Uncharted...
Warm Countries’ Poverty & Mountains: Responses to Your Comments
Geographic arguments against the theory: Switzerland, Austria, Colorado, India, Cambodia, Indonesia,...
1st Oct 2025
Geographic arguments against the theory: Switzerland, Austria, Colorado, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, China…Has race had any role in warm countries’ poverty?Does this disregard colonialism?
nanoscale views
FY27 Presidential budget request
To the surprise of no one at all, the 2027 presidential budget request is extremely bad for...
3rd Apr 2026
To the surprise of no one at all, the 2027 presidential budget request is extremely bad for science. Remember, this is largely a political document, and Congress does not have to follow this. In the past year, Congress largely ignored the recommendations and appropriated a much...
Uncharted...
Peak Oil Is Coming
In early markets, hybrids always prevail because there’s not enough electric infrastructure. As it...
3rd Feb 2026
In early markets, hybrids always prevail because there’s not enough electric infrastructure. As it develops and people can charge their cars more easily, the share of EVs increases.
wadertales
Four eggs or five?
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their...
6th Mar 2026
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their pointed ends in the middle, as illiustrated in the Ringed Plover nest alongside. There has been an assumption that this is an optimum arrangement for incubation, with strong...
The Quanta Podcast
Mongrel Microbe Tests Story of Complex Life
A newly discovered class of microbe could help to resolve one of the biggest and most controversial...
12th Nov 2015
A newly discovered class of microbe could help to resolve one of the biggest and most controversial mysteries in evolution — how simple microbes transformed into the complex cells that produced animals, plants and fungi.
The post Mongrel Microbe Tests Story of Complex...
Uncharted...
How AI Will Change Media
Work with me to make it happen
3rd Apr 2026
Work with me to make it happen
Probably...
Multiple Regression with StatsModels
This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
4th Dec 2024
This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 10, which is about multiple regression. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab. In the previous...
Explorations of an...
The Gambia, Part 1 of 2
In November I visited The Gambia along with ten travellers from Quest Nature Tours. Why The Gambia,...
19th Dec 2025
In November I visited The Gambia along with ten travellers from Quest Nature Tours. Why The Gambia, you may ask? This tiny country is not well-known to the international community, but it is an attractive ecotourism destination. The Gambia is a stable, English-speaking democracy...
Apoorva Srinivasan
getting started with bayesian inference
In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the...
27th Jun 2020
In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the method that is commonly taught in STAT101 classes. But for many decades, some statisticians have argued for another approach to conduct statistical analysis based on bayes...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: The stats gap
Students understand just enough statistics to get by
4th Jan 2023
Students understand just enough statistics to get by
Works in Progress...
Samurai city
For three hundred years, Japan enjoyed enviable stability and peace. All it took was locking up its...
2nd Jun 2026
For three hundred years, Japan enjoyed enviable stability and peace. All it took was locking up its warlike samurai elite in the world’s least efficient city.
Long Now
George Dyson, Freeman Dyson, & Esther Dyson: The Difficulty of Looking Far Ahead
### Finessing the future
Instead of one podium there were four chairs on the stage of Wednesday's...
6th Oct 2005
### Finessing the future
Instead of one podium there were four chairs on the stage of Wednesday's seminar. In three seats, three Dysons: Esther, George and Freeman. They were appearing together on stage for the first time. The fourth held Stewart Brand who led the three through...
Quanta Magazine
Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine...
2nd Oct 2023
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to mRNA vaccines, such as those that protect against COVID-19.
The post Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023 first appeared on...
The Quanta Podcast
New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning
A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms...
1st Mar 2018
A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms — and might also explain how human brains learn.
The post New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Inverted Passion
Why aren’t things changing faster?
Been wondering lately that given everyone has a consultant with all the world’s knowledge in their...
4th May 2026
Been wondering lately that given everyone has a consultant with all the world’s knowledge in their pockets, we should be seeing efficiency rise across the board everywhere. Literally everyone can now get personalised advise on how to serve their customers better, improve quality...
The Roots of...
Links and short notes, 2025-12-19
The links digest is back, baby!
I got so busy writing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto this year that...
20th Dec 2025
The links digest is back, baby!
I got so busy writing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto this year that after May I stopped doing the links digest and my monthly reading updates. I’m bringing them back now (although we’ll see what frequency I can keep up). This one covers the last two...
Works in Progress...
Against the survival of the prettiest
Many modern buildings put up today seem uglier than traditional ones around them. Some say this is...
21st Jan 2022
Many modern buildings put up today seem uglier than traditional ones around them. Some say this is because we’ve torn down the ugly old buildings, and only see the survivors. Are they right?
Quantum Frontiers
Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem!
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a...
28th Nov 2024
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a River. The Rat explains how the River permeates his life: “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, … Continue reading →
Long Now
Bruce Sterling: The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole
One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is because technology keeps...
12th Jun 2004
One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is because technology keeps accelerating so rapidly, we assume the world will become unrecognizable in a few years and then move on to unimaginable. Long-term thinking must be either impossible or irrelevant.
The...
Yale E360
In Indonesia’s Rainforest, a Mega-Farm Project Is Plowing Ahead
The Indonesian government is fast-tracking a massive agricultural project that is turning 7 million...
2nd Sep 2025
The Indonesian government is fast-tracking a massive agricultural project that is turning 7 million acres of tropical forest into rice and sugarcane farms. Critics say it is the world’s largest deforestation project and would upend the lives of thousands of Indigenous...
ToughSF
Fusion Highways in Space
A transport system that can get spacecraft to Jupiter in 10 days, but without a massive onboard...
11th Mar 2021
A transport system that can get spacecraft to Jupiter in 10 days, but without a massive onboard reactor, using antimatter fuel or riding a gigantic laser beam?
What we need instead is a Fusion Highway to connect the Solar System in unprecedented ways.
The art above is by...
Chris Grossack's...
Where Do Those Undergraduate Divisibility Problems Come From?
Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class
or something...
16th Jan 2025
Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class
or something similar, you’ll be shown problems of the form “prove that for
$n^6 + n^3 + 2n^2 + 2n$ is a multiple of $6$ for every $n$”… But where do
these problems come from? And have you ever...
Long Now
The Refugee Reality: Thinking Long-term About the Evolving Global Challenge
With a complex and truly global problem like this, we can only scratch the surface in an hour. But...
1st Oct 2017
With a complex and truly global problem like this, we can only scratch the surface in an hour. But we hoped to reframe some aspects and include perspectives not always heard. What's certain is this is a long-term problem that has been ongoing and looks likely to worsen due to...
Apoorva Srinivasan
an experiment in navigating the knowledge frontier beyond search
Lately, I've been experimenting with interfaces for large language models (LLMs) in my free time....
21st Nov 2023
Lately, I've been experimenting with interfaces for large language models (LLMs) in my free time. The fruit of this labor is something I'm calling "curie," an exploratory and sense-making tool designed to navigate complex topics.
0:00
...
NeuroLogica Blog
Harvesting Energy from Water Vapor
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about...
1st Jun 2023
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about it. UMASS researchers have produced a device that generates electricity by harvesting charge from water vapor. They write: The common feature of these materials is that they are...
Works in Progress...
Why housing shortages cause homelessness
Why do high-cost cities have more homelessness? It’s not just about rents — it’s also about the...
5th Dec 2024
Why do high-cost cities have more homelessness? It’s not just about rents — it’s also about the rooms friends and family can’t afford to share.
Inverted Passion
Why frontier labs are scaling-pilled
Investors underwrite scaling laws because the alternative (having an Einstein discover better...
14th Jul 2026
Investors underwrite scaling laws because the alternative (having an Einstein discover better algorithms) is high variance What would it take to make progress towards general intelligence, where general stands for any problem that might arise in our world? Since our world is big...
Light from Space
The Rosette Nebula
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring...
26th Feb 2023
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring astrophotographer. Located not too far from Orion in Monoceros, this large H II region has spectacular features, centered around a star cluster.
Click or tap to...
Works in Progress...
Local warming
Gas heating is bad for the environment. But home-built heat pumps aren’t perfect either.
21st Apr 2022
Gas heating is bad for the environment. But home-built heat pumps aren’t perfect either.
Probably...
Think DSP second edition
I have started work on a second edition of Think DSP! You can see the current draft here. I started...
4th Nov 2025
I have started work on a second edition of Think DSP! You can see the current draft here. I started this project in part because of this announcement: Once in a while, a few of the Scicloj friends will meet to learn about signal processing, following the Think DSP book by Allen...
Sean Carroll
331 | Solo: Fine-Tuning, God, and the Multiverse
Certain features of our universe seem unnatural to us. These include "constants of nature" such as...
6th Oct 2025
Certain features of our universe seem unnatural to us. These include "constants of nature" such as the cosmological constant and […]
The Quanta Podcast
The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound...
2nd Sep 2021
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics.
The post The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
Fast Fact Check: Does Hep B Vaccination Cause Autism?
Obviously not
5th Mar 2026
Andrew Fraknoi –...
A Nice (Almost Total) Eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27
How to get information about viewing the eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27
The post A Nice (Almost Total)...
3 weeks ago
How to get information about viewing the eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27
The post A Nice (Almost Total) Eclipse of the Moon Aug. 27 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
The Quanta Podcast
Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start
A series of fossil finds suggests that life on Earth started earlier than anyone thought, calling...
5th Jul 2018
A series of fossil finds suggests that life on Earth started earlier than anyone thought, calling into question a widely held theory of the solar system’s beginnings.
The post Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Climate Change Trends and Thoughts
Climate change is a challenging issue on multiple levels – it’s challenging for scientists to...
2nd Dec 2024
Climate change is a challenging issue on multiple levels – it’s challenging for scientists to understand all of the complexities of a changing climate, it’s difficult to know how to optimally communicate to the public about climate change, and of course we face an enormous...
Peder M. Isager
Why does correlation not equal causation?
In this blog post I will explain why it makes sense to think about causal explanations when we see...
24th Nov 2023
In this blog post I will explain why it makes sense to think about causal explanations when we see correlation, why correlation does not always imply causation, and which alternative causal models to consider when you are trying to figure out why two variables in your data are...
Long Now
Renée DiResta: Disinformation Technology: How Online Propaganda Campaigns Are Influencing Us
Clandestine influence campaigns are rampant on social media. Whether pushing Russian agitprop or...
6th Apr 2020
Clandestine influence campaigns are rampant on social media. Whether pushing Russian agitprop or lies about vaccines, they can impact policy and make us question what is true. A technologist, Wall Street veteran, and citizen advisor to Congress, DiResta told us how bad it is and...
Long Now
Kim Stanley Robinson: Learning From Le Guin
The legacy of [Ursula K Le Guin](http://www.ursulakleguin.com/) lives beyond the page in generations...
12th Jul 2019
The legacy of [Ursula K Le Guin](http://www.ursulakleguin.com/) lives beyond the page in generations of writers who have learned from her. She used fantastic fiction to imagine ideals for the real world. Kim Stanley Robinson, her student 40 years ago and now a celebrated science...
Conservation...
What on Earth is ‘sustainable’ coffee?
15th Aug 2024
The Quanta Podcast
The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information. ...
4th Feb 2021
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information.
The post The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart AIs Are?
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the...
1st Jun 2023
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the same mistakes with AI?
Long Now
Sander van der Leeuw: The Archaeology of Innovation
### History of Innovation
The development of human mental ability can be tracked through the...
19th Nov 2009
### History of Innovation
The development of human mental ability can be tracked through the progressive crafting of stone tools, Van der Leeuw explained. First we learned to shape an edge---a line---then the surface, then the whole volume of the tool, then the sophisticated...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Patient Messaging Conundrum pt. 2 | Out-Of-Pocket
Some thoughts from an academic, a behavioral scientist, a patient, and more
3rd Oct 2023
Some thoughts from an academic, a behavioral scientist, a patient, and more
Casey Handmer's blog
Direct Current Data Centers
Casey Handmer, Matt Weickert Originally posted at the Terraform Blog. This post explains our current...
30th Jan 2026
Casey Handmer, Matt Weickert Originally posted at the Terraform Blog. This post explains our current views on how humanity will achieve Kardashev Level 1 status by exploiting the full energy resources of an entire planet. More specifically, how pure solar+batteries will power AI...
The Quanta Podcast
The New History of the Milky Way
Over the past two years, astronomers have rewritten the story of our galaxy.
The post...
4th Mar 2021
Over the past two years, astronomers have rewritten the story of our galaxy.
The post The New History of the Milky Way first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
The Dream: The First Probe to the Moon
The past decade or so has seen a marked increase in interest to reach the Moon for exploration as...
2nd Jan 2024
The past decade or so has seen a marked increase in interest to reach the Moon for exploration as well as the potential exploitation of its […]
Quantum Frontiers
The Book of Mark
Mark Srednicki doesn’t look like a high priest. He’s a professor of physics at the University of...
9th Jul 2023
Mark Srednicki doesn’t look like a high priest. He’s a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB); and you’ll sooner find him in khakis than in sacred vestments. Humor suits his round face better than channeling … Continue reading →
Cremieux Recueil
Why America’s Racial Poverty Statistics Are a Lesson for Researchers
What if a single government employee could tell you an entire literature was wrong?
26th Aug 2024
What if a single government employee could tell you an entire literature was wrong?
The Quanta Podcast
The Art of Teaching Math and Science
The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational...
26th Jan 2017
The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational theory. What can we learn from the best teachers on the front lines?
The post The Art of Teaching Math and Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Damn Interesting
The Rube’s Dilemma
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly...
28th Oct 2022
It all started with a hat. A straw boater, to be precise, with a flat, round brim and brightly colored ribbon tied around the crown. Originally popularized by gondoliers in Venice, this jaunty accessory had reached the height of American couture by the turn of the 20th century....
The Quanta Podcast
The Case Against Dark Matter
A proposed theory of gravity does away with dark matter, even as new astrophysical findings...
8th Dec 2016
A proposed theory of gravity does away with dark matter, even as new astrophysical findings challenge the need for galaxies full of the invisible mystery particles.
The post The Case Against Dark Matter first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Common healthcare questions I get | Out-Of-Pocket
Some of your FAQs finally answered
4th Dec 2024
Some of your FAQs finally answered
Casey Handmer's blog
Sierras Projects
A short post where I collate some info related to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, various...
15th Aug 2025
A short post where I collate some info related to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, various aspirational objectives and questions. Table Mountain Traverse Table Mountain is at the north west edge of the Kern River basin. It has numerous third and fourth class routes. I...
Sean Carroll
367 | Jared Diamond on the Course of History and the Role of Leaders
The course of history is affected by many things, including the political and social situations of...
a week ago
The course of history is affected by many things, including the political and social situations of large groups of people, […]
Works in Progress...
Steam networks
New York’s skyscrapers soar above a century-old steam network that still warms the city. While the...
13th Mar 2025
New York’s skyscrapers soar above a century-old steam network that still warms the city. While the rest of the world moved to hot water, Manhattanites still buy steam by the megapound.
Asterisk
The Highway to NIMBYism
San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up...
1st May 2024
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.
NeuroLogica Blog
It’s Just A Correlation
Did you know that the number of Google searches for cat memes correlates tightly (P-value < 0.01)...
5th Aug 2025
Did you know that the number of Google searches for cat memes correlates tightly (P-value < 0.01) with England’s performance in cricket World Cups? What’s going on here? Is interest in funny cat videos driven by the excitement created by cricket victories. Perhaps cat memes are...
Cremieux Recueil
The Boring Reason GDP is Inevitable
GDP is a reviled metric, but it's highly correlated with everything we care about. I explain one...
17th Dec 2025
GDP is a reviled metric, but it's highly correlated with everything we care about. I explain one mathematical reason why.
Quantum Frontiers
Little ray of sunshine
A common saying goes, you should never meet your heroes, because they’ll disappoint you. But you...
28th Jul 2025
A common saying goes, you should never meet your heroes, because they’ll disappoint you. But you shouldn’t trust every common saying; some heroes impress you more, the better you know them. Ray Laflamme was such a hero. I first heard … Continue reading →
Many Worlds
Many Worlds Archive is Available
I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column — sponsored by NASA’s NExSS...
14th Nov 2023
I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column — sponsored by NASA’s NExSS initiative and the Lunar & Planetary Institute — for almost eight years. But the run came to an end in October. Now an archive of the more than 400 columns is easily available at...
Long Now
Rachel Sussman: The World's Oldest Living Organisms
### The Missing Science of Biological Longevity
Creative photographer Sussman showed beautiful...
16th Nov 2010
### The Missing Science of Biological Longevity
Creative photographer Sussman showed beautiful slides of very elderly organisms. The captions were as crucial as the images---naming the species, the place, and the approximate age. You can see many of them here:...
Willem Pennings
ClockSquared improvements
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply...
4th Feb 2023
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply called the “Birthday word clock”. I haven’t spent much time on the project in recent years, but I’ve upgraded the internals a while ago and finally felt like writing a post about it....
John Salvatier
If only we had taller been
Ray Bradbury once explained with a poem why he writes science fiction and why space travel is so...
4th Mar 2017
Ray Bradbury once explained with a poem why he writes science fiction and why space travel is so important to him. It is perhaps my favorite poem.
Text version:
The fence we walked between the years
We ached and almost touched that stuff;
O, Thomas, will a Race one day stand...
Many Worlds
Preparing For The Habitable Worlds Observatory, Our Best Shot at Finding ET Life
In a solar system far, far away, life of some sort is just waiting to be found. Or so the world of...
17th Oct 2023
In a solar system far, far away, life of some sort is just waiting to be found. Or so the world of astrobiology sure hopes it is. The new player in the astrobiology world, now called the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), is planned to launch in the 2040s if all goes well. ...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Bicycle
There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling...
28th Mar 2023
There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling to move forward and turning the handlebars to steer makes bike riding an effortless activity. In the demonstration below, you can guide the rider with the slider, and you can also...
Eukaryote Writes...
The rare, deadly virus lurking in the Southwest US, and the bigger picture
If you live in this one county in California, you might be more likely to die from Sin Nombre Virus...
14th Nov 2025
If you live in this one county in California, you might be more likely to die from Sin Nombre Virus than in a car crash.
Long Now
Lynn Rothschild: Nature’s Hardware Store
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been...
5th Nov 2025
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been invented by nature? In this forward-looking talk, evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist Dr. Lynn Rothschild explores how life’s patterns, materials, and mechanisms, refined over...
Uncharted...
How to Beat Cancer with Viruses: An Interview with Beata Halassy
How viruses kill cancers, which viruses to use, how many injections, at what stage of the cancer,...
1st Oct 2024
How viruses kill cancers, which viruses to use, how many injections, at what stage of the cancer, and much more
The Quanta Podcast
Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay
Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that...
2nd Feb 2017
Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that the forces of nature were unified at the beginning of time.
The post Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Roots of...
Progress for progressives
I was invited to speak at the Festival of Progressive Abundance, a conference to rally around...
2nd Feb 2026
I was invited to speak at the Festival of Progressive Abundance, a conference to rally around “abundance” as a new direction for the political left. This is a writeup of what I said: my message to the left.
Thank you for having me—it’s great to be here. I’m the founder and...
wadertales
Making full use of tracking data
This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are...
6th May 2025
This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are being revealed through shorebird tracking work and to encourage scientists to make their data available via the Global Wader platform. If small numbers of waders are going to be...
Quantum Frontiers
Let gravity do its work
One day, early this spring, I found myself in a hotel elevator with three other people. The cohort...
13th May 2024
One day, early this spring, I found myself in a hotel elevator with three other people. The cohort consisted of two theoretical physicists, one computer scientist, and what appeared to be a normal person. I pressed the elevator’s 4 button, … Continue reading →
The Quanta Podcast
The Grand Unified Theory of Rogue Waves
Rogue waves — enigmatic giants of the sea — were thought to be caused by two different mechanisms....
5th Nov 2020
Rogue waves — enigmatic giants of the sea — were thought to be caused by two different mechanisms. But a new idea that borrows from the hinterlands of probability theory has the potential to predict them all.
The post The Grand Unified Theory of Rogue Waves first...
IEEE Spectrum
Fakes: Not an Internet Thing, a Human Thing
Every day, as the Internet becomes more indispensable to modern life, the drawbacks of deep...
15th Dec 2023
Every day, as the Internet becomes more indispensable to modern life, the drawbacks of deep engagement with the virtual realm capture as much attention as the wide-ranging benefits. On the Internet, of course, anyone can in all too many forums pretty much say anything—regardless...
The Quanta Podcast
AI Filters Will Always Have Holes
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But...
6th Jan 2026
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But users have long played a cat-and-mouse game to try to trick language models into providing forbidden information. Just as quickly as these “jailbreaks” appear, AI companies patch them...
The Quanta Podcast
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a...
12th Apr 2018
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors.
The post A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Conservation...
Climate Week: Money, nature and what really matters
14th May 2024
Long Now
Frans Lanting: Life's Journey Through Time
### The deep past in the remote present
It began on a New Jersey beach. Frans Lanting was...
28th Apr 2007
### The deep past in the remote present
It began on a New Jersey beach. Frans Lanting was photographing horseshoe crabs for a story about how they are being ground up for eel bait and at the same time their blood is used for drug testing--a $100 million industry. The crabs have...
brr
The Last Egg
Five more months until freshies...
9th Jun 2023
Five more months until freshies...
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...
4th Oct 2023
These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed forces.
Long Now
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his...
27th Jan 2007
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time...
Works in Progress...
The decline and fall of the British economy
When America’s economy overtook Britain’s a century ago, it remade the world order. How it happened...
21st Jul 2022
When America’s economy overtook Britain’s a century ago, it remade the world order. How it happened is still debated.
The Works in...
The San Diego infinite housing glitch
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
2nd Oct 2024
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
Quanta Magazine
Merging Fields, Mathematicians Go the Distance On Old Problem
Mathematicians have illuminated what sets of points can look like if the distances between them are...
1st Apr 2024
Mathematicians have illuminated what sets of points can look like if the distances between them are all whole numbers.
The post Merging Fields, Mathematicians Go the Distance On Old Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
Government Comic Books
Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and...
27th Nov 2023
Government comics have taught Americans how to prevent forest fires, survive a nuclear blast, and how soldiers should handle homosexuality in the military.
Stephen Wolfram...
What’s Special about Life? Bulk Orchestration and the Rulial Ensemble in Biology and Beyond
Towards a Theory of Bulk Orchestration
It’s a key feature of living systems, perhaps even in some...
11th Nov 2025
Towards a Theory of Bulk Orchestration
It’s a key feature of living systems, perhaps even in some ways the key feature: that even right down to a molecular scale, things are orchestrated. Molecules (or at least large ones) don’t just move around randomly, like in a liquid or a...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, July–August 2023
A quasi-monthly feature (I skipped it last month, so this is a double portion).
This is a longish...
7th Aug 2023
A quasi-monthly feature (I skipped it last month, so this is a double portion).
This is a longish post covering many topics; feel free to skim and skip around. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in my links digests.
These updates are less...
The Quanta Podcast
How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too
Computer scientists have come up with a bounded algorithm that can fairly divide a cake among any...
10th Nov 2016
Computer scientists have come up with a bounded algorithm that can fairly divide a cake among any number of people.
The post How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Roman Krznaric: Becoming a Better Ancestor
Human beings have an astonishing evolutionary gift: agile imaginations that can shift in an instant...
18th Nov 2020
Human beings have an astonishing evolutionary gift: agile imaginations that can shift in an instant from thinking on a scale of seconds to a scale of years or even centuries. The need to draw on our capacity to think long-term has never been more urgent, whether in areas such as...
Damn Interesting
To Hell With Facebook
The earliest known version of the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” was written by the...
12th Jul 2021
The earliest known version of the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” was written by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury in 1677, though it was concerned with horses and feathers:
“The last Dictate of the Judgement, concerning the Good or Bad, that may...
Long Now
Dorie Clark: The Long Game: How to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world
Personal goals need a long-term strategy too.
Dorie Clark offers concrete practices to sharpen...
18th May 2022
Personal goals need a long-term strategy too.
Dorie Clark offers concrete practices to sharpen strategic thinking and incorporate a long-term perspective within a personal time scale. By reorienting ourselves to focus on the big picture, and using the power of small but...
Cremieux Recueil
Viagra for Life Extension
Does it work? I'm doubtful
1st Jun 2026
Does it work? I'm doubtful
Works in Progress...
Every grain of rice
As climate change threatens crop yields, we need a second Green Revolution – one that, this time, is...
22nd May 2023
As climate change threatens crop yields, we need a second Green Revolution – one that, this time, is driven by genetic engineering.
Apoorva Srinivasan
what's happened since the human genome project
When the human genome project was deemed “complete” in 2003, it was met with incredible fanfare. The...
17th May 2022
When the human genome project was deemed “complete” in 2003, it was met with incredible fanfare. The entire project leading up to that moment had all the drama to keep its audience enthralled. Fierce rivalry between a public and private institution, multiple countries involved,...
Chris Grossack's...
Estimating a Difference of Products
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last
quick analysis trick....
28th Aug 2023
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last
quick analysis trick. But I’ve been itching to
write more blog posts lately, and I thought that something quick and easy like
this would be a good way to get back into it without the kind of effort...
NeuroLogica Blog
Plan To Build First Commercial Fusion Reactor
How close are we to having fusion reactors actually sending electric power to the grid? This is a...
6th Jan 2025
How close are we to having fusion reactors actually sending electric power to the grid? This is a huge and complicated question, and one with massive implications for our civilization. I think we are still at the point where we cannot count on fusion reactors coming online...
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printing With Metallic Gel
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive...
6th Jul 2023
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive manufacturing). 3D printing has already created a revolution in manufacturing, but I think the general public does not have a high awareness of this technology because it is not yet at the...
The Quanta Podcast
Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old Fire
In harsh ecosystems around the world, microbiologists are finding evidence that “microbial seed...
12th Mar 2020
In harsh ecosystems around the world, microbiologists are finding evidence that “microbial seed banks” protect biodiversity from changing conditions.
The post Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old Fire first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Melting Asphalt
The Elephant in the Brain
It's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book,...
3rd Jan 2018
It's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book, coauthored with Robin Hanson — is now widely available. You can find the ebook version on Kindle, Google Play, and iBooks. It's also…
Read more ›
Probably...
Young Adults Want Fewer Children
The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at...
19th Mar 2025
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,...
The Quanta Podcast
The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds
Scientists thought that the brain’s hearing centers might just process speech along with other...
6th Jan 2022
Scientists thought that the brain’s hearing centers might just process speech along with other sounds. But new work suggests that speech gets some special treatment very early on.
The post The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds first appeared on...
Long Now
Robert Neuwirth: The 21st Century Medieval City
### World squatter reality
Humanity is urbanizing at a world-changing pace and in a world-changing...
11th Jun 2005
### World squatter reality
Humanity is urbanizing at a world-changing pace and in a world-changing way. A billion squatters are re-inventing their lives and their cities simultaneously. One of the few to experience the range of the phenomenon first hand is Robert Neuwirth,...
Quantum Frontiers
Interacting collaborators reveal noninteracting fermions
By day, I work as an experimentalist on laser-cooling molecules, but I’ve never fully surrendered my...
10th Aug 2026
By day, I work as an experimentalist on laser-cooling molecules, but I’ve never fully surrendered my theoretical-physics license. I started as an undergraduate in Lincoln Carr’s group at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO. I learned from his … Continue reading →
John Salvatier
The “I Already Get It” Slide
Followup to: Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles, Guessing The Teacher’s Password
Jessica Taylor...
31st Jan 2017
Followup to: Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles, Guessing The Teacher’s Password
Jessica Taylor recently wrote a description of Paul Christiano’s and MIRI’s differing driving intuitions for thinking about the AI alignment problem. Jacob Steinhardt observes that the “do cognitive...
The Quanta Podcast
Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’
Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for...
7th May 2020
Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for insights into how complex cells evolved.
The post Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
John Salvatier
Reality has a surprising amount of detail
I.
My dad emigrated from Colombia to North America when he was 18 looking looking for a better life....
13th May 2017
I.
My dad emigrated from Colombia to North America when he was 18 looking looking for a better life. For my brother and I that meant a lot of standing outside in the cold. My dad’s preferred method of improving his lot was improving lots, and my brother and I were “voluntarily”...
IEEE Spectrum
Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story
In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the...
2nd Jul 2023
In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the Apple II team, who had proposed that Apple Computer Inc. make a low-cost “appliance”-type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster. Mr. Raskin believed the computer he...
Long Now
Esther Dyson: The Short Now: What Addiction, Day Trading, and Most of Society’s Ills Have in Common
Long Now board member Esther Dyson shares her ongoing work to move communities away from short-term...
9th Jan 2020
Long Now board member Esther Dyson shares her ongoing work to move communities away from short-term thinking and into health. In conversation with previous Interval speaker [Kara Platoni](http://www.karaplatoni.com/), she discusses how short-term desire is addiction, affecting...
lcamtuf’s thing
Weekend trivia: your process' memory is a file
The underappreciated gem of /proc/
/mem
1st Jun 2026
The underappreciated gem of /proc/
/mem
Cremieux Recueil
The Great Permitting Downturn and Your Rent
Renting a home is more expensive because we stopped letting people build homes
2 weeks ago
Renting a home is more expensive because we stopped letting people build homes
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...
18th Mar 2025
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...
Yale E360
Suburban Sprawl Puts Western Homes at Risk from Wildfires
Recent fires in Spokane, Washington, and Reno, Nevada, illustrate the risks from suburban sprawl,...
2 weeks ago
Recent fires in Spokane, Washington, and Reno, Nevada, illustrate the risks from suburban sprawl, experts say. In both cities, encroaching flames burned homes built at the edge of wilderness.
Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some stories from healthcare founders | Out-Of-Pocket
Titles matter, you can change regulation, how M&A happens
5th Aug 2025
Titles matter, you can change regulation, how M&A happens
Long Now
Neal Stephenson: ANATHEM Book Launch Event
### _Anathem_ book launch
Neal Stephenson's nearly thousand page tome...
9th Sep 2008
### _Anathem_ book launch
Neal Stephenson's nearly thousand page tome [_Anathem_](https://longnow.org/anathem/) was inspired in part by Long Now's [10,000 Year Clock](https://longnow.org/projects/clock/) project, and so a collaboration on the launch event was a natural fit. With...
The Quanta Podcast
The Fundamental Tension at the Heart of Math
We tend to think of math as all about logic and rigor. But what “rigor” actually means has been...
7th Apr 2026
We tend to think of math as all about logic and rigor. But what “rigor” actually means has been shaken up quite a few times over the past few centuries. The newest attempt to formalize math comes in the form of the computer program Lean. Mathematicians have mixed feelings. On...
Works in Progress...
The beauty of concrete
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately...
17th May 2024
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.
The Roots of...
It is our responsibility to develop a healthy relationship with our technology
Many technologies can be used in both healthy and unhealthy ways. You can indulge in food to the...
6th Nov 2025
Many technologies can be used in both healthy and unhealthy ways. You can indulge in food to the point of obesity, or even make it the subject of anxiety. Media can keep us informed, but it can also steal our focus and drain our energy, especially social media. AI can help...
Quanta Magazine
Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups
The numbers count a variety of seemingly unrelated mathematical structures.
The post...
1st Aug 2023
The numbers count a variety of seemingly unrelated mathematical structures.
The post Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Inverted Passion
Getting things done by not trying
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned....
20th Oct 2024
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned. It’s an unconventional self-help book disguised as a computer science research exposition (that’s why the publisher is Springer). I strongly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of...
Long Now
Brittany Cox: Horological Heritage: Generating bird song, magic, and music through mechanism
From kings and philosophers to craftsmen and inventors, horology has been prized as an extraordinary...
6th Nov 2019
From kings and philosophers to craftsmen and inventors, horology has been prized as an extraordinary marriage between art and science. Antiquarian Horologist Brittany Nicole Cox shared her unique experience with objects born from this lineage. We traced their origins to discover...
Long Now
Tony Hsieh: Helping Revitalize a City
### The downtown company
The business advice that Tony Hsieh most took to heart came from an ad...
23rd Apr 2014
### The downtown company
The business advice that Tony Hsieh most took to heart came from an ad executive: “A great brand is a story that never stops unfolding.” With his own company, Zappos, he determined that “brand equals culture,” and made quality of culture the top...
The Quanta Podcast
A Good Memory or a Bad One? One Brain Molecule Decides.
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will...
4th Jan 2023
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will go. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Retro” by Wayne Jones.
Probably...
Think Linear Algebra
I have published the first five chapters of Think Linear Algebra! You can read them here or follow...
22nd Sep 2025
I have published the first five chapters of Think Linear Algebra! You can read them here or follow these links to run the notebooks on Colab. Here are the chapters I have so far: Chapter 1: The Power of Linear AlgebraIntroduces matrix multiplication and eigenvectors through a...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Sunday is Both Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice
June 21 is not just father's day but the day of the summer solstice
The post Sunday is Both Father’s...
19th Jun 2026
June 21 is not just father's day but the day of the summer solstice
The post Sunday is Both Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Quanta Magazine
Evolution: Fast or Slow? Lizards Help Resolve a Paradox.
Why does natural selection appear to happen slowly on long timescales and quickly on short ones? A...
2nd Jan 2024
Why does natural selection appear to happen slowly on long timescales and quickly on short ones? A multigenerational study of four lizard species addresses biology’s “paradox of stasis.”
The post Evolution: Fast or Slow? Lizards Help Resolve a Paradox. first appeared...
IEEE Spectrum
Sci-fi and Hi-fi
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire...
4th Mar 2024
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire companies around an idea introduced in a story they read, as the founders of Second Life and Meta did, working from the metaverse as imagined by Neal Stephenson in his seminal 1992...
NeuroLogica Blog
Do We Have Free Will?
Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free...
1st Dec 2023
Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free will? This comes up not infrequently whenever I write here about neuroscience, most recently when I wrote about hunger circuitry, because the notion of the brain as a physical...
Asterisk
Saving Academics from Themselves
The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
1st Jul 2026
The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
Chris Grossack's...
Talk - Where Are The Open Sets?
I was invited to give a talk at HoTTEST 2022, and was more than
happy to accept! Ever since I was...
6th Oct 2022
I was invited to give a talk at HoTTEST 2022, and was more than
happy to accept! Ever since I was first learning HoTT I was curious how
we could be sure that theorems in HoTT give us corresponding theorems in
“classical” homotopy theory. Earlier this summer I spent a lot of...
Long Now
Geoff Manaugh & Nicola Twilley: Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine
**Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley** track the history and future of quarantine around the globe,...
8th Feb 2022
**Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley** track the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space—from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean, built to contain the Black Death, to an experimental Ebola unit in...
IEEE Spectrum
A Brief History of the World’s First Planetarium
In 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea:...
1st May 2024
In 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea: Could you project an artificial starry sky onto a dome, as a way of demonstrating astronomical principles to the public?
It was such a novel concept that when von Miller approached...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 15: More From Explorama Lodge (February 20 - 21, 2024)
February 20, 2024
A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went...
1st Feb 2025
February 20, 2024
A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went off at 5:00 AM. It was going to be a good day.
At dinner the previous night Luis, Laura and I had come up with a plan for our full day at Explorama Lodge. We would begin by taking...
Eukaryote Writes...
Recommendation: reports on the search for missing hiker Bill Ewasko
How to find someone who has died in the wilderness.
31st Jul 2024
How to find someone who has died in the wilderness.
Long Now
Will Hearst & Chris Anderson: The Long Time Tail
### The power law is the shape of our age
You know something is up when an audience member is...
31st May 2006
### The power law is the shape of our age
You know something is up when an audience member is taking cell phone photos of the presenter's slides for instant transmittal to a business partner.
Chris Anderson does have killer slides, full of exuberant detail, defining the exact...
Works in Progress...
Every grain of rice
As climate change threatens crop yields, we need a second Green Revolution – one that, this time, is...
22nd May 2023
As climate change threatens crop yields, we need a second Green Revolution – one that, this time, is driven by genetic engineering.
Long Now
Jimmy Wales: Vision: Wikipedia and the Future of Free Culture
### Community-built content rules
Vision is one of the most powerful forms of long-term thinking....
15th Apr 2006
### Community-built content rules
Vision is one of the most powerful forms of long-term thinking. Jimmy Wales, founder and president of the all-embracing online encyclopedia Wikipedia, examines how vision drives and defines that project and its strategy-- and how it fits into...
Long Now
Kevin Kelly: Technium Unbound
## Holos Rising
When Kevin Kelly looked up the definition of “superorganism” on Wikipedia, he found...
13th Nov 2014
## Holos Rising
When Kevin Kelly looked up the definition of “superorganism” on Wikipedia, he found this: “A collection of agents which can act in concert to produce phenomena governed by the collective.” The source cited was Kevin Kelly, in his 01994 book, Out of Control. His...
Stephen Wolfram...
Can AI Solve Science?
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for...
5th Mar 2024
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for training the neural nets used here is also available (requires GPU). Won’t AI Eventually Be Able to Do Everything? Particularly given its recent surprise successes, there’s a somewhat...
Eukaryote Writes...
Learn to write well BEFORE you have something worth saying
Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
29th Dec 2024
Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
The Quanta Podcast
What Actually Causes Lightning?
Thunderstorms have captivated humanity for millennia, and yet their inner workings remain deeply...
2nd Jun 2026
Thunderstorms have captivated humanity for millennia, and yet their inner workings remain deeply mysterious. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, guest host and Quanta senior editor Hannah Waters speaks with staff writer Charlie Wood about the new technologies that are helping...
Explorations of an...
Borneo 2024: Introduction And Pre-Tour Birding
About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for...
3rd Nov 2024
About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for Quest Nature Tours. I've always said that Borneo is one of my favourite tours that I run and even after three previous trips I was looking forward to returning. One of the main...
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...
2nd Dec 2024
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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Let patients control their prescriptions | Out-Of-Pocket
A walkthrough of how a digital prescription works and what Photon does to let patients control...
2 weeks ago
A walkthrough of how a digital prescription works and what Photon does to let patients control prescriptions themselves
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 17: White-sand Birding At RN Allpahuayo-Mishana and Muyuna Lodge...
February 24, 2024
Just outside of the city of Iquitos lies an expansive area containing white-sand...
16th Mar 2025
February 24, 2024
Just outside of the city of Iquitos lies an expansive area containing white-sand forest. The particular forest types that grow on white sand are somewhat uncommon in the Amazon, yet the stunted tree growth provides quite the contrast to "typical" Amazonian...
Uncharted...
Should We Eradicate Mosquitoes?
They kill us and bother us, but is that enough to eradicate them, or their role in the environment...
2 weeks ago
They kill us and bother us, but is that enough to eradicate them, or their role in the environment is too important?
Long Now
Terry Hunt & Carl Lipo: The Statues Walked -- What Really Happened on Easter Island
### Easter Island reconsidered
In the most isolated place on Earth a tiny society built world-class...
18th Jan 2013
### Easter Island reconsidered
In the most isolated place on Earth a tiny society built world-class monuments. Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is 1,000 miles from the nearest Pacific island, 3,000 miles from the nearest continent. It is just six by ten miles in size, with no running...
IEEE Spectrum
The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the...
2nd Apr 2024
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the end of the long tail.
if you look on 3M’s own website, you will see no mention of this legacy—it’s a firm that sells abrasive materials, adhesive tapes, filters, films, personal...
The Works in...
Readers from Canada, Australia and the EU can now subscribe to Works in Progress
Our first print edition ships in two weeks.
4th Nov 2025
Our first print edition ships in two weeks.
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
A.I., Wine, and Beer
There have been many studies using scientific instrumentation, mostly gas chromatography, in...
10th Jun 2024
There have been many studies using scientific instrumentation, mostly gas chromatography, in attempts to find what distinguishes a superb wine from an inexpensive house wine. A typical wine can contain more than 800 different aroma compounds. One study examined two Australian...
Works in Progress...
The road from serfdom
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful...
16th Feb 2024
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful opposition took a remarkable approach that let peasants vote themselves into freedom.
Beautiful Public...
How LiDAR measures the toll of climate disasters
Comparing LiDAR data from before and after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles reveals the scale...
25th Aug 2025
Comparing LiDAR data from before and after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles reveals the scale of devastation in ways satellite imagery can’t match.
Cremieux Recueil
American Elections Are Unfair
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
5th Nov 2024
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
Long Now
Paul Saffo: The Creator Economy
### The Creator Economy
Media innovations drive economic shifts, Saffo began. “We invent new...
1st Apr 2015
### The Creator Economy
Media innovations drive economic shifts, Saffo began. “We invent new technology and then use it to reinvent ourselves.”
1\. The Industrial/producer Economy. At the beginning of the 20th century the leading scarcity was _stuff_ , and so manufacture was...
Peder M. Isager
Fifty ways to leave your model
A method for calculating the number of alternative causal models, given a number of variables/nodes.
15th Feb 2020
A method for calculating the number of alternative causal models, given a number of variables/nodes.
Eukaryote Writes...
Web-surfing tips for strange times
Meditations on what's bad about the internet lately and how to use it anyhow.
31st May 2024
Meditations on what's bad about the internet lately and how to use it anyhow.
Long Now
Margaret Levi: The Organized Pursuit of Knowledge
The human quest to understand our world continues. The Director of Stanford’s [Center for Advanced...
18th Apr 2018
The human quest to understand our world continues. The Director of Stanford’s [Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS)](http://casbs.stanford.edu/) discusses how academics and researchers have organized the study of human action, society, and institutions...
The Quanta Podcast
Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins
Modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the...
13th Aug 2020
Modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the genetic flow went both ways.
The post Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Steven Johnson: Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World
## Inventing toward delight
Humanity has been inventing toward delight for a long time. Johnson...
5th Jan 2017
## Inventing toward delight
Humanity has been inventing toward delight for a long time. Johnson began with a slide of shell beads found in Morocco that indicate human interest in personal adornment going back 80,000 years. He showed 50,000-year-old bone flutes found in modern...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Renewable Energy Updates
I came across a few news items that I could possibly write about today and couldn’t decide which to...
4th May 2026
I came across a few news items that I could possibly write about today and couldn’t decide which to cover, so I will write about all of them, since they all relate to renewable energy. The first is a new study comparing direct air capture (DAC) to installing new wind and solar....
Long Now
Jim Richardson: Heirlooms
### Save Agricultural Biodiversity
Humanity’s agricultural legacy is on a par with any of our great...
23rd Feb 2012
### Save Agricultural Biodiversity
Humanity’s agricultural legacy is on a par with any of our great cultural legacies, Richardson said, but preserving it is not just a matter of honoring the history and richness of our most fundamental civilization-enabling technology. For the...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Google x Out-Of-Pocket!! | Out-Of-Pocket
Plus other fun updates
3rd Oct 2025
Stephen Wolfram...
Yet More New Ideas and New Functions: Launching Version 14.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector...
31st Jul 2024
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector Databases and Semantic Search RAGs and Dynamic Prompting for LLMs Connect to Your Favorite LLM Symbolic Arrays and Their Calculus Binomials and Pitchforks: Navigating Mathematical...
Quanta Magazine
Math’s ‘Bunkbed Conjecture’ Has Been Debunked
It was intuitive, even obvious. It was also wrong.
The post Math’s ‘Bunkbed Conjecture’...
1st Nov 2024
It was intuitive, even obvious. It was also wrong.
The post Math’s ‘Bunkbed Conjecture’ Has Been Debunked first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Confessions of a...
My Teaching Philosophy
As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern...
16th Apr 2013
As mentioned previously, I need to complete a teaching portfolio over my year as a lecturing intern as part of the PTIS scheme. Central to this portfolio is a personal teaching philosophy, detailing why teaching is important to me, what my objectives are as a teacher, what...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Sound to Modulate the Brain
The technique is called holographic transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation – which sounds like a...
6th Oct 2025
The technique is called holographic transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation – which sounds like a mouthful but just means using multiple sound waves in the ultrasonic frequency to affect brain function. Most people know about ultrasound as an imaging technique, used, for example,...
Damn Interesting
The Kingpin of Shanghai
Respectable heads of state rarely admit to keeping company with gangsters. But in April 1927, about...
26th Aug 2021
Respectable heads of state rarely admit to keeping company with gangsters. But in April 1927, about 15 years after the collapse of the last imperial dynasty, Chiang Kai-shek and China were at a crossroads. Chiang had followed a murky path to leadership of the Chinese Nationalist...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Quick Hinge Health S-1 Thoughts | Out-Of-Pocket
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
3rd Apr 2025
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
Quantum Frontiers
Unleashing the Advantage of Quantum AI
As experimental capabilities advance rapidly, the quantum computing community faces a critical...
10th Apr 2026
As experimental capabilities advance rapidly, the quantum computing community faces a critical elephant in the room: What will these quantum machines eventually be useful for? Will they deliver the promised broad societal impact, or will they remain highly specialized devices …...
Probably...
My very busy week
I’m not sure who scheduled ODSC and PyConUS during the same week, but I am unhappy with their...
22nd May 2025
I’m not sure who scheduled ODSC and PyConUS during the same week, but I am unhappy with their decisions. Last Tuesday I presented a talk and co-presented a workshop at ODSC, and on Thursday I presented a tutorial at PyCon. If you would like to follow along with my very busy week,...
The Quanta Podcast
Sphere Packing Solved in Higher Dimensions
The Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska has solved the centuries-old sphere-packing problem in...
7th Apr 2016
The Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska has solved the centuries-old sphere-packing problem in dimensions eight and 24.
The post Sphere Packing Solved in Higher Dimensions first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Many Worlds
The Familiar, Yet So Different, Hydrocarbon Rivers of Titan
There are three planets or moons in our solar system known to now have, or once had, surface rivers,...
19th Jul 2023
There are three planets or moons in our solar system known to now have, or once had, surface rivers, lakes, deltas and a hydrologic system. There’s Earth, of course, Mars long ago when it was warmer and wetter, and the so different yet so similar rivers of hydrocarbons on...
Melting Asphalt
A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning
I've never been plagued by the big existential questions. You know, like What's my purpose? or What...
11th Jul 2016
I've never been plagued by the big existential questions. You know, like What's my purpose? or What does it all mean? Growing up I was a very science-minded kid — still am — and from an early age I learned…
Read more ›
Quantum Frontiers
The most steampunk qubit
I never imagined that an artist would update me about quantum-computing research. Last year,...
25th May 2025
I never imagined that an artist would update me about quantum-computing research. Last year, steampunk artist Bruce Rosenbaum forwarded me a notification about a news article published in Science. The article reported on an experiment performed in physicist Yiwen Chu’s … Continue...
Works in Progress...
The golden age of vaccine development
The first vaccine was a lucky accident. Now we can design new vaccines in weeks, atom by atom.
7th Jan 2026
The first vaccine was a lucky accident. Now we can design new vaccines in weeks, atom by atom.
Works in Progress...
The beauty of concrete
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately...
17th May 2024
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.
Uncharted...
AI Weeks When Decades Happen
How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
6th Feb 2025
How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
Long Now
Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco, 5
### Lives of San Francisco
"You are the soundtrack," Prelinger told the capacity audience at the...
17th Dec 2010
### Lives of San Francisco
"You are the soundtrack," Prelinger told the capacity audience at the Herbst Theater, and they responded to his mostly silent archival films by calling out locations, questions, comments, and jokes.
They saw footage of a 1941 Market Street parade of...
Long Now
Peter Calthorpe: Urban Planet
Throughout Peter Calthorpe's decade-spanning career in urban design, planning, and architecture, he...
6th Aug 2020
Throughout Peter Calthorpe's decade-spanning career in urban design, planning, and architecture, he has developed and practiced the key principles of [New Urbanism](https://www.cnu.org/resources/what-new-urbanism): that the most successful places are diverse in uses and users,...
Works in Progress...
The ultra-selfish gene
We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with...
3rd Sep 2024
We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with brute force. Doing this to malaria-carrying mosquitoes could allow us to wipe out humanity’s most deadly killer.
Long Now
Priyamvada Natarajan: Solving Dark Matter and Dark Energy
## The darkness of dark matter and dark energy
ALL THAT WE KNOW of the universe we get from...
12th Apr 2016
## The darkness of dark matter and dark energy
ALL THAT WE KNOW of the universe we get from observing photons, Natarajan pointed out. But dark matter, which makes up 90 percent of the total mass in the universe, is called dark because it neither emits nor reflects photons — and...
The Quanta Podcast
A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance...
1st Apr 2021
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes.
The post A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
SubAnima
You've Been Lied To About Genetics
Should we give Mendel's peas a chance? Nah, we've moved on.
20th Jan 2023
Should we give Mendel's peas a chance? Nah, we've moved on.
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards
Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
2nd Aug 2022
Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
NeuroLogica Blog
The New TIGR-Tas Gene Editing System
Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing...
3rd Mar 2025
Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing system which is faster and cheaper than anything that came before it? CRISPR is derived from bacterial systems which uses guide RNA to target a specific sequence on a DNA strand....
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...
2nd Jun 2025
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
nanoscale views
NAS "State of Science" 2026 address
I watched the webcast of the NAS State of Science address by outgoing NAS president Dr. Marcia...
2nd Jun 2026
I watched the webcast of the NAS State of Science address by outgoing NAS president Dr. Marcia McNutt. (I did not watch the panel discussion afterward, so sorry if I missed critical pieces.) A few thoughts on this:
The intro music was a very classy baroque string quartet. ...
Cremieux Recueil
Pit Bulls Part I: Identification
Pit bull type dogs are readily identifiable
16th Jan 2026
Pit bull type dogs are readily identifiable
The Works in...
Issue 16: I dream of genes
Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and...
3rd Sep 2024
Plus: how humans are outdoing nature's shiniest creations; the history of measuring price rises; and how America's favourite type of coffee got really, really good.
The Quanta Podcast
Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity
A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force.
The post...
6th Dec 2018
A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force.
The post Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Can Thermodynamics Resolve the Measurement Problem?
At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of...
10th Sep 2023
At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of Maryland!), during an expert panel Q&A session, one member of the audience asked “can quantum thermodynamics address foundational problems in quantum theory?” That stuck with …...
Conservation...
Bolivia brings an Incan legend to life with new protected park
3rd Nov 2025
Conservation...
5 things you didn’t know sharks do for you
3rd Sep 2025
nanoscale views
Brief items - Static electricity, quantum geometry, Hubbard model, + news
It's been a busy time that has cut into my blogging, but I wanted to point out some links from the...
8th Aug 2025
It's been a busy time that has cut into my blogging, but I wanted to point out some links from the past couple of weeks.
Physics Today has a cover article this past issue about what is colloquially known as static electricity, but what is more technically described as...
Eukaryote Writes...
Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at...
7th Jan 2024
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at great effort and expense during the 1969 Apollo landing.
Asterisk
The Art of Asking Questions
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other...
1st Dec 2024
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other inaccuracies. We all use them anyway. How can we ask them better?
The Quanta Podcast
How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently...
10th Sep 2020
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life.
The post How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Daniel Everett: Endangered languages, lost knowledge and the future
### Language Revolution
The Piraha tribe in the heart of the Amazon numbers only 360, spread in...
21st Mar 2009
### Language Revolution
The Piraha tribe in the heart of the Amazon numbers only 360, spread in small groups over 300 miles. An exceptionally cheerful people, they live with a focus on immediacy, empiricism, and physical rigor that has shaped their unique language, claims...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 1: Introduction, Phoenix to Miller Canyon
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini...
22nd Sep 2024
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini vacations. Due to the variations in her work schedule, Laura had two blocks of time - a five-day chunk in early August, and six days in early September - and we wanted to make the...
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
12th May 2024
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
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