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Math Is Still...
The Most Important Machine That Was Never Built When he invented Turing machines in 1936, Alan Turing also invented modern computing. ...
a year ago
53
a year ago
When he invented Turing machines in 1936, Alan Turing also invented modern computing. The post The Most Important Machine That Was Never Built first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Things I learned at the Packard Foundation meeting Early in my career, I was incredibly fortunate to be awarded a David and Lucille Packard Foundation...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Early in my career, I was incredibly fortunate to be awarded a David and Lucille Packard Foundation fellowship, and this week I attended the meeting in honor of the 35th anniversary of the fellowship program.  Packard fellowships are amazing, with awardees spanning the sciences...
Math Is Still...
Biophysicists Uncover Powerful Symmetries in Living Tissue After identifying interlocking symmetries in mammalian cells, scientists can describe some tissues...
a year ago
40
a year ago
After identifying interlocking symmetries in mammalian cells, scientists can describe some tissues as liquid crystals — an observation that lays the groundwork for a fluid-dynamic theory of how tissues move. The post Biophysicists Uncover Powerful Symmetries in Living...
The Works in...
The value of family Traditional values don't deliver babies
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
A Bit of Energy Pseudoscience Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age well. The basic plot is that Nazi chemists during WWII developed a formula for synthetic gasoline. A detective investigating a murder gets embroiled in a conspiracy to cover up the...
Math Is Still...
The Quest to Quantify Quantumness What makes a quantum computer more powerful than a classical computer? It’s a surprisingly subtle...
a year ago
4
a year ago
What makes a quantum computer more powerful than a classical computer? It’s a surprisingly subtle question that physicists are still grappling with, decades into the quantum age. The post The Quest to Quantify Quantumness first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
61
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....
pcloadletter
My articles don't belong on certain social networks I write this blog because I enjoy writing. Some people enjoy reading what I write, which makes me...
6 months ago
66
6 months ago
I write this blog because I enjoy writing. Some people enjoy reading what I write, which makes me feel really great! Recently, I took down a post and stopped writing for a few months because I didn't love the reaction I was getting on social media sites like Reddit and Hacker...
Probably...
Life in a Lognormal World At PyData Global 2023 I will present a talk, “Extremes, outliers, and GOATs: On life in a lognormal...
a year ago
5
a year ago
At PyData Global 2023 I will present a talk, “Extremes, outliers, and GOATs: On life in a lognormal world”. It is scheduled for Wednesday 6 December at 11 am Eastern Time. Here is the abstract: The fastest runners are much faster than we expect from a Gaussian distribution, and...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Next Step in Space Travel The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space...
a year ago
7
a year ago
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space capsule. This will be used initially for cargo, but then eventually for crew as well. They anticipate a maiden voyage in 2028. I think this is a positive development. It seems we are...
nanoscale views
Large magnetic fields as a scientific tool When I was at Berkeley at the beginning of the week to give a seminar, I was fortunate enough to...
10 months ago
53
10 months ago
When I was at Berkeley at the beginning of the week to give a seminar, I was fortunate enough to overlap with their departmental physics colloquium by Greg Boebinger, an accomplished scientist who is also an extremely engaging and funny speaker.  Since 2004 he has been the...
Blog - Practical...
How To Install a Pipeline Under a Railroad [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Union Pacific...
10 months ago
57
10 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Union Pacific Railroad’s Austin Subdivision in central Texas. It’s a busy corridor that moves both freight and passengers north and south between Austin and San Antonio… But it’s mostly freight....
Light from Space
The Helping Hand of LDN 1355 LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark dust obscuring the reflection nebula behind it. Total exposure time: 58h 50' (211,800s) Image resolution: 5,216 × 3,909px (1.924″/px) Shot from my driveway
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...
a year ago
24
a year ago
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 →
Quantum Frontiers
It from Qubit: The Last Hurrah Editor’s note: Since 2015, the Simons Foundation has supported the “It from Qubit” collaboration, a...
a year ago
6
a year ago
Editor’s note: Since 2015, the Simons Foundation has supported the “It from Qubit” collaboration, a group of scientists drawing on ideas from quantum information theory to address deep issues in fundamental physics. The collaboration held its “Last Hurrah” event at … Continue...
IEEE Spectrum
A Brief History of the Office Cubicle Robert Propst, a designer at the Herman Miller furniture company. Four years earlier, he had...
a year ago
51
a year ago
Robert Propst, a designer at the Herman Miller furniture company. Four years earlier, he had proposed a radical alternative to the office bullpen: the Action Office. He envisioned it as a holistic and integrated system designed to increase worker efficiency while providing an...
brr
Mud Murdo The beautiful ambiance of a McMurdo summer.
over a year ago
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for a feature of nature that is frequently misunderstood: quanta. (We’ve...
a year ago
20
a year ago
This year we give thanks for a feature of nature that is frequently misunderstood: quanta. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory, the error bar, gauge...
Math Is Still...
An Enormous Gravity ‘Hum’ Moves Through the Universe Astronomers have found a background din of exceptionally long-wavelength gravitational waves...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Astronomers have found a background din of exceptionally long-wavelength gravitational waves pervading the cosmos. The post An Enormous Gravity ‘Hum’ Moves Through the Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
The Saga of AD-X2, the Battery Additive That Roiled the NBS Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the director of the National Bureau of...
4 months ago
46
4 months ago
Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the director of the National Bureau of Standards, and his reinstatement after more than 400 scientists threatened to resign. Who knew a little box of salt could stir up such drama? What was AD-X2? It all started in 1947 when...
symmetry magazine
Applications of quantum mechanics at the beach How does sunscreen work on the atomic level?
a year ago
The Roots of...
The environment as infrastructure A good metaphor for the ideal relationship between humanity and the environment is that the...
a year ago
30
a year ago
A good metaphor for the ideal relationship between humanity and the environment is that the environment is like critical infrastructure. Infrastructure is valuable, because it provides crucial services. You want to maintain it carefully, because it’s bad if it breaks down. But...
Math Is Still...
New Proof Threads the Needle on a Sticky Geometry Problem A new proof marks major progress toward solving the Kakeya conjecture, a deceptively simple question...
a year ago
21
a year ago
A new proof marks major progress toward solving the Kakeya conjecture, a deceptively simple question that underpins a tower of conjectures. The post New Proof Threads the Needle on a Sticky Geometry Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
14,000 Photos of Army Uniforms and Rations from the 70s and 80s An incredible archive of 14,000 photos of Army uniforms, military gear and rations from the 70s and...
a month ago
Confessions of a...
Shark Bay: a pristine template for marine ecosystems worldwide Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity.  As such,...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity.  As such, we have a coastline dominated by many different species of seagrasses – from large, temperate seagrasses like Posidonia australis to small, tropical species like Halodule...
NeuroLogica Blog
Pledge to Triple Nuclear by 2050 It’s interesting that there isn’t much discussion about this in the mainstream media, but the Biden...
a month ago
18
a month ago
It’s interesting that there isn’t much discussion about this in the mainstream media, but the Biden administration recently pledged to triple US nuclear power capacity by 2050. At COP28 last year the US was among 25 signatories who also pledged to triple world nuclear power...
Math Is Still...
A New Generation of Mathematicians Pushes Prime Number Barriers New work attacks a long-standing barrier to understanding how prime numbers are distributed. ...
a year ago
6
a year ago
New work attacks a long-standing barrier to understanding how prime numbers are distributed. The post A New Generation of Mathematicians Pushes Prime Number Barriers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
The Maintenance Race was just the beginning A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Predicting Outcome in Severe Brain Injury One of the most difficult situations that a person can face is to have a loved-one in a critical...
7 months ago
78
7 months ago
One of the most difficult situations that a person can face is to have a loved-one in a critical medical condition and have to make life-or-death medical decisions for them. I have been in this situation many times as the consulting neurologist, and I have seen how weighty this...
nanoscale views
2024 version: Advice on choosing a graduate school It's been four years since I posted the previous version of this, so it feels like the time is right...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
It's been four years since I posted the previous version of this, so it feels like the time is right for an update. This is written on the assumption that you have already decided, after careful consideration, that you want to get an advanced degree (in physics, though much of...
Beautiful Public...
Trademark Design Codes The United States Patent and Trademark Office has a system of 1,400 descriptive "design codes"...
8 months ago
69
8 months ago
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has a system of 1,400 descriptive "design codes" allowing you to search for trademarks with “Rickshaws”, “Centaurs” or “Mechanical women”.
ToughSF
Starship Lite: from rapid Interplanetary to Interstellar Elon Musk stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary boost vehicle...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
Elon Musk stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary boost vehicle able to push probes towards the farthest objects in our Solar System.  What other missions could the Starship ‘Lite’ do, and how quickly? Near SSTO Rockets performance scales...
Math Is Still...
Pleasure or Pain? He Maps the Neural Circuits That Decide. The work of the neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has opened up a world of insights into precisely...
8 months ago
61
8 months ago
The work of the neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has opened up a world of insights into precisely how much pleasure and pain animals experience during different forms of touch. The post Pleasure or Pain? He Maps the Neural Circuits That Decide. first appeared on...
Explorations of an...
HWY 101 - Forest Birding Near Iguazú Highway 101 is the main corridor that runs east-west along the top end of Misiones Province in...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Highway 101 is the main corridor that runs east-west along the top end of Misiones Province in Argentina. Though this road looks like a major artery on Google Maps, in practice it is nothing more than a clay track that receives very little traffic - mainly, just a few locals...
Asterisk
You’re Invited to a Colonoscopy! Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost...
a year ago
2
a year ago
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost nowhere else. But do they work? We finally have a comprehensive trial, but it’s left gastroenterologists with more questions than answers.
Math Is Still...
The Cryptographer Who Ensures We Can Trust Our Computers Yael Tauman Kalai’s breakthroughs secure our digital world, from cloud computing to our quantum...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Yael Tauman Kalai’s breakthroughs secure our digital world, from cloud computing to our quantum future. The post The Cryptographer Who Ensures We Can Trust Our Computers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Ecologists Struggle to Get a Grip on ‘Keystone Species’ More than 50 years after Bob Paine’s experiment with starfish, hundreds of species have been...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
More than 50 years after Bob Paine’s experiment with starfish, hundreds of species have been pronounced “keystones” in their ecosystems. Has the powerful metaphor lost its mathematical meaning? The post Ecologists Struggle to Get a Grip on ‘Keystone Species’ first...
Math Is Still...
Animal Mutation Rates Reveal Traits That Speed Evolution The first large-scale comparison of mutation rates gives insights into how quickly species can...
a year ago
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a year ago
The first large-scale comparison of mutation rates gives insights into how quickly species can evolve. The post Animal Mutation Rates Reveal Traits That Speed Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Thoughts on Aging If either of the two presumptive nominees for the major political parties in the US are elected in...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
If either of the two presumptive nominees for the major political parties in the US are elected in November they will be the oldest person ever to be inaugerated as president. What implications does this have? As a neurologist who sees patients every workday of various ages,...
Casey Handmer's blog
Anti-aging tech fixes demographic collapse With the latest studies on GLP-1 drugs showing not just a drop in all-cause mortality but also an...
3 months ago
4
3 months ago
With the latest studies on GLP-1 drugs showing not just a drop in all-cause mortality but also an apparent slowing of aging, I thought I’d write a quick note on how I think this technology, if it replicates, can drastically improve our lives. It’s hard to believe I’m writing...
Math Is Still...
Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the...
10 months ago
26
10 months ago
The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the subterranean magma are saving lives. The post Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
100 Years Ago, IBM Was Born Happy birthday, IBM! You’re 100 years old! Or are you? It’s true that the businesses that formed IBM...
10 months ago
56
10 months ago
Happy birthday, IBM! You’re 100 years old! Or are you? It’s true that the businesses that formed IBM began in the late 1800s. But it’s also true that a birth occurred in February 1924, with the renaming of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. as the International Business...
Explorations of an...
Day Three at Río Bigal: A Rainout, Another Snake, And More Mothing Adventures Part of the reason why I gave myself five nights to spend at Río Bigal was to mitigate in case I had...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Part of the reason why I gave myself five nights to spend at Río Bigal was to mitigate in case I had a couple of days washed out by heavy rain. The eastern Andes of Ecuador receive a high amount of precipitation. Moisture-laden air from the Amazon basin drifts westwards to the...
nanoscale views
APS March Meeting 2023, Day 2 I ended up spending more time catching up with people this afternoon than going to talks after my...
a year ago
24
a year ago
I ended up spending more time catching up with people this afternoon than going to talks after my session ended, but here are a couple of highlights: There was an invited session about the metal halide perovskites, and there were some interesting talks.  My faculty colleague...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Actually good 2024 healthcare predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
Why Some Roadways Are Made of Styrofoam [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] If you’ve ever driven or...
a year ago
23
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] If you’ve ever driven or ridden in an automobile, there’s a near 100% chance you’ve hit a bump in the road as you transition onto or off of a bridge. In fact, some studies estimate that it happens on a quarter...
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...
a year ago
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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
Saturn Family Portrait From planetary.org: On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
From planetary.org: On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with its narrow-angle camera: Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Rhea, and Mimas. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. This is a full-color look at a view that was originally published in...
Math Is Still...
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...
a year ago
38
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
Inverted Passion
Review of 2023 Time is strange – 2023 simultaneously felt too long and too short. It was short because I remember...
11 months ago
27
11 months ago
Time is strange – 2023 simultaneously felt too long and too short. It was short because I remember recently writing my 2022 review, and it was long because I ended up packing a lot of stuff into it. ✅ Train 5 days a week (including Mixed Martial Arts) I did manage to train 5...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Musings on CVS, two-way negotiation, and dynamic pricing | Out-Of-Pocket + we're hosting another dinner! and courses ending!
8 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Battery News I have been following battery technology pretty closely, as this is a key technology for the...
a year ago
59
a year ago
I have been following battery technology pretty closely, as this is a key technology for the transition to green energy. The most obvious application is in battery electric vehicles (BEVs). The second most obvious application is in grid storage. But also there are all the...
Probably...
Combining Risks Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. combine_risk Combining Risks¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. Bit of a weird one but I’m hoping you’re the...
Asterisk
A Field Guide to AI Safety AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a...
a year ago
1
a year ago
AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a decade still have strong disagreements.
ToughSF
Advanced Solar Energy in Space: Part I Solar Thermal Rockets can be efficient and have high performance. However, they remain...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
Solar Thermal Rockets can be efficient and have high performance. However, they remain temperature-limited to an exhaust velocity of 12km/s. How do we surpass this limit? The limits NASA's Suntower concept. Solar Thermal Rockets have been shown to have great potential if...
Blog - Practical...
How Long Would Society Last During a Total Grid Collapse? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February 2021, a winter...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February 2021, a winter storm that swept through Texas caused one of the most severe power crises in American history. The cold weather created shockingly high electricity demands as people tried to keep...
nanoscale views
APS March Meeting 2023, Day 3 There is vigorous discussion taking place on the Day 2 link regarding the highly controversial claim...
a year ago
13
a year ago
There is vigorous discussion taking place on the Day 2 link regarding the highly controversial claim of room temperature superconductivity.   Highlights from Wednesday are a hodgepodge because of my meanderings: The session about quantum computing hardware was well attended,...
Damn Interesting
A Trail Gone Cold Iceland is known to the rest of the world as the land of Vikings and volcanos, an island caught...
9 months ago
55
9 months ago
Iceland is known to the rest of the world as the land of Vikings and volcanos, an island caught between continents at the extremities of the map. Remote and comparatively inhospitable, it was settled only as long ago as the 9th century, and has seen little additional in-migration...
Uncharted...
Why Could Lebanon Be Rich, but Is so Chaotic? Mountains, seas, and a shitty region
2 months ago
Damn Interesting
Capital, Punished Located 350 km (217 miles) southeast of Puerto Rico, the British island of Montserrat is sometimes...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Located 350 km (217 miles) southeast of Puerto Rico, the British island of Montserrat is sometimes called ‘The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean’ for its verdancy and early Irish settlers. However, far from a paradise, Montserrat also boasts an unfortunate history, and not just...
nanoscale views
Intriguing papers - exquisite thermal measurements + automated materials discovery/synthesis It's a busy time, but I wanted to point out a couple of papers from this past week. First, I want...
a year ago
5
a year ago
It's a busy time, but I wanted to point out a couple of papers from this past week. First, I want to point to this preprint on the arxiv, where the Weizmann folks do an incredibly technically impressive thing.  I'd written recently about the thermal Hall effect, when a...
Math Is Still...
Flow Proof Helps Mathematicians Find Stability in Chaos A series of new papers describes how to fully characterize key dynamical systems with relatively...
a year ago
27
a year ago
A series of new papers describes how to fully characterize key dynamical systems with relatively little data. The post Flow Proof Helps Mathematicians Find Stability in Chaos first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
These Cells Spark Electricity in the Brain. They’re Not Neurons. For decades, researchers have debated whether brain cells called astrocytes can signal like neurons....
a year ago
7
a year ago
For decades, researchers have debated whether brain cells called astrocytes can signal like neurons. Researchers recently published the best evidence yet that some astrocytes are part of the electrical conversation. The post These Cells Spark Electricity in the Brain....
Out-of-Pocket Blog
But actually good 2024 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
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
7
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,...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Views of Mars from NASA’s Mars Observer – July 27, 1993 Having enthusiastically followed NASA’s Viking mission to Mars as a teenager during the late-1970s,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Having enthusiastically followed NASA’s Viking mission to Mars as a teenager during the late-1970s, the lack of any new NASA missions to Mars during the 1980s […]
Math Is Still...
The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made the world ring. Finding its cause took 68 scientists and an assist by the Danish military. The post The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight first...
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
21
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...
Beautiful Public...
FAA Aviation Maps Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a...
10 months ago
64
10 months ago
Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a higher information density than the Federal Aviation Administration’s aviation maps.
NeuroLogica Blog
Scammers on the Rise Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume...
10 months ago
52
10 months ago
Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume it’s a scam and you will probably be right. Recently I was called on my cell phone by someone claiming to be from Venmo. They asked me to confirm if I had just made two fund...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Announcing the Out-Of-Pocket Job Board! | Out-Of-Pocket Recruiting a ton? Get your healthcare jobs in front of the right people
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Math That Lets You Think Locally but Act Globally Knowing a little about the local connections on flight maps and other networks can reveal a lot...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Knowing a little about the local connections on flight maps and other networks can reveal a lot about a system’s global structure. The post Math That Lets You Think Locally but Act Globally first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Moving Past Environmental Proceduralism The foundations of modern environmental legislation were laid in the early ‘70s. Some of these laws...
8 months ago
2
8 months ago
The foundations of modern environmental legislation were laid in the early ‘70s. Some of these laws helped fix the ozone layer, clean up DDT, and fight lead pollution — while others are delaying the necessary transition to green energy. If the activists of fifty years ago had...
IEEE Spectrum
The Sneaky Standard A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the...
7 months ago
83
7 months ago
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the end of the long tail. Personal computing has changed a lot in the past four decades, and one of the biggest changes, perhaps the most unheralded, comes down to compatibility. These...
Math Is Still...
How Is Science Even Possible? How are scientists able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? How does math make the...
6 months ago
57
6 months ago
How are scientists able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? How does math make the complex cosmos understandable? In this episode, the physicist Nigel Goldenfeld and co-host Steven Strogatz explore the deep foundations of the scientific process. The...
symmetry magazine
SAGE Journey program ignites interest in STEM Three SAGE alumni talk about their experiences with a program meant to broaden gender diversity in...
a year ago
Damn Interesting
Fifteen Years Forsaken Editor’s Note: This article contains quotations from contemporaneous accounts which might be...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
Editor’s Note: This article contains quotations from contemporaneous accounts which might be offensive for today’s readers. The moon was new on the night of 31 July 1761, and the wide expanse of the Indian Ocean uniformly black. But Captain Jean de Lafargue of the French cargo...
Math Is Still...
Math That Goes On Forever but Never Repeats Simple math can help explain the complexities of the newly discovered aperiodic monotile. ...
a year ago
55
a year ago
Simple math can help explain the complexities of the newly discovered aperiodic monotile. The post Math That Goes On Forever but Never Repeats first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Let the great world spin I first heard the song “Fireflies,” by Owl City, shortly after my junior year of college. During the...
a year ago
27
a year ago
I first heard the song “Fireflies,” by Owl City, shortly after my junior year of college. During the refrain, singer Adam Young almost whispers, “I’d like to make myself believe / that planet Earth turns slowly.” Goosebumps prickled along my … 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...
a year ago
32
a year ago
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...
Asterisk
Read This, Not That: The Hidden Cost of Nutrition Misinformation Our daily lives are inundated with misleading claims about nutrition. That’s not just distracting —...
a year ago
2
a year ago
Our daily lives are inundated with misleading claims about nutrition. That’s not just distracting — it’s also harming our health.
Asterisk
Beyond Staple Grains The Green Revolution saved a billion lives, but it left a legacy of homogenous diets and distorted...
a year ago
2
a year ago
The Green Revolution saved a billion lives, but it left a legacy of homogenous diets and distorted agricultural markets. What impact has this had on global health — and how can we move forward?
Light from Space
Elephant Trunk & IC 1396 A beautiful nebula in Cepheus. The middle bottom left of the image shows the “Elephant Trunk”,  but...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
A beautiful nebula in Cepheus. The middle bottom left of the image shows the “Elephant Trunk”,  but the whole nebula IC 1396 shows much impressive detail. A whole layer of dark nebulas overlaps everything, looking like a giant explosion frozen in time. Total exposure time: 18h...
nanoscale views
Neutrality and experimental detective work One of the remarkable aspects of condensed matter physics is the idea of emergent quasiparticles,...
a year ago
9
a year ago
One of the remarkable aspects of condensed matter physics is the idea of emergent quasiparticles, where through the interactions of many underlying degrees of freedom, new excitations emerge that are long-lived and often can propagate around in ways very different than their...
The Works in...
How pour-over coffee got good While popular with enthusiasts, pour-over coffee frustrated shops because it takes so long to make,...
a week ago
24
a week ago
While popular with enthusiasts, pour-over coffee frustrated shops because it takes so long to make, but that's changing.
pcloadletter
Quality is a hard sell in big tech I have noticed a trend in a handful of products I've worked on at big tech companies. I have friends...
10 months ago
18
10 months ago
I have noticed a trend in a handful of products I've worked on at big tech companies. I have friends at other big tech companies that have noticed a similar trend: The products are kind of crummy. Here are some experiences that I have often encountered: the UI is flakey and/or...
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...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
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,...
Math Is Still...
How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even after centuries of solar observations. The post How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently. The post How...
5 months ago
Math Is Still...
What Is Entropy? A Measure of Just How Little We Really Know. Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s...
a week ago
14
a week ago
Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world than a reflection of our growing ignorance. Embracing that truth is leading to a...
Math Is Still...
The Number 15 Describes the Secret Limit of an Infinite Grid The “packing coloring” problem asks how many numbers are needed to fill an infinite grid so that...
a year ago
35
a year ago
The “packing coloring” problem asks how many numbers are needed to fill an infinite grid so that identical numbers never get too close to one another. A new computer-assisted proof finds a surprisingly straightforward answer. The post The Number 15 Describes the...
symmetry magazine
A different way of thinking Neurodivergent physicists face barriers in STEM, but there are also benefits to being who they are.
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
Caltech’s Ginsburg Center Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement, which will open in 2025. At a lunch following the ceremony, John Preskill made these remarks. Hello everyone. … Continue...
Quantum Frontiers
The spirit of relativity One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
One of the most immersive steampunk novels I’ve read winks at an experiment performed in a university I visited this month. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, by Natasha Pulley, features a budding scientist named Grace Carrow. Grace attends Oxford as … Continue reading →
Math Is Still...
Magnetism May Have Given Life Its Molecular Asymmetry The preferred “handedness” of biomolecules could have emerged from biased interactions between...
a year ago
6
a year ago
The preferred “handedness” of biomolecules could have emerged from biased interactions between electrons and magnetic surfaces, new research suggests. The post Magnetism May Have Given Life Its Molecular Asymmetry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
What We Get Wrong About AI & China Everyone’s afraid of what China can and will do with AI. On the ground, the picture looks a lot more...
a year ago
2
a year ago
Everyone’s afraid of what China can and will do with AI. On the ground, the picture looks a lot more complicated.
Math Is Still...
The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View Astronomers are reveling in the James Webb Space Telescope’s discoveries about the formative epoch...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Astronomers are reveling in the James Webb Space Telescope’s discoveries about the formative epoch of cosmic history. The post The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: How Much Info Should A Patient Get? | Out-Of-Pocket do we need our physicians to be interpreters?
a year ago
Math Is Still...
The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer searches museum jars for genetic traces of flu, measles and other...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer searches museum jars for genetic traces of flu, measles and other viruses. Their evolutionary stories can help treat modern outbreaks and prepare for future ones. The post The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories...
nanoscale views
What is a spin glass? As mentioned previously, structural glasses are materials in which there is no periodic lattice (no...
a year ago
45
a year ago
As mentioned previously, structural glasses are materials in which there is no periodic lattice (no long-range spatial order) and the building blocks get "stuck" in some configuration, kinetically unable to get to the true energetic minimum state which would almost certainly be a...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Good Meteor Shower Coming August 11-12 The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer The post Good...
4 months ago
52
4 months ago
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of the best of the year for the untrained observer The post Good Meteor Shower Coming August 11-12 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Inverted Passion
Not everything is physics The first book I ever read was The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I liked it so much that...
3 months ago
45
3 months ago
The first book I ever read was The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I liked it so much that I re-read it 8 times. As a young boy, the book had made a lasting impression on me, making me fall in love with ideas such as the arrow of time, black holes, entropy,… Read...
Probably...
Extremes, outliers, and GOATS The video from my PyData Global 2023 talk, Extremes, outliers, and GOATS, is available now: The...
10 months ago
19
10 months ago
The video from my PyData Global 2023 talk, Extremes, outliers, and GOATS, is available now: The slides are here. There are two Jupyter notebooks that contain the analysis I presented: Here’s the abstract: The fastest runners are much faster than we expect from a Gaussian...
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...
a year ago
29
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...
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
6
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.
Math Is Still...
A Close-Up View Reveals the ‘Melting’ Point of an Infinite Graph Just as ice melts to water, graphs undergo phase transitions. Two mathematicians showed that they...
a year ago
6
a year ago
Just as ice melts to water, graphs undergo phase transitions. Two mathematicians showed that they can pinpoint such transitions by examining only local structure. The post A Close-Up View Reveals the ‘Melting’ Point of an Infinite Graph first appeared on Quanta...
Quantum Frontiers
Identical twins and quantum entanglement “If I had a nickel for every unsolicited and very personal health question I’ve gotten at parties,...
a year ago
51
a year ago
“If I had a nickel for every unsolicited and very personal health question I’ve gotten at parties, I’d have paid off my medical school loans by now,” my doctor friend complained. As a physicist, I can somewhat relate. I occasionally … Continue reading →
Math Is Still...
Will Better Superconductors Transform the World? Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient...
7 months ago
63
7 months ago
Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient conditions. In this episode, the physicist Siddharth Shanker Saxena tells co-host Janna Levin about what makes this hunt so difficult and consequential. The post Will...
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
13
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...
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
5
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...
nanoscale views
Noise in a strange metal - pushing techniques into new systems Over the holiday weekend, we had a paper come out in which we report the results of measuring charge...
a year ago
30
a year ago
Over the holiday weekend, we had a paper come out in which we report the results of measuring charge shot noise (see here also) in a strange metal.   Other write-ups of the work (here and especially this nice article in Quanta here) do a good job of explaining what we saw, but I...
Probably...
Think Python Goes to Production Think Python has moved into production, on schedule for the official publication date in July — but...
9 months ago
58
9 months ago
Think Python has moved into production, on schedule for the official publication date in July — but maybe earlier if things go well. To celebrate, I have posted the next batch of chapters on the new site, up through Chapter 12, which is about Markov text analysis and generation,...
Math Is Still...
What Can Tiling Patterns Teach Us? If you cover a surface with tiles, repetitive patterns always emerge — or do they? In this week’s...
5 months ago
38
5 months ago
If you cover a surface with tiles, repetitive patterns always emerge — or do they? In this week’s episode, mathematician Natalie Priebe Frank and co-host Janna Levin discuss how recent breakthroughs in tiling can unlock structural secrets in the natural world. The...
The Works in...
Issue 12: Houston, we have a solution Plus: How Mexico built its state, the causes of the Baby Boom, and the 141-year quest for a malaria...
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Invisible ‘Demon’ Discovered in Odd Superconductor Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all...
a year ago
24
a year ago
Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all but invisible. Now physicists have spotted these “demon modes.” The post Invisible ‘Demon’ Discovered in Odd Superconductor first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
The Question of What’s Fair Illuminates the Question of What’s Hard Computational complexity theorists have discovered a surprising new way to understand what makes...
6 months ago
26
6 months ago
Computational complexity theorists have discovered a surprising new way to understand what makes certain problems hard. The post The Question of What’s Fair Illuminates the Question of What’s Hard first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Wiedemann-Franz Law Science is most useful when it makes predictions. Predictions are based on theory, and one problem...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
Science is most useful when it makes predictions. Predictions are based on theory, and one problem with most theories in materials science is that they are based on data that might not exist for all of the intended class of materials. Simple rules were developed to remedy this...
Marine Madness
Farming Fiasco: The world’s first commercial octopus breeding programme It seems ironic that shortly after an amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill stating...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
It seems ironic that shortly after an amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill stating octopuses to be ‘sentient beings’ capable of a range of human-like emotions such as joy, pleasure, excitement, as well as pain, distress, and harm, plans of the word’s first commercial...
Probably...
The World Population Singularity One of the exercises in Modeling and Simulation in Python invites readers to download estimates of...
a year ago
5
a year ago
One of the exercises in Modeling and Simulation in Python invites readers to download estimates of world population from 10,000 BCE to the present, and to see if they are well modeled by any simple mathematical function. Here’s what the estimates look like (aggregated on...
IEEE Spectrum
What It Takes To Let People Play With the Past Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet...
3 months ago
42
3 months ago
Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet functional, technology. Located on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, the MAL is where you can watch a magic lantern show, play Star Castle on a Vectrex games console, or check...
Asterisk
The Devil in the Details: Matthew Desmond’s Poverty by America Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America is one of the most celebrated books on the subject....
a year ago
2
a year ago
Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America is one of the most celebrated books on the subject. Unfortunately, carelessness about the ways we measure poverty undercuts its main argument.
Melting Asphalt
2015 Meta Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
Time for my annual blogging review. And only 11 days late! I'll keep it brief. Blog stats I published a paltry six full essays this year. Don't get me wrong: I'm proud of them. But still, six. It would be… Read more ›
Uncharted...
The Earth Is Better with More People A world with 2 billion people would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless. With 100B, it...
3 weeks ago
4
3 weeks ago
A world with 2 billion people would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless. With 100B, it would be rich, beautiful, vibrant, peaceful, hopeful.
Uncharted...
Interesting News & Game Theory of Sex | Q3 2024 Trans & bathrooms, the end of nation states, woke pendulum, trigger warnings, is breastfeeding...
2 months ago
4
2 months ago
Trans & bathrooms, the end of nation states, woke pendulum, trigger warnings, is breastfeeding actually good for IQ, are differences in household work justified, and more
symmetry magazine
From inventor to entrepreneur Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for...
a year ago
56
a year ago
Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for physicists and engineers, but the help of experts can improve their chances.
Blog - Practical...
Why Is Desalination So Difficult? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Carlsbad...
a year ago
31
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Carlsbad Desalination Plant outside of San Diego, California. It produces roughly ten percent of the area’s fresh water, around 50 million gallons or 23,000 cubic meters per day. Unlike most...
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Texas Interchanges Texas So Tall? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Dallas High Five,...
4 months ago
54
4 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Dallas High Five, one of the tallest highway interchanges in the world. It gets its name from the fact that there are five different levels of roadways crossing each other in this one spot. In some...
Math Is Still...
Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite...
a year ago
68
a year ago
Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach. The post Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 2) Internet Harvest is a selection of the most succulent links on the internet that I’ve recently...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Internet Harvest is a selection of the most succulent links on the internet that I’ve recently plucked from its fruitful boughs. Feel free to discuss the links in the comments. Also, semi-intentionally, none of the links in this harvest are COVID-19-related. If you want some...
Marine Madness
Book club: ‘Being Salmon Being Human’ by Martin Lee Mueller Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild Norwegian and Pacific Northwest salmon industries...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild Norwegian and Pacific Northwest salmon industries remain largely overlooked and Martin Lee Mueller cleverly weaves the stories of artificially inseminated and reared salmon to highlight the long-standing notion of human...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Citizen fraud detection, self-experimentation, and OOP Updates | Out-Of-Pocket Some random musings and OOP announcements before the holiday
3 weeks ago
Eukaryote Writes...
Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the...
8 months ago
70
8 months ago
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the moon.” The truth is that given a lot of power, a nuclear weapon, and a lot of extremely specific circumstances, we too might find ourselves thinking “I should nuke the moon.”
Probably...
Too many bronze medals? In a recent video, Hank Green nerd-sniped me by asking a question I couldn’t not answer. At one...
4 months ago
54
4 months ago
In a recent video, Hank Green nerd-sniped me by asking a question I couldn’t not answer. At one point in the video, he shows “a graph of the last 20 years of Olympic games showing the gold, silver, and bronze medals from continental Europe. And it “shows continental Europe having...
Interaction Magic -...
Engineering beneath the ice sheet Living in Greenland, deploying electronic beacons deep beneath the ice.
3 weeks ago
Math Is Still...
Cryptographers Solve Decades-Old Privacy Problem Three researchers have found a long-sought way to pull information from large databases secretly,...
a year ago
5
a year ago
Three researchers have found a long-sought way to pull information from large databases secretly, moving us closer to fully private internet searches. The post Cryptographers Solve Decades-Old Privacy Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Can You Trust An AI Press Release? Of course not. Here’s how leading AI labs mislead consumers, journalists, and each other.
5 months ago
Asterisk
Democracy by Mistake Most political scientists see democracy as the natural consequence of economic development or the...
10 months ago
2
10 months ago
Most political scientists see democracy as the natural consequence of economic development or the result of strategic and rational choice. A detailed look through history suggests democracy emerges as often as not by another path: human error.
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, June 2023 A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find...
a year ago
123
a year ago
A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find them in my links digests. In all quotes below, any emphasis in bold was added by me. Books Thomas S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution, 1760–1830 (1948). A classic in the field,...
Damn Interesting
A Blight on Soviet Science On a hazy afternoon in March 1927, a Russian scientist was walking through the dense forests of...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
On a hazy afternoon in March 1927, a Russian scientist was walking through the dense forests of Abyssinia, ducking under low-hanging branches and stopping to inspect the wild coffee trees lining his path. Accompanied by a group of local guides, the young traveller had been hiking...
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
4
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...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 6: A Long, Sketchy Drive To Find Atuen Antpittas (February 8, 2024) One of the fun aspects of birding during this particular period of history is that our understanding...
8 months ago
27
8 months ago
One of the fun aspects of birding during this particular period of history is that our understanding of how birds are related to each other is changing rapidly. Back in the "old days", our collective knowledge of these topics was a bit more rudimentary. Species were grouped...
symmetry magazine
Antimatter falls down Results from the ALPHA experiment confirm that matter and antimatter react to gravity in a similar...
a year ago
6
a year ago
Results from the ALPHA experiment confirm that matter and antimatter react to gravity in a similar way.
Probably...
How Does World Population Grow? Recently I posed this question on Twitter: “Since 1960, has world population grown exponentially,...
a year ago
5
a year ago
Recently I posed this question on Twitter: “Since 1960, has world population grown exponentially, quadratically, linearly, or logarithmically?” Here are the responses: By a narrow margin, the most popular answer is correct — since 1960 world population growth has been roughly...
Math Is Still...
The Biggest Smallest Triangle Just Got Smaller A new proof breaks a decades-long drought of progress on the problem of estimating the size of...
a year ago
6
a year ago
A new proof breaks a decades-long drought of progress on the problem of estimating the size of triangles created by cramming points into a square. The post The Biggest Smallest Triangle Just Got Smaller first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Testing Percentiles Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. test_percentile Testing percentiles¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. I have two different samples (about 100...
IEEE Spectrum
Touchscreens Are Out, and Tactile Controls Are Back Tactile controls are back in vogue. Apple added two new buttons to the iPhone 16, home appliances...
a month ago
16
a month ago
Tactile controls are back in vogue. Apple added two new buttons to the iPhone 16, home appliances like stoves and washing machines are returning to knobs, and several car manufacturers are reintroducing buttons and dials to dashboards and steering wheels. With this...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fossil Fuels – Reduce Demand or Supply? This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a...
a year ago
8
a year ago
This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a somewhat of a dilemma. Is the optimal path to reductions and eventual elimination of fossil fuel burning through reduced demand or supply? There are some interesting tradeoffs...
Probably...
Reject Math Supremacy The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool...
a week ago
18
a week ago
The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool for teaching and learning — and many ideas that are commonly presented in math notation can be more clearly presented in code. In the draft third edition of Think Stats there is...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Newsletter One + Patient Zero | Out-Of-Pocket Shall we begin?
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
The Story Behind Pixar’s RenderMan CGI Software Watching movies and TV series that use digital visual effects to create fantastical worlds lets...
9 months ago
40
9 months ago
Watching movies and TV series that use digital visual effects to create fantastical worlds lets people escape reality for a few hours. Thanks to advancements in computer-generated technology used to produce films and shows, those worlds are highly realistic. In many cases, it can...
Math Is Still...
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...
5 months ago
46
5 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...
Chris Grossack's...
Finiteness in Sheaf Topoi The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be tricky for people new to...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be tricky for people new to the subject to understand. For a while now I’ve wanted to figure out what’s going on with the different versions of “finite” in a way that felt concrete and obvious (I mentioned...
Math Is Still...
The Unraveling of Space-Time This special issue of Quanta Magazine explores the ultimate scientific quest: the search for the...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
This special issue of Quanta Magazine explores the ultimate scientific quest: the search for the fundamental nature of reality. The post The Unraveling of Space-Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How To Make Your Own Card Game | Out-Of-Pocket Want to bring a board or card game to life? Here's what you can expect in terms of costs and money...
a year ago
brr
Redeployment Part Two Station opening, and my flight out of Pole!
11 months ago
Drew Ex Machina
The Promise of MIDAS: The First Experimental Early Warning Satellites Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile launches anywhere on the planet and quickly determine whether it […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Electronic Noses I am always sniffing around (pun intended) for new and interesting technology, especially anything...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
I am always sniffing around (pun intended) for new and interesting technology, especially anything that I think is currently flying under the radar of public awareness but has the potential to transform our world in some way. I think electronic nose technology fits into this...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 2: Chiclayo area (February 3, 2024) February 2, 2024 Traveling to Chiclayo in northern Peru isn't an easy endeavour. Luckily, we live...
9 months ago
23
9 months ago
February 2, 2024 Traveling to Chiclayo in northern Peru isn't an easy endeavour. Luckily, we live less than an hour from a major international airport - Pearson Airport in Toronto - but there are few direct flights between Toronto and Lima (and none that were affordable for us...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Air Quality, Breathing, and Health | Out-Of-Pocket What we inhale is a public health issue
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Should Social Determinants Come From Payers and Providers? | Out-Of-Pocket I've got some questions
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
Announcing the quantum-steampunk creative-writing course! Why not run a quantum-steampunk creative-writing course? Quantum steampunk, as Quantum Frontiers...
3 months ago
41
3 months ago
Why not run a quantum-steampunk creative-writing course? Quantum steampunk, as Quantum Frontiers regulars know, is the aesthetic and spirit of a growing scientific field. Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction. In it, futuristic technologies invade Victorian-era settings:...
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
7
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...
The Works in...
Introducing Gentle Density A new series from Works in Progress
a year ago
Probably...
Rip-off ETF? An article in a recent issue of The Economist suggests, right in the title, “Investors should avoid...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
An article in a recent issue of The Economist suggests, right in the title, “Investors should avoid a new generation of rip-off ETFs”. An ETF is an exchange-traded fund, which holds a collection of assets and trades on an exchange like a single stock. For example, the SPDR S&P...
Math Is Still...
The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could...
7 months ago
44
7 months ago
Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size. The post The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes first appeared on Quanta...
The Works in...
Works in Progress: 2023 Wrapped Our most read work of the year
a year ago
Drew Ex Machina
The Largest Launch Vehicles in Service – 1957 to the Present With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title “the largest launch vehicle in service”: the […]
Confessions of a...
Impacts of climate change on marine communities, seagrass dieback, and a trip to the Abrolhos... You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks.  No holiday for me though, here’s a...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks.  No holiday for me though, here’s a quick taste of some of the other stuff I’ve been up to! Impact of climate change on marine coastal ecosystems – A masterclass with Nuria Marbá I was lucky enough to be invited along...
Math Is Still...
What Is the Nature of Time? Time is all around us: in the language we use, in the memories we revisit and in our predictions of...
9 months ago
52
9 months ago
Time is all around us: in the language we use, in the memories we revisit and in our predictions of the future. But what exactly is it? The physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek joins Steve Strogatz to discuss the fundamental hallmarks of time. The post What Is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Mach Effect Thrusters Fail When thinking about potential future technology, one way to divide possible future tech is into...
9 months ago
30
9 months ago
When thinking about potential future technology, one way to divide possible future tech is into probable and speculative. Probable future technology involves extrapolating existing technology into the future, such as imaging what advanced computers might be like. This category...
Explorations of an...
Chasing Endemics in Córdoba Córdoba is the second most populated city in Argentina, located in the Punilla Valley around 600 km...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Córdoba is the second most populated city in Argentina, located in the Punilla Valley around 600 km northwest of Buenos Aires. Laura and I spent one night in the city before our morning's birding. Our destination: the beautiful Sierras de Córdoba to the west of the city and...
Blog - Practical...
The Only State Capital Where You Can’t Drink the Water [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] As a blast of bitter Arctic...
a year ago
23
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] As a blast of bitter Arctic air poured into North America around Christmas Time in December 2022, weather conditions impacted nearly every aspect of life, from travel to electricity to just trying to get out...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Theory Unites Gravity and Quantum Mechanics One of the greatest mysteries of modern science is how to unite the two overarching theories of...
a year ago
8
a year ago
One of the greatest mysteries of modern science is how to unite the two overarching theories of physics – quantum mechanics and general relativity. If physicists could somehow unite these two theories, which currently do not play well together, then we might get to a deeper “one...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Fitbits, Bundled Payments, and Rollercoasters | Out-Of-Pocket some papers I think are cool
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest otherwise. The post Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Redeployment Part One Emerging from winter and preparing for our first flight!
11 months ago
Math Is Still...
A New Idea for How to Assemble Life If we want to understand complex constructions, such as ourselves, assembly theory says we must...
a year ago
45
a year ago
If we want to understand complex constructions, such as ourselves, assembly theory says we must account for the entire history of how such entities came to be. The post A New Idea for How to Assemble Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
Eliminating Distractions in Longevity Research Longevity maximizers should invest in biotechnology, not modifiable lifestyle factors
2 months ago
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder – July 4, 1997 During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to the television set watching live […]
The Roots of...
Do we get better or worse at adapting to change? Verner Vinge, in a classic 1993 essay, described “the Singularity” as an era where progress becomes...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Verner Vinge, in a classic 1993 essay, described “the Singularity” as an era where progress becomes “an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control.” The idea that technological change might accelerate to a pace faster than we can keep up with is a common concern. Almost three...
NeuroLogica Blog
Possible Sign of Life on Exoplanet The James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopic analysis of K2-18b, an exoplanet 124 light years from...
a year ago
8
a year ago
The James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopic analysis of K2-18b, an exoplanet 124 light years from Earth, shows signs that the atmosphere may contain dimethyl sulphide (DMS). This finding is more impressive when you know that DMS on Earth is only produced by living organisms, not...
Math Is Still...
How to Build an Origami Computer Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible...
10 months ago
19
10 months 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
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...
a month ago
12
a month ago
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...
Math Is Still...
Quanta Relaunches Hyperjumps Math Game Explore a universe of numbers and arithmetic in our new and improved interactive math game,...
10 months ago
20
10 months ago
Explore a universe of numbers and arithmetic in our new and improved interactive math game, Hyperjumps! The post Quanta Relaunches Hyperjumps Math Game first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
What is a metal-insulator transition? The recent excitement about the alleged high temperature superconductor "LK99" has introduced some...
a year ago
10
a year ago
The recent excitement about the alleged high temperature superconductor "LK99" has introduced some in the public to the idea of a metal-insulator or insulator-metal transition (MIT/IMT).  For example, one strong candidate explanation for the sharp drop in resistance as a function...
Asterisk
Salt, Sugar, Water, Zinc: How Scientists Learned to Treat the 20th Century’s Biggest Killer of... Oral rehydration therapy is now the standard treatment for dehydration. It’s saved millions of...
a year ago
2
a year ago
Oral rehydration therapy is now the standard treatment for dehydration. It’s saved millions of lives, and can be prepared at home in minutes. So why did it take so long to discover?
nanoscale views
Brief items - light-driven diamagnetism, nuclear recoil, spin transport in VO2 Real life continues to make itself felt in various ways this summer (and that's not even an allusion...
5 months ago
52
5 months ago
Real life continues to make itself felt in various ways this summer (and that's not even an allusion to political madness), but here are three papers (two from others and a self-indulgent plug for our work) you might find interesting. There has been a lot of work in recent...
Light from Space
Lagoon and the Hourglass A view of the center region of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8, Sharpless 25). There's several other...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
A view of the center region of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8, Sharpless 25). There's several other objects visible, notably the Hourglass Nebula and open star cluster NGC 6530, as well as numerous Bok globules (the small dark clouds, that will one day form new stars). Click...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Brain Size Deep thought is what distinguishes humans from other animals. The brain is the medium for thought;...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
Deep thought is what distinguishes humans from other animals. The brain is the medium for thought; so, there's the idea that brain size is important, with larger brains allowing more profound thought. Larger brains in hominids appears to have an evolutionary advantage, but the...
Math Is Still...
Machine Learning Aids Classical Modeling of Quantum Systems By using “classical shadows,” ordinary computers can beat quantum computers at the tricky task of...
a year ago
9
a year ago
By using “classical shadows,” ordinary computers can beat quantum computers at the tricky task of understanding quantum behaviors. The post Machine Learning Aids Classical Modeling of Quantum Systems first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
nanoscale views
The need for energy-efficient computing Computing is consuming a large and ever-growing fraction of the world's energy capacity. I've seen...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Computing is consuming a large and ever-growing fraction of the world's energy capacity. I've seen the essential data in this figure several times over the last few months, and it has convinced me that the need for energy-efficient computing hardware is genuinely pressing.  This...
NeuroLogica Blog
Dog Soundboards I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have been. They pick up on subtle body language and non-verbal cues, they seem to understand specific words, and they are capable of successfully communicating their wants and desires....
Math Is Still...
New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills...
11 months ago
21
11 months ago
Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills to understand the words they’re processing. The post New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
Out-of-Pocket Blog
23andMe, a healthcare fund idea, and the NHS | Out-Of-Pocket Some random musings coming from London
2 months ago
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour Of Jamaica The Caribbean island of Jamaica is a naturalist’s paradise. Situated south of eastern Cuba, east of...
8 months ago
57
8 months ago
The Caribbean island of Jamaica is a naturalist’s paradise. Situated south of eastern Cuba, east of Honduras and north of Colombia, Jamaica has an interesting assemblage of species with different origins. Jamaica was never connected to the mainland throughout its long geological...
NeuroLogica Blog
About Those Lab Leak Documents It was recently revealed that the House subcommittee probing the origins of COVID-19 accidentally...
a year ago
18
a year ago
It was recently revealed that the House subcommittee probing the origins of COVID-19 accidentally released a “trove” of documents related to their investigations. The documents include e-mails and internal communications among the scientists and experts who put together the first...
symmetry magazine
Physics fashion and collider couture Symmetry is back with more physics-themed Halloween costumes.
a year ago
Asterisk
Community Organizing
a month ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Can patients be good healthcare shoppers? | Out-Of-Pocket Should their be limits to patient agency?
4 months ago
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Copper and Green Energy The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The...
5 months ago
2
5 months 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...
Math Is Still...
The Scientist Who Decodes the Songs of Undersea Volcanoes In the rumbles and groans of underwater volcanoes, Jackie Caplan-Auerbach finds her favorite...
a year ago
26
a year ago
In the rumbles and groans of underwater volcanoes, Jackie Caplan-Auerbach finds her favorite harmonies — and clues to the Earth’s interior. The post The Scientist Who Decodes the Songs of Undersea Volcanoes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
The Beer Can Connecting old and new.
a year ago
Asterisk
Pew Problems A conversation about religion, fertility, and the American family.
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Luminescent Solar Concentrators for Solar Power Solar power is on the upswing. In 2023, 407–446 GW of solar power was installed globally, bringing...
4 months ago
47
4 months ago
Solar power is on the upswing. In 2023, 407–446 GW of solar power was installed globally, bringing the total to 1.6 TWdc. To put this into perspective, this was 55% of new power capacity added to energy production. For the first time, a renewable energy source contributed the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Elizabeth Holmes Going to Prison I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it...
a year ago
43
a year ago
I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it took 7 years to follow this story through to the end. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the company Theranos, was  convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to 11 years in prison....
Damn Interesting
The Ancient Order of Bali In the 1970s, the Indonesian island of Bali went through a period of rapid change. Along the...
a year ago
7
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...
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
23
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...
Blog - Practical...
What Is A Black Start Of The Power Grid? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] November 1965 saw one of the...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] November 1965 saw one of the most widespread power outages in North American history. On the freezing cold evening of the 9th, the grid was operating at maximum capacity as people tried to stay warm when a...
Math Is Still...
Some Neural Networks Learn Language Like Humans Researchers uncover striking parallels in the ways that humans and machine learning models acquire...
a year ago
53
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
Math Is Still...
Hobbyist Finds Math’s Elusive ‘Einstein’ Tile The surprisingly simple tile is the first single, connected tile that can fill the entire plane in a...
a year ago
42
a year ago
The surprisingly simple tile is the first single, connected tile that can fill the entire plane in a pattern that never repeats — and can’t be made to fill it in a repeating way. The post Hobbyist Finds Math’s Elusive ‘Einstein’ Tile first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Have the Nones Leveled Off? Last month Ryan Burge published “The Nones Have Hit a Ceiling“, using data from the 2023 Cooperative...
5 months ago
61
5 months ago
Last month Ryan Burge published “The Nones Have Hit a Ceiling“, using data from the 2023 Cooperative Election Study to show that the increase in the number of Americans with no religious affiliation has hit a plateau. Comparing the number of Atheists, Agnostics, and “Nothing in...
brr
Last Flight Out Good-byes, and the beginning of winter isolation.
a year ago
Probably...
Density and Likelihood It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
5 months ago
48
5 months ago
It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. If you get this post by email, the formatting might be broken — if so, you might want to read it on the site. likelihood Density and...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Black Hole Has Daily Meals Worthy of Thanksgiving You think you ate too much?  No matter how stuffed you were after Thanksgiving (or another...
3 weeks ago
12
3 weeks ago
You think you ate too much?  No matter how stuffed you were after Thanksgiving (or another celebratory meal), it’s nothing compared to Quasar J0529-4351, which astronomers observed earlier this year to be consuming the mass of our entire Sun EACH and every day!  They called it...
Math Is Still...
Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure....
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model. The post Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Age of the Moon Revised There are a few interesting stories lurking in this news item, but lets start with the top level – a...
a year ago
8
a year ago
There are a few interesting stories lurking in this news item, but lets start with the top level – a new study revises the minimum age of the Moon to 4.46 billion years, 40 million years older than the previous estimate. That in itself is interesting, but not game-changing. It’s...
Explorations of an...
A Tour Of The Western Galápagos Archipelago The Galápagos archipelago is one of those must-visit destinations for anyone with an interest in...
a year ago
5
a year ago
The Galápagos archipelago is one of those must-visit destinations for anyone with an interest in ecology, evolution, or biogeography. The islands are located in the eastern Pacific where a “hotspot” deep within the earth has been spewing magma for millions of years. The oldest...
The Roots of...
Event, Feb 29: “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” in Boston and on Zoom On Thursday, February 29, I’ll be giving my talk “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” to the New...
10 months ago
56
10 months ago
On Thursday, February 29, I’ll be giving my talk “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” to the New England Legal Foundation, for their Economic Liberty Speaker Series. The talk will be held over breakfast at NELF’s offices in Boston, and will also be livestreamed over Zoom. See...
Math Is Still...
An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents...
a year ago
39
a year ago
The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents to NASA’s preparations for visits to other ocean worlds in our solar system. The post An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds first appeared on...
The Works in...
The concept of sustainment A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Asterisk
How to Prevent the Next Pandemic Modern technology makes bioterrorism seem increasingly likely. If we can get our act together, there...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Modern technology makes bioterrorism seem increasingly likely. If we can get our act together, there are smart ways to prevent it.
Math Is Still...
The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about the threads of the space-time fabric. The post The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Computation Is All Around Us, and You Can See It if You Try Computer scientist Lance Fortnow writes that by embracing the computations that surround us, we can...
6 months ago
35
6 months ago
Computer scientist Lance Fortnow writes that by embracing the computations that surround us, we can begin to understand and tame our seemingly random world. The post Computation Is All Around Us, and You Can See It if You Try first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Confidently Wrong How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and do you have a process for determining what your confidence level should be or do you just follow your gut feelings? Thinking about confidence is a form of metacognition – thinking...
NeuroLogica Blog
Grief Tech In the awesome show, Black Mirror, one episode features a young woman who lost her husband. In her...
7 months ago
48
7 months ago
In the awesome show, Black Mirror, one episode features a young woman who lost her husband. In her grief she turns to a company that promises to give her at least a partial experience of her husband. They sift through every picture, video, comment, and other online trace of the...
Probably...
Destructive Testing Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
7 months ago
68
7 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. sample_size Sample Size Selection¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. Hi Redditors, I am a civil engineer trying...
Math Is Still...
The AI Tools Making Images Look Better Researchers have discovered ways around a fundamental trade-off between accuracy and beauty in...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Researchers have discovered ways around a fundamental trade-off between accuracy and beauty in digital images. The post The AI Tools Making Images Look Better first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Nuclear Reactor Lasers: from Fission to Photon Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no intermediate conversion steps.  We work out just how effective they can be, and how they stack up against conventional electrically-powered lasers. You might want to re-think your...
Math Is Still...
Why the Human Brain Perceives Small Numbers Better Neuroscientists recently discovered that small numbers have a different neural signature than larger...
a year ago
8
a year ago
Neuroscientists recently discovered that small numbers have a different neural signature than larger ones, offering a new look into the brain’s number system and its connections to memory and mathematics. The post Why the Human Brain Perceives Small Numbers Better...
Math Is Still...
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...
a year ago
5
a year ago
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...
Math Is Still...
Two Students Unravel a Widely Believed Math Conjecture Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures known as Apollonian circles. But a summer project would lead to its downfall. The post Two Students Unravel a Widely Believed Math Conjecture first appeared on Quanta...
symmetry magazine
LHC experiments see four top quarks The ATLAS and CMS experiments have observed a process 4,000 times rarer than the production of Higgs...
a year ago
25
a year ago
The ATLAS and CMS experiments have observed a process 4,000 times rarer than the production of Higgs bosons. The ATLAS and CMS experiments have successfully detected the production of a quartet of top quarks during high-energy proton collisions inside the Large...
NeuroLogica Blog
Multipurpose Superconducting Highway When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very...
a year ago
28
a year ago
When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very bottom of the pyramid is pure speculation, just throwing out “what if” ideas to feed the conceptual pipeline. A subset of these ideas will pass the sniff test enough to justify...
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Cooling Towers Shaped Like That? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is not smoke. And this...
a month ago
29
a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is not smoke. And this isn’t a smoke stack (at least not the kind we normally think of). It serves a totally different purpose at a power plant than smoke stacks whose job is moving combustion products...
IEEE Spectrum
Saving the Big Bang (Antenna) The antenna that discovered a cosmic microwave background coming from all directions in...
a year ago
6
a year ago
The antenna that discovered a cosmic microwave background coming from all directions in space—cementing the theory that the universe was created in a big bang—now stares down its own topsy-turvy future. Its owner says the hardware will be preserved, but the fate of the historical...
The Works in...
Escape to the country What makes a successful New Town?
4 months ago
Articles - Chris...
My $500M Mars Rover Mistake: A Failure Story Some mistakes feel worse than death.
a year ago
The Works in...
Links in Progress: What are children for? And how the UN’s birth rate forecasts keep getting it wrong
a month ago
Math Is Still...
Bats Use the Same Brain Cells to Map Physical and Social Worlds New research in social bats raises the intriguing possibility that evolution can reprogram the...
a year ago
11
a year ago
New research in social bats raises the intriguing possibility that evolution can reprogram the brain’s “place cells,” which are typically associated with location, to encode all kinds of environmental information. The post Bats Use the Same Brain Cells to Map Physical...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Too much money in digital health? | Out-Of-Pocket trying a new format out
a year ago
Wanderingspace
The First Ever Real-Time Video from Another Planet When you watch this video, if you find yourself thinking of the Apollo moon landings— here is why:...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
When you watch this video, if you find yourself thinking of the Apollo moon landings— here is why: this is the first real-time video taken from another world since 1972, and this is the first ever taken on another planet. Most “video” you see from other planetary missions are...
IEEE Spectrum
Chuck E. Cheese’s Animatronics Band Bows Out That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that the company was phasing out the animatronic bands from all but five locations by the end of this year, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. Much to my surprise, I was truly sad that the...
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...
a month ago
24
a month 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...
nanoscale views
Getting light out of plasmonic tunnel junctions - the sequel A couple of years ago I wrote about our work on "above threshold" light emission in planar metal...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
A couple of years ago I wrote about our work on "above threshold" light emission in planar metal tunnel junctions.  In that work, we showed that in a planar tunnel junction, you can apply a bias voltage \(V\) and get lots of photons out at energies quite a bit greater than...
Math Is Still...
Mollusk Eyes Reveal How Future Evolution Depends on the Past The visual systems of an obscure group of mollusks provide a rare natural example of path-dependent...
9 months ago
36
9 months ago
The visual systems of an obscure group of mollusks provide a rare natural example of path-dependent evolution, in which a critical fork in the creatures’ past determined their evolutionary futures. The post Mollusk Eyes Reveal How Future Evolution Depends on the Past...
nanoscale views
Some interesting links - useful lecture notes, videos Proposal writing, paper writing, and course prep are eating a lot of my bandwidth right now, but I...
a year ago
24
a year ago
Proposal writing, paper writing, and course prep are eating a lot of my bandwidth right now, but I wanted to share a few things: David Tong at Cambridge is a gifted educator and communicator who has written lecture notes that span a wide swath of the physics curriculum, from...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
"AI sucks", Quantifying EMR burden, and Loneliness | Out-Of-Pocket 3 interesting papers I like
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
The Noncommuting-Charges World Tour (Part 1 of 4) Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many...
10 months ago
37
10 months ago
Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many similarities with fairy tales. For example, most of them begin with a familiar opening. In thermodynamics, the phrase “Consider an isolated box of particles” serves a similar purpose …...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Viz.ai and why workflow > tech | Out-Of-Pocket Also ?? about AI business models
a year ago
Math Is Still...
How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are...
6 months ago
46
6 months 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
NeuroLogica Blog
Nobel Prize for Attosecond Physics One attosecond (as) is 1×10−18 seconds. An attosecond is to one second what one second is to the age...
a year ago
4
a year ago
One attosecond (as) is 1×10−18 seconds. An attosecond is to one second what one second is to the age of the universe. It is an extremely tiny slice of time. This year’s Nobel Prize in physics goes to three scientists, Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier, whose...
The Roots of...
Cellular reprogramming, pneumatic launch systems, and terraforming Mars In December, I went to the Foresight Institute’s Vision Weekend 2023 in San Francisco. I had a lot...
11 months ago
9
11 months ago
In December, I went to the Foresight Institute’s Vision Weekend 2023 in San Francisco. I had a lot of fun talking to a bunch of weird and ambitious geeks about the glorious abundant technological future. Here are few things I learned about (with the caveat that this is mostly...
Quantum Frontiers
Winners of the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest During the past seven months, I’ve steamed across the Atlantic, sailed in a flying castle,...
a year ago
66
a year ago
During the past seven months, I’ve steamed across the Atlantic, sailed in a flying castle, teleported across the globe, and shuttled forward and backward in time. Literarily, not literally—the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest began welcoming submissions in October 2022. We...
nanoscale views
New paper - plasmons, excitons, and steering energy We have a new paper out in Nano Letters (arxiv version here), and I wanted to explain a bit about it...
a year ago
11
a year ago
We have a new paper out in Nano Letters (arxiv version here), and I wanted to explain a bit about it and why I think it's a really cool result.    I've written before about the Purcell Effect.  When we study quantum mechanics, we learn that the rates of processes, like the...
nanoscale views
The problems and opportunities of data We live in a world of "big data", and this presents a number of challenges for how we handle this at...
a year ago
54
a year ago
We live in a world of "big data", and this presents a number of challenges for how we handle this at research universities.  Until relatively recently, the domain of huge volume/huge throughput scientific data was chiefly that of the nuclear/particle physics community and then...
The Roots of...
Quote quiz: “drifting into dependence” Quote quiz: who said this? (No fair looking it up). I have modified the original quotation slightly,...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Quote quiz: who said this? (No fair looking it up). I have modified the original quotation slightly, by making a handful of word substitutions to bring it up to date: It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all power to AI. But we are...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six (More) Healthcare Startup Ideas | Out-Of-Pocket In collaboration with The Generalist, one of the few newsletters I read end-to-end every time
a year ago
Explorations of an...
Otamendi Reserve and Laguna Chiquita Mar January 11, 2023 Laura and I picked up our rental car from Enterprise in Buenos Aires as soon as...
a year ago
15
a year ago
January 11, 2023 Laura and I picked up our rental car from Enterprise in Buenos Aires as soon as they opened. The 9 AM start time meant that it was after 10 AM by the time that we had finally hit the open road. For the next six weeks, we are completing a big loop with the car,...
brr
Redeployment Part Three Off-continent after 446 days!
11 months ago
The Roots of...
The epistemic virtue of scope matching Something a little bit different today. I’ll tie it in to progress, I promise. I keep noticing a...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Something a little bit different today. I’ll tie it in to progress, I promise. I keep noticing a particular epistemic pitfall (not exactly a “fallacy”), and a corresponding epistemic virtue that avoids it. I want to call this out and give it a name. The virtue is: identifying the...
Math Is Still...
The Deep Link Equating Math Proofs and Computer Programs Mathematical logic and the code of computer programs are, in an exact way, mirror images of each...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Mathematical logic and the code of computer programs are, in an exact way, mirror images of each other. The post The Deep Link Equating Math Proofs and Computer Programs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
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...
7 months ago
43
7 months 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
nanoscale views
Rice University Academy of Fellows postdoc opportunity, 2023 As I have posted in previous years, Rice has a university-wide endowed honorific postdoctoral...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
As I have posted in previous years, Rice has a university-wide endowed honorific postdoctoral program called the Rice Academy of Fellows.   Like all such things, it's very competitive. The new application listing has gone live here with a deadline of January 4, 2023. ...
NeuroLogica Blog
Framing and Global Warming When we talk publicly about the effects of human activity on the climate should we refer to “global...
4 months ago
40
4 months ago
When we talk publicly about the effects of human activity on the climate should we refer to “global warming”, “climate change”, the “climate crisis” or to “climate justice”? Perhaps we should also be more technical and say specifically, “anthropogenic climate change”. This kind...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunger Circuitry One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature...
a year ago
18
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...
ToughSF
Fusion without Fissiles: Superbombs and Wilderness Orion Fusion technology today relies on expensive, building-sized equipment for ignition, or the help of...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Fusion technology today relies on expensive, building-sized equipment for ignition, or the help of an already powerful fission detonation. What if we could do away with both? Fusion power without the need for fissiles, but also small enough to be launched into space. It is...
Damn Interesting
Devouring the Heart of Portugal On the morning of Thursday, 04 December 1924, a tall and well-dressed Dutch trader named Karel...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
On the morning of Thursday, 04 December 1924, a tall and well-dressed Dutch trader named Karel Marang strolled along Great Winchester Street in the City of London, among the bustling crowds of bankers and brokers of the business district, unaware that the parcel he carried held...
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Uncover a New Way to Count Prime Numbers To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to...
a week ago
8
a week ago
To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to an unlikely source. The post Mathematicians Uncover a New Way to Count Prime Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Special Edition: A Toilet And A Neural Network | Out-Of-Pocket You didn't know you needed this. And you probably don't.
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Introducing The OOP Talent Collective | Out-Of-Pocket if you're hiring, this will help you find the best candidates
a year ago
Interaction Magic -...
Life beyond the screen Since early 2020, I've been teaching courses in Interaction Technologies and Prototyping. Switches,...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Since early 2020, I've been teaching courses in Interaction Technologies and Prototyping. Switches, light, gesture, motion, sound, haptics: this is all about exploring life beyond the screen.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Potential of AI + CRISPR In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors...
3 months ago
40
3 months ago
In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I discuss the incredible potential of information-based technologies. As we increasingly transition to digital technology, we can leverage the increasing power of computer...
symmetry magazine
Muon g-2 doubles down with latest measurement, explores uncharted territory Fermilab's Muon g-2 experiment brings particle physics closer to a showdown between theory and...
a year ago
Probably...
Where’s My Train? Yesterday I presented a webinar for PyMC Labs where I solved one of the exercises from Think Bayes,...
5 months ago
58
5 months ago
Yesterday I presented a webinar for PyMC Labs where I solved one of the exercises from Think Bayes, called “The Red Line Problem”. Here’s the scenario: The Red Line is a subway that connects Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts. When I was working in Cambridge I took the Red Line...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Exoplanet Radius Gap As of this writing, there are 5,573 confirmed exoplanets in 4,146 planetary systems. That is enough...
10 months ago
20
10 months ago
As of this writing, there are 5,573 confirmed exoplanets in 4,146 planetary systems. That is enough exoplanets, planets around stars other than our own sun, that we can do some statistics to describe what’s out there. One curious pattern that has emerged is a relative gap in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Have Current AI Reached Their Limit? We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications,...
a year ago
90
a year ago
We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications, specifically the large language models and so-called “transformers” like Chat GPT. Transformers are a deep learning model that use self-attention to differentially weight the...
IEEE Spectrum
Who Really Invented the Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery? Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value....
a year ago
10
a year ago
Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value. It’s used in billions of laptops, cellphones, power tools, and cars. Global sales top US $45 billion a year, on their way to more than $100 billion in the coming decade. The first...
IEEE Spectrum
The Rise of Groupware A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the end of the long tail. These days, computer users take collaboration software for granted. Google Docs, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Salesforce, and so on, are such a big part of many...
Cremieux Recueil
Trump Should Finish What He Started A guestpost calling for Trump to finish radically reforming the tax system
3 weeks ago
NeuroLogica Blog
World Events and the Conspiracy Instinct By now most people have heard that on Saturday there was a failed assassination attempt on candidate...
5 months ago
51
5 months ago
By now most people have heard that on Saturday there was a failed assassination attempt on candidate Trump at a rally. While it has only been a few days, preliminary investigation has found that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, using a AR style rifle purchased legally by his...
Asterisk
Why You’ve Never Been In A Plane Crash The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when...
10 months ago
2
10 months ago
The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when accidents do happen.
The Works in...
Communities of Practice: The Soul of Maintaining a New Machine The first section of Ch. 3 of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance on Books in Progress
4 months ago
Math Is Still...
The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change An ultra-precise measurement of a transition in the hearts of thorium atoms gives physicists a tool...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
An ultra-precise measurement of a transition in the hearts of thorium atoms gives physicists a tool to probe the forces that bind the universe. The post The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Thoughts on undergrad solid-state content Figuring out what to include in an undergraduate introduction to solid-state physics course is...
8 months ago
33
8 months ago
Figuring out what to include in an undergraduate introduction to solid-state physics course is always a challenge.   Books like the present incarnation of Kittel are overstuffed with more content than can readily fit in a one-semester course, and because that book has grown...
IEEE Spectrum
How the Computer Graphics Industry Got Started at the University of Utah Animation has come a long way since 1900, when J. Stuart Blackton created The Enchanted Drawing, the...
a year ago
5
a year ago
Animation has come a long way since 1900, when J. Stuart Blackton created The Enchanted Drawing, the earliest known animated film. The 90-second movie was created using stop-motion techniques, as flat characters, props, and backgrounds were drawn on an easel or made from...
Math Is Still...
The Simple Geometry That Predicts Molecular Mosaics By treating molecules as geometric tessellations, scientists devised a new way to forecast how 2D...
a year ago
26
a year ago
By treating molecules as geometric tessellations, scientists devised a new way to forecast how 2D materials might self-assemble. The post The Simple Geometry That Predicts Molecular Mosaics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
What are the odds? Whenever something unlikely happens, it is tempting to ask, “What are the odds?” In some very...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Whenever something unlikely happens, it is tempting to ask, “What are the odds?” In some very limited cases, we can answer that question. For example, if someone deals you five cards from a well-shuffled deck, and you want to know the odds of getting a royal flush, we can answer...
Probably...
Standard deviation of a count This post is part of a new project with the working title Data Q&A: Answering the real questions...
8 months ago
51
8 months ago
This post is part of a new project with the working title Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. In each installment, I’ll take a question from Reddit’s statistics forum and answer it, using Python code to demonstrate. My answer is in a Jupyter notebook — see the...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Adornment "Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by...
3 months ago
4
3 months ago
"Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by its purpose or function. A quick perusal of any antique shop will show that this maxim is generally ignored. Humans (Homo sapiens) have been called "naked apes," but we and our...
Inverted Passion
What bootstraps intelligence? A musing on how intelligence comes to be. The bedrock of intelligence is abstractions – the thing we...
3 months ago
47
3 months ago
A musing on how intelligence comes to be. The bedrock of intelligence is abstractions – the thing we do when we throw away a lot of information and just emphasise on a subset of it (e.g. calling that thing an apple instead of describing all its atoms and their x, y, z positions)....
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Mechanical Watch In the world of modern portable devices, it may be hard to believe that merely a few decades ago the...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
In the world of modern portable devices, it may be hard to believe that merely a few decades ago the most convenient way to keep track of time was a mechanical watch. Unlike their quartz and smart siblings, mechanical watches can run without using any batteries or other...
The Works in...
Upzoning New Zealand How a small country started building a lot of homes
10 months ago
brr
Sunset Hunkering down for the winter!
a year ago
Asterisk
Through a Glass Darkly Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
a year ago
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Ice Formation In today's bigger is better world, you don't order a large coffee, you order a 20 fluid ounce Venti...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
In today's bigger is better world, you don't order a large coffee, you order a 20 fluid ounce Venti coffee. From 1987 through 2004, McDonald's restaurants had a supersize option for larger than large portions of its French fries and soft drinks. The prefix, super, has been used...
Drew Ex Machina
Top Ten Posts of 2022 Now that we are at the end of 2022, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Now that we are at the end of 2022, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see […]
Math Is Still...
What Can Jellyfish Teach Us About Fluid Dynamics? Jellyfish and other aquatic creatures embody solutions to diverse problems in engineering, medicine...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Jellyfish and other aquatic creatures embody solutions to diverse problems in engineering, medicine and mathematics. John Dabiri, a fluid dynamics expert, talks with Steven Strogatz about what jellyfish can teach us about going with the flow. The post What Can...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
"Non"-Profit Hospitals | Out-Of-Pocket "We're investing in ourselves"
a year ago