severe heat and wildfires, according to a new report. Read more on E360 →
Wanderingspace
Uranus is not as boring as we thought “An animation of three near-infrared images of Uranus captured by the JWST Space Telescope with...
7 months ago
74
7 months ago
“An animation of three near-infrared images of Uranus captured by the JWST Space Telescope with assigned representative colors. During processing, I aligned the rings separately to reduce the bubbling effect caused by different inclinations, making the planet appear to rotate on...
NeuroLogica Blog
Converting CO2 to Carbon Nanofibers One of the dreams of a green economy where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is stable, and not...
a year ago
39
a year ago
One of the dreams of a green economy where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is stable, and not slowly increasing, is the ability to draw CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it to a solid form. Often referred to as carbon capture, some form of this is going to be necessary...
Yale E360
Grass-Fed Beef No Better for Climate Than Industrial Beef, Study Finds New research finds that, pound for pound, grazing cattle generate at least as much heat-trapping gas...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
New research finds that, pound for pound, grazing cattle generate at least as much heat-trapping gas as those raised in feedlots. Read more on E360 →
Damn Interesting
Hunting For Kobyla On a January day in 1964, something remarkable happened: Simon Wiesenthal took the afternoon off. He...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
On a January day in 1964, something remarkable happened: Simon Wiesenthal took the afternoon off. He parked himself at a table on the terrace of Tel Aviv’s Café Roval, soaking up the sunshine as if he wished to bottle it. The friend he’d come to meet was late, but Wiesenthal had...
Yale E360
How African Communities Are Taking Lead on Protecting Wildlife A new analysis shows that African wildlife increasingly depend on lands managed by villagers and...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
A new analysis shows that African wildlife increasingly depend on lands managed by villagers and herders. In many areas, locally-run conservancies now more effectively protect wildlife than national parks do, with communities reaping tourism revenue and other benefits. Read more...
IEEE Spectrum
How Antivirus Software Has Changed With the Internet We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the...
6 months ago
71
6 months ago
We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the Internet itself: The first version of what would become McAfee antivirus came out in 1987—just four years after the Internet booted up. For many of us, antivirus software is an...
Stephen Wolfram...
Ruliology of the “Forgotten” Code 10 My All-Time Favorite Science Discovery June 1, 1984—forty years ago today—is when it would be fair...
a year ago
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a year ago
My All-Time Favorite Science Discovery June 1, 1984—forty years ago today—is when it would be fair to say I made my all-time favorite science discovery. Like with basically all significant science discoveries (despite the way histories often present them) it didn’t happen without...
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
23
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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How should physicians get paid? | Out-Of-Pocket Should money and care be separate?
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
How Much Carbon do Living Things Store? Since we are in a “all hands on deck” situation when it comes to climate change, we need to take a...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
Since we are in a “all hands on deck” situation when it comes to climate change, we need to take a look at all potential strategies for delaying and blunting global warming. The game at this point is all about peak warming – how much will the Earth warm before temperatures peak...
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
30
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,...
The Works in...
History is in the making It's technology and ideas, not politics, that change our lives the most. History should reflect...
7 months ago
Drew Ex Machina
Top Ten Posts of 2023 Now that we are at the end of 2023, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Now that we are at the end of 2023, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see […]
Breck's Blog
The Internal Comparison Trap
2 months ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Potentially undervalued companies I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies...
10 months ago
29
10 months ago
I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies developing them. 90% of the time, my answer is “I don’t know” but it continues to concern me that aspects of technical feasibility are evidently not legible to financial types (and...
Quanta Magazine
Hyperjumps Math Game Play Quanta Magazine’s daily interactive math game, Hyperjumps! The post Hyperjumps Math...
a year ago
47
a year ago
Play Quanta Magazine’s daily interactive math game, Hyperjumps! The post Hyperjumps Math Game first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Did Climate Change Help Fuel the Los Angeles Wildfires? Wildfires in Southern California have burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
Wildfires in Southern California have burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of buildings, and killed at least 10 people. Experts say global warming may have set the stage for the catastrophic blazes. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Deep South – A Neuromorphic Supercomputer Australian researchers at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Australian researchers at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney University have announced they are building what they are calling Deep South (based on IBM’s Deep Blue). This will be the world’s largest neuromorphic supercomputer, with 228...
Interaction Magic -...
Engineering beneath the ice sheet Living in Greenland, deploying electronic beacons deep beneath the ice.
7 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Politicians We Deserve This is an interesting concept, with an interesting history, and I have heard it quoted many times...
3 months ago
30
3 months ago
This is an interesting concept, with an interesting history, and I have heard it quoted many times recently – “we get the politicians (or government) we deserve.” It is often invoked to imply that voters are responsible for the malfeasance or general failings of their elected...
The Works in...
The asbestos times How asbestos saved cities, before we realized its risks
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept...
over a year ago
143
over a year ago
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon. The post Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Pressure Altitude Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
a year ago
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour to Colombia: Tour Extension To Los Llanos The topography of Colombia is dominated by the Andes. While manifested as a single mountain range...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
The topography of Colombia is dominated by the Andes. While manifested as a single mountain range from Ecuador southwards, the mountains split into three ranges (or cordilleras) near the Colombia/Ecuador border, and these three ranges span the length of Colombia from this...
brr
Redeployment Part Three Off-continent after 446 days!
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
How Distillation Makes AI Models Smaller and Cheaper Fundamental technique lets researchers use a big, expensive “teacher” model to train a “student”...
9 hours ago
2
9 hours ago
Fundamental technique lets researchers use a big, expensive “teacher” model to train a “student” model for less. The post How Distillation Makes AI Models Smaller and Cheaper first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
The Illogic of Nuclear Escalation How much is enough? It’s the most basic question in the nuclear arms race. For over sixty years, few...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
How much is enough? It’s the most basic question in the nuclear arms race. For over sixty years, few have asked it, and even fewer have received an answer.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How to analyze public healthcare datasets (even if you're non-technical) | Out-Of-Pocket Plus: using ChatGPT to analyze datasets?
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent...
a year ago
103
a year ago
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent parts. A new framework has researchers hopeful that a solution is near. The post The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Casey Handmer's blog
Salton Sea statistics I wanted to gain better insights into the Salton Sea level, evaporation, inflows and outflows. Step...
6 months ago
57
6 months ago
I wanted to gain better insights into the Salton Sea level, evaporation, inflows and outflows. Step one was to gather publicly available data about its level, and collate it into a single graph. Here we see that despite the continual formation of Salton Sea advisory committees,...
Melting Asphalt
Going Critical Background: This is an interactive blog post. I wanted to host it here, but don't know how to make...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
Background: This is an interactive blog post. I wanted to host it here, but don't know how to make it play nice with WordPress. So I decided to host it on another part of the site instead. Click here for… Read more ›
Quanta Magazine
Cells Across the Body Talk to Each Other About Aging Biologists discovered that mitochondria in different tissues talk to each other to repair injured...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Biologists discovered that mitochondria in different tissues talk to each other to repair injured cells. When their signal fails, the biological clock starts winding down. The post Cells Across the Body Talk to Each Other About Aging first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Particle Beams in Space Science fiction is missing a realistic and grounded look at particle beams. We plan to do just that...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Science fiction is missing a realistic and grounded look at particle beams. We plan to do just that now.   After reading this, you might decide to give particle beams their rightful place alongside lasers as a means of transmitting power, propelling spacecraft or dealing damage...