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nanoscale views
What is "static electricity"/"contact electrification"/triboelectricity? An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static electricity:  an electrical insulator like a wool cloth or animal fur is rubbed on a glass or plastic rod, and suddenly the rod can pick up pieces of styrofoam or little bits of paper. ...
Quantum Frontiers
A (quantum) complex legacy: Part trois When I worked in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a friend reported that MIT’s postdoc association had...
3 weeks ago
18
3 weeks ago
When I worked in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a friend reported that MIT’s postdoc association had asked its members how it could improve their lives. The friend confided his suggestion to me: throw more parties.1 This year grants his wish on a … Continue reading →
Cremieux Recueil
Just Pay Them Off The International Longshoremen's Association is protecting people whose jobs are no longer...
9 months ago
31
9 months ago
The International Longshoremen's Association is protecting people whose jobs are no longer necessary. Stop fighting and just pay them so they go away.
IEEE Spectrum
Inside the Three-Way Race to Create the Most Widely Used Laser The semiconductor laser, invented more than 60 years ago, is the foundation of many of today’s...
a year ago
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a year ago
The semiconductor laser, invented more than 60 years ago, is the foundation of many of today’s technologies including barcode scanners, fiber-optic communications, medical imaging, and remote controls. The tiny, versatile device is now an IEEE Milestone. The possibilities of...
Blog - Practical...
When Infrastructure Gets Hacked [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is a water tower, or as...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is a water tower, or as the pros would say, an elevated storage tank. Pretty common here in the US, especially in flatter areas where there’s no nearby hillside to build a ground-level tank. I have a whole...
pcloadletter
Somewhere along the way we forgot about software craftsmanship "Ship it!" "We're agile now, baby. Move fast and break things!"" "We measure our engineers by the...
a year ago
38
a year ago
"Ship it!" "We're agile now, baby. Move fast and break things!"" "We measure our engineers by the impact they have!" Somewhere along the way, in the midst of the agilification of software, or the software engineer salary gold rush, we forgot about craftsmanship. I have been in...
Cremieux Recueil
Nutrition Beliefs Are Just-So Stories But everyone wishes they weren't!
3 months ago
Drew Ex Machina
An ISS Success Story: CyMISS (Tropical Cyclone Intensity Measurements from the ISS) to the Hurricane... The team at Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA), where this author is the Chief Scientist, had the...
11 months ago
Asterisk
Developmental Editing
12 months ago
Yale E360
London Inches Closer to Running Transit System Entirely on Renewable Power Under a new agreement, London will source enough solar power to run its light railway and tram...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
Under a new agreement, London will source enough solar power to run its light railway and tram networks entirely on renewable energy. Read more on E360 →
Drew Ex Machina
Catching Up: Talking about the Weather After an unintended four-month hiatus publishing new work on the Drew Ex Machina website, I figured...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
After an unintended four-month hiatus publishing new work on the Drew Ex Machina website, I figured it was time to catch up on what I’ve been […]
Quantum Frontiers
Developing an AI for Quantum Chess: Part 1 In January 2016, Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter unveiled a YouTube video...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
In January 2016, Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter unveiled a YouTube video featuring an extraordinary chess showdown between actor Paul Rudd (a.k.a. Ant-Man) and the legendary Dr. Stephen Hawking. But this was no ordinary match—Rudd had challenged Hawking …...
Asterisk
China’s Silicon Future China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts will succeed is far from clear.
Asterisk
PEPFAR and the Costs of Cost-Benefit Analysis In the early aughts, economists said it was a bad use of money to send antiretroviral drugs to treat...
a year ago
16
a year ago
In the early aughts, economists said it was a bad use of money to send antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV in low-income countries. Twenty years later, we can ask why they got it wrong.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Why don’t we screen healthy people to catch diseases early? | Out-Of-Pocket the fight that comes up every month
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Neolithic Revolution What was the greatest invention of human civilization? Arguably it was agriculture, which allowed...
a year ago
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a year ago
What was the greatest invention of human civilization? Arguably it was agriculture, which allowed for civilization itself. Prior to agriculture humans were some combination of hunters, gatherers, scavengers, and fishers. We lived off the land, which was a full-time job. Many...
Yale E360
Chimps Found Treating Each Other's Wounds Chimpanzees in Uganda were found treating the injuries of other, unrelated chimps, including those...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
Chimpanzees in Uganda were found treating the injuries of other, unrelated chimps, including those caught in hunting snares.  Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
Russia's War Is Driving Up Emissions by Forcing Planes to Reroute Since war broke out in Ukraine, Western airlines have been charting longer routes to avoid flying...
5 months ago
6
5 months ago
Since war broke out in Ukraine, Western airlines have been charting longer routes to avoid flying over Russia, with a discernible impact on emissions. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
Peatland Algae to Soak Up More Carbon as Planet Warms New research finds that microalgae in northern peat bogs will absorb more carbon dioxide as the...
3 months ago
8
3 months ago
New research finds that microalgae in northern peat bogs will absorb more carbon dioxide as the planet warms, helping to take a bite out of emissions. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
In the Quantum World, Even Points of View Are Uncertain The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once — an insight with potentially major ramifications. The post In the Quantum World, Even Points of View Are Uncertain first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
51
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...
Quanta Magazine
Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy...
a year ago
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a year ago
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy clusters. If confirmed, the approach could be used to reveal where cosmic magnetic fields come from. The post Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields...
Cremieux Recueil
Trump Should Finish What He Started A guestpost calling for Trump to finish radically reforming the tax system
7 months ago
Quanta Magazine
How Is Flocking Like Computing? Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In...
a year ago
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a year ago
Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz interviews the evolutionary ecologist Iain Couzin about how and why collective behaviors arise. The post How Is Flocking Like...
The Works in...
History is in the making It's technology and ideas, not politics, that change our lives the most. History should reflect...
7 months ago
Quanta Magazine
How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that...
2 months ago
27
2 months ago
From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that differ from their reflected forms. The post How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
The purpose of a building is how it looks True functionalism combines utility and beauty
2 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
False Starts: The Story of Vehicle-to-Grid Power In 2001, a team of engineers at a then-obscure R&D company called AC Propulsion quietly began a...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
In 2001, a team of engineers at a then-obscure R&D company called AC Propulsion quietly began a groundbreaking experiment. They wanted to see whether an electric vehicle could feed electricity back to the grid. The experiment seemed to prove the feasibility of the technology. The...
Asterisk
How Long Til We’re All on Ozempic? Over 100 million Americans, and possibly many more, could benefit from GLP-1 drugs. When can they...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Over 100 million Americans, and possibly many more, could benefit from GLP-1 drugs. When can they expect to get them?
Quanta Magazine
Nobel Prize Honors Inventors of ‘Quantum Dot’ Nanoparticles The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to three researchers who harnessed the quantum...
a year ago
23
a year ago
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to three researchers who harnessed the quantum behaviors of semiconductor nanocrystals. The post Nobel Prize Honors Inventors of ‘Quantum Dot’ Nanoparticles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The weird CPT code process you need to understand | Out-Of-Pocket “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words are billed CPT 99245”
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
Before the Undo Command, There Was the Electric Eraser hot combs—they all obviously benefited from the jolt of electrification. But the eraser? What was so...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
hot combs—they all obviously benefited from the jolt of electrification. But the eraser? What was so problematic about the humble eraser that it needed electrifying? 1935 patent application for an apparatus for erasing, “Hand held rubbers are clumsy and cover a greater area than...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Manukan Island And The Tempasuk Plain October 18, 2024 Following our adventure at Trus Madi, our remaining time in Borneo had dwindled to...
6 months ago
20
6 months ago
October 18, 2024 Following our adventure at Trus Madi, our remaining time in Borneo had dwindled to just three days. On October 19 we planned to visit a hide often attended by the Bornean Peacock-Pheasant.  This gave us October 18th as a free day.  After mulling over a few other...
Yale E360
Cuts to U.S. Climate Aid Will Leave Large Gap in Global Funding The U.S. provides nearly a tenth of all climate finance globally, a well of funding that is at risk...
4 months ago
8
4 months ago
The U.S. provides nearly a tenth of all climate finance globally, a well of funding that is at risk of drying up as the Trump administration takes aim at overseas spending. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
As War Halts, the Environmental Devastation in Gaza Runs Deep The war in Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the environment, with water supplies contaminated, raw...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
The war in Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the environment, with water supplies contaminated, raw sewage pouring into the Mediterranean, once-fertile soils ruined, and the land stripped of trees. Experts say the extent of the damage needs to be tallied to help plan for a...
Quantum Frontiers
Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem! In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a River. The Rat explains how the River permeates his life: “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, … Continue reading →
Quanta Magazine
Does Nothingness Exist? Even empty space bubbles with energy, according to quantum mechanics — and that fact affects almost...
a year ago
51
a year ago
Even empty space bubbles with energy, according to quantum mechanics — and that fact affects almost every facet of physical reality. The theoretical physicist Isabel Garcia Garcia explains to Steven Strogatz why it’s so important in modern physics to understand what a true vacuum...
NeuroLogica Blog
Virtual Walking When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have...
a year ago
55
a year ago
When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have my avatar walk while I am not walking. I general play standing up which means I can move around the space in my office mapped by my VR software – so I am physically walking to...
The Works in...
ARIA: Betting on science An inside look at Britain's new DARPA
over a year ago
symmetry magazine
A call to cite Black women and gender minorities Theoretical astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein recently unveiled the Cite Black Women+ in...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Theoretical astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein recently unveiled the Cite Black Women+ in Physics and Astronomy Bibliography.
SubAnima
Can Biology Be Reduced To Physics? "Physics is the most fundamental and all-inclusive of the sciences." Or is it?
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Computer Scientists Figure Out How To Prove Lies An attack on a fundamental proof technique reveals a glaring security issue for blockchains and...
6 days ago
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6 days ago
An attack on a fundamental proof technique reveals a glaring security issue for blockchains and other digital encryption schemes. The post Computer Scientists Figure Out How To Prove Lies first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Can You Trust An AI Press Release? Of course not. Here’s how leading AI labs mislead consumers, journalists, and each other.
a year ago
Yale E360
Dust from Car Brakes More Harmful than Exhaust, Study Finds In cars, pollution doesn't come from exhaust alone. It also comes from wear and tear on roads,...
5 months ago
8
5 months ago
In cars, pollution doesn't come from exhaust alone. It also comes from wear and tear on roads, tires, and brakes. According to new research, tiny bits of dust cast off by brake pads may inflict more harm than car exhaust. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Secret Research Techniques | Out-Of-Pocket A magician always reveals his tricks for the purposes of engagement
a year ago
Chris Grossack's...
How to Explicitly Compute Charts for a Levelset Submanifold While doing a computation with my friend Shane the other day, we realized we needed to explicitly...
3 weeks ago
14
3 weeks ago
While doing a computation with my friend Shane the other day, we realized we needed to explicitly compute a local chart near the identity of $SL_2(\mathbb{R})$. It took us longer than I’d like to admit to figure out how to do this (especially since it’s so geometrically...
The Works in...
Where inflation comes from How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences in how well-off we think we are.
Eukaryote Writes...
A point of clarification on infohazard terminology “Infohazard” means any kind of information that could be harmful in some fashion. Let’s use “memetic...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
“Infohazard” means any kind of information that could be harmful in some fashion. Let’s use “memetic hazard” to describe information that could specifically harm the person who knows it.
Uncharted...
Why Is Canada’s Population so Concentrated? In three spots that are disconnected?
2 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Placebos Are Getting Stronger | Out-Of-Pocket Should we incorporate them into clinical practice?
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
A New Agenda for Low-Dimensional Topology This past October, dozens of mathematicians gathered in Pasadena to create the third version of...
a year ago
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a year ago
This past October, dozens of mathematicians gathered in Pasadena to create the third version of “Kirby’s list” — a compendium of the most important unsolved problems in the field. The post A New Agenda for Low-Dimensional Topology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal Stability. Now the Idea May Be Falling Apart. A series of advances seemed to promise the impossible: the existence of quantum states that would...
a year ago
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a year ago
A series of advances seemed to promise the impossible: the existence of quantum states that would never, ever fall into disarray. But physicists are now discovering that the pull of disorder may not be so easily overcome. The post A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal...
nanoscale views
Guide to faculty searches, 2024 edition As you can tell from my posting frequency lately, I have been unusually busy.  I hope to be writing...
8 months ago
13
8 months ago
As you can tell from my posting frequency lately, I have been unusually busy.  I hope to be writing about more condensed matter and nano science soon.   In the meantime, I realized that I have not re-posted or updated my primer on how tenure-track faculty searches work in physics...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Cold Brew Coffee While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory...
a year ago
20
a year ago
While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory cost-benefit analysis shows that they get back more than they spend. Coffee's caffeine content boosts a person's focus and attention, and it reduces mental fatigue, all of these...
Asterisk
Artificial Wombs When? What to expect when you’re expecting in 2050.
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules Simple rules in simple settings continue to puzzle mathematicians, even as they devise intricate...
a year ago
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a year ago
Simple rules in simple settings continue to puzzle mathematicians, even as they devise intricate tools to analyze them. The post ‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
The Noncommuting-Charges World Tour (Part 1 of 4) Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many...
a year ago
58
a year 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 …...
NeuroLogica Blog
How To Keep AIs From Lying We had a fascinating discussion on this week’s SGU that I wanted to bring here – the subject of...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
We had a fascinating discussion on this week’s SGU that I wanted to bring here – the subject of artificial intelligence programs (AI), specifically large language models (LLMs), lying. The starting point for the discussion was this study, which looked at punishing LLMs as a...
Yale E360
Wildlife Returns to Site of Devastating Southern California Wildfire Four months after the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, California, wildlife is making a...
2 months ago
The Roots of...
Why consumerism is good actually “Consumerism” came up in my recent interview with Elle Griffin of The Post. Here’s what I had to say...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
“Consumerism” came up in my recent interview with Elle Griffin of The Post. Here’s what I had to say (off the cuff): I have to admit, I’ve never 100% understood what “consumerism” is, or what it’s supposed to be. I have the general sense of what people are gesturing at, but it...
Yale E360
Cambodian Forest Defenders at Risk for Exposing Illegal Logging The lush forests that have long sustained Cambodia’s Indigenous people have steadily fallen to...
a month ago
2
a month ago
The lush forests that have long sustained Cambodia’s Indigenous people have steadily fallen to illicit logging. Now, community members face intimidation and risk arrest as they patrol their forests to document the losses and try to push the government to stop the cutting. Read...
Yale E360
Planned Indian Mega-Port Could 'Wipe Out' Isolated Tribe The Shompen, residents of a small island in the Indian Ocean, are among the world's last isolated...
2 months ago
5
2 months ago
The Shompen, residents of a small island in the Indian Ocean, are among the world's last isolated tribes. But that may soon change as the Indian government moves forward with plans for a massive port that could "wipe out" the tribe, a watchdog group says. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Do Apes Have a Theory of Mind Designing research studies to determine what is going on inside the minds of animals is extremely...
5 months ago
34
5 months ago
Designing research studies to determine what is going on inside the minds of animals is extremely challenging. The literature is littered with past studies that failed to properly control for all variables and thereby overinterpreted the results. The challenge is that we cannot...
Uncharted...
16 Most Surprising Facts About Korea As I research the country, these are the most interesting and surprising facts I gathered—and some...
3 months ago
42
3 months ago
As I research the country, these are the most interesting and surprising facts I gathered—and some beautiful images along the way.
IEEE Spectrum
RCA’s Lucite Phantom Teleceiver Introduced the Idea of TV addressed a small crowd outside the RCA pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. “Today we are on the...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
addressed a small crowd outside the RCA pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. “Today we are on the eve of launching a new industry, based on imagination, on scientific research and accomplishment,” he proclaimed. That industry was television. RCA president David Sarnoff’s...
wadertales
Juvenile settlement in Black-tailed Godwits Adult waders tend to be exceptionally consistent in their use of time and space, with marked...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
Adult waders tend to be exceptionally consistent in their use of time and space, with marked individuals turning up on the same estuaries at the same time year after year, as discussed in the Whimbrel blog ‘Whimbrel: time to leave’. How do these patterns become established? Do...
Quantum Frontiers
Ten lessons I learned from John Preskill Last August, Toronto’s Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC) gave me 35 minutes...
5 months ago
66
5 months ago
Last August, Toronto’s Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC) gave me 35 minutes to make fun of John Preskill in public. CQIQC was hosting its biannual conference, also called CQIQC, in Toronto. The conference features the awarding of … Continue reading →
Quanta Magazine
Dogged Dark Matter Hunters Find New Hiding Places to Check Perhaps dark matter is made of an entirely different kind of particle than the ones physicists have...
a year ago
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a year ago
Perhaps dark matter is made of an entirely different kind of particle than the ones physicists have been searching for. New experiments are springing up to look for these ultra-lightweight phantoms. The post Dogged Dark Matter Hunters Find New Hiding Places to Check...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Out-Of-Pocket’s Healthcare Crash Course Launches!! | Out-Of-Pocket Learn the basics of healthcare in a fun, entertaining, and accessible way
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
This 1945 TV Console Showed Two Programs at Once As I try to write this article, my friend and I have six different screens attached to three types...
a week ago
16
a week ago
As I try to write this article, my friend and I have six different screens attached to three types of devices. We’re working in the same room but on our own projects—separate yet together, a comfortable companionship. I had never really thought of the proliferation of screens as...
Drew Ex Machina
Epsilon Indi’s Super Jovian Exoplanet – Background & New Observations by JWST On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max...
11 months ago
73
11 months ago
On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max Plank Institute for Astronomy, announced that they had used […]
Quanta Magazine
All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet LUCA. The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively...
7 months ago
89
7 months ago
The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively complex organism living 4.2 billion years ago, a time long considered too harsh for life to flourish. The post All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet...
Wanderingspace
Europa Seen by Juno Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson processed the image to enhance the color and contrast.
over a year ago
Yale E360
Entries Invited for Yale Environment 360 Film Contest The 12th annual Yale Environment 360 Film Contest is now accepting entries. Read more on E360 →
3 months ago
Quantum Frontiers
Can Thermodynamics Resolve the Measurement Problem? At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of...
a year ago
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a year ago
At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of Maryland!), during an expert panel Q&A session, one member of the audience asked “can quantum thermodynamics address foundational problems in quantum theory?” That stuck with …...
NeuroLogica Blog
Building A Robotic Hand Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of biological bodies in rubber, metal, and plastic. This is a difficult task because biological organisms are often wondrous machines. The human hand, in particular, is a feat of...
Quanta Magazine
How AI Models Are Helping to Understand — and Control — the Brain Martin Schrimpf is crafting bespoke AI models that can induce control over high-level brain...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
Martin Schrimpf is crafting bespoke AI models that can induce control over high-level brain activity. The post How AI Models Are Helping to Understand — and Control — the Brain first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
Can Toxic Mining Waste Help Remove CO2 from the Atmosphere? On the coast of Newfoundland, waste from a shuttered asbestos mine has been a troubling source of...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
On the coast of Newfoundland, waste from a shuttered asbestos mine has been a troubling source of contamination for decades. Now, a company plans to process the waste to draw CO2 from the air — one of several projects worldwide that aim to turn this liability into an asset. Read...
Asterisk
Why Isn’t Solar Scaling in Africa? The World Bank designed the Scaling Solar program to set Africa on a course to sustainable energy....
a year ago
22
a year ago
The World Bank designed the Scaling Solar program to set Africa on a course to sustainable energy. Instead, it shed light on how a lack of transparency in the climate and development industry hampers progress.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Is vision insurance a scam? | Out-Of-Pocket the weird, verticalized world of vision "insurance"
a year ago
Yale E360
To Cope With Extreme Heat, Clownfish Shrink During a severe heat wave in 2023, scientists scuba diving off the coast of Papua New Guinea...
a month ago
2
a month ago
During a severe heat wave in 2023, scientists scuba diving off the coast of Papua New Guinea captured clownfish to measure their bodies. Between February and August, they calculated the length of 134 of these iconic, orange and white fish once a month, taking a total of six...
IEEE Spectrum
Willie Hobbs Moore: STEM Trailblazer At a time in American history when even the most intelligent Black women were expected to become, at...
4 months ago
46
4 months ago
At a time in American history when even the most intelligent Black women were expected to become, at most, teachers or nurses, Willie Hobbs Moore broke with societal expectations to become a noted physicist and engineer. Moore probably is best known for being the first Black...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: Should Physicians Create Lifestyle Plans? | Out-Of-Pocket some real-world stories from people dealing with this
a year ago
Yale E360
Renewables Made Up More Than 90 Percent of New Power Installed Globally Last Year Renewables accounted for 92 percent of new power capacity worldwide last year, a new report...
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet...
a year ago
80
a year ago
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet we know comparatively little about them. But in recent years phage research has taken off with renewed interest. This is partly driven by the availability of CRISPR-based tools for...
Yale E360
Warmer, Greener Arctic Becoming a Source of Heat-Trapping Gas As the northern latitudes warm, ice is melting and vegetation is spreading. But instead of absorbing...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
As the northern latitudes warm, ice is melting and vegetation is spreading. But instead of absorbing more carbon, the region is becoming a source of heat-trapping gas, a new study shows. Read more on E360 →
Cremieux Recueil
What’s the Deal With Autism Rates? Explaining the "autism epidemic".
2 months ago
Damn Interesting
Giving the Bird the Bird We’re not going to post things on Twitter X anymore. The new owner keeps doing awful stuff. If you...
a year ago
43
a year ago
We’re not going to post things on Twitter X anymore. The new owner keeps doing awful stuff. If you have enjoyed our mostly-daily curated links via the aforementioned collapsing service, we invite you to bookmark our curated links page, or follow us a number of other ways. Rather...
wadertales
Will head-starting work for Curlew? 83 captive-reared Curlew were released successfully in 2019, over 130 in 2021 and a similar number...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
83 captive-reared Curlew were released successfully in 2019, over 130 in 2021 and a similar number in 2022 but this does not mean that head-starting is a solution to England’s Curlew problems. We don’t yet know the proportion of youngsters that survive the difficult ‘teenage...
Yale E360
Foreign Trawlers Plunder Senegalese Waters, Driving Small Fishers to Migrate to Spain A foreign fleet of industrial trawlers is exhausting fish stocks in Senegal, driving artisanal...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
A foreign fleet of industrial trawlers is exhausting fish stocks in Senegal, driving artisanal fishers to undertake a difficult, and sometimes deadly, migration to Spain. Read more on E360 →
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 3: Hunter Canyon to Portal September 2, 2024 We awoke to another beautiful sunrise in the Huachuca Mountains. I could get used...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
September 2, 2024 We awoke to another beautiful sunrise in the Huachuca Mountains. I could get used to this view. View from Beatty's Guest Ranch - Miller Canyon, Cochise County, Arizona This was our final morning in this region; we had plans to make the long drive eastwards...
Yale E360
After 17 Years Underground, Massive Cicada Brood to Swarm U.S. After hiding underground for the last 17 years, billions of cicadas will take to the skies this...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
After hiding underground for the last 17 years, billions of cicadas will take to the skies this summer, from Tennessee to Cape Cod.  Read more on E360 →
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 13: Quebrada El Limón And The Last Of The Northwest (February 16-18,... February 16, 2024 The town of Olmos isn't the most picturesque in Peru. Situated in the coastal...
5 months ago
22
5 months ago
February 16, 2024 The town of Olmos isn't the most picturesque in Peru. Situated in the coastal desert, the streets are dusty, the wind is always present and the roads are potholed. It is certainly not a town that caters to tourists, and I doubt many stop here. But an advantage...
Breck's Blog
Movement
3 months ago
Beautiful Public...
Highway Photologs Highway departments all around the country had "photolog" programs, some dating back as early as...
over a year ago
45
over a year ago
Highway departments all around the country had "photolog" programs, some dating back as early as 1961. Each year, specially tricked out vans would drive each mile of state road snapping photos to document the status of roadways.
Chris Grossack's...
Monoidal Monoidoidoids So I was on the nlab the other day, and I saw a fantastic joke: A 2-category is “just” a monoidal...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
So I was on the nlab the other day, and I saw a fantastic joke: A 2-category is “just” a monoidal monoidoidoid! Here’s a screenshot in case the nlab page for 2-categories changes someday: There’s a thing called the Category Theorist’s “Just”, which describes the joy that many...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Out-Of-Pocket’s 2025 Predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I’m like 50% right every year, I just never know which 50%
7 months ago
Blog - Practical...
Connecting Solar to the Grid is Harder Than You Think [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On June 4, 2022, a small piece...
a year ago
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a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On June 4, 2022, a small piece of equipment (called a lightning arrestor) at a power plant in Odessa, Texas failed, causing part of the plant to trip offline. It was a fairly typical fault that happens from...
symmetry magazine
Physics on tour A group called the Big Bang Collective sets up physics discovery stations at rather unexpected...
over a year ago
72
over a year ago
A group called the Big Bang Collective sets up physics discovery stations at rather unexpected venues: music festivals.
Quanta Magazine
How a NASA Probe Solved a Scorching Solar Mystery The outer layers of the sun’s atmosphere are a blistering million degrees hotter than its surface....
a year ago
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a year ago
The outer layers of the sun’s atmosphere are a blistering million degrees hotter than its surface. The hidden culprit? Magnetic activity. The post How a NASA Probe Solved a Scorching Solar Mystery first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Roots of...
What does it mean to “trust science”? And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me...
a year ago
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a year ago
And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, science definitely exists—I’ve seen it. But not everything that calls itself science is science, and even good science sometimes gets wrong results. –Megan McArdle Should...
Asterisk
They May as Well Grow on Trees The Future of Genetically Engineered Livestock
over a year ago
Yale E360
Carbon Dioxide Levels Rose by a Record Amount Last Year Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before, putting hopes of limiting...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before, putting hopes of limiting warming in jeopardy. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a...
a year ago
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a year ago
How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, first arose billions of years ago in bacteria with a primitive sociality. The post Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? first...
symmetry magazine
Applications of quantum mechanics at the beach How does sunscreen work on the atomic level?
a year ago
Eukaryote Writes...
There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization".) From 'dendro', the ancient Greek root for tree.
NeuroLogica Blog
Tesla Demonstrated its Optimus Robot At a recent event Tesla showcased the capabilities of its humanoid autonomous robot, Optimus. The...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
At a recent event Tesla showcased the capabilities of its humanoid autonomous robot, Optimus. The demonstration has come under some criticism, however, for not being fully transparent about the nature of the demonstration. We interviewed robotics expert, Christian Hubicki, on the...
Quanta Magazine
The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans,...
6 months ago
75
6 months ago
Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, suggesting that the world is far more interconnected than anyone realized. The post The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Making Computers More Efficient An analysis in 2021 found that 10% of the world’s electricity production is used by computers,...
a year ago
22
a year ago
An analysis in 2021 found that 10% of the world’s electricity production is used by computers, including personal use, data centers, the internet and communication centers. The same analysis projected that this was likely to increase to 20% by 2025. This may have been an...
IEEE Spectrum
The Sneaky Standard A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, Ernie Smith’s newsletter, which hunts for the...
a year ago
119
a year 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...
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
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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...
Yale E360
In Test, A.I. Weather Model Fails to Predict Freak Storm Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than conventional forecasts and are faster and cheaper to produce. But new research shows A.I. may fail to predict unprecedented weather events, a troubling finding as warming fuels new...
Damn Interesting
Journey to the Invisible Planet In the late 17th century, natural philosopher Isaac Newton was deeply uneasy with a new scientific...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
In the late 17th century, natural philosopher Isaac Newton was deeply uneasy with a new scientific theory that was gaining currency in Europe: universal gravitation. In correspondence with a scientific contemporary, Newton complained that it was “an absurdity” to suppose that...
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 2 This is the second episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
55
a year ago
This is the second episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
Yale E360
How Tearing Down Small Dams Is Helping Restore Northeast Rivers More than 30,000 small dams currently block river tributaries from Maine to Maryland. New...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
More than 30,000 small dams currently block river tributaries from Maine to Maryland. New initiatives to remove them are aimed at restoring natural flows, improving habitat for aquatic life, and reopening thousands of river miles to migratory fish, from shad to American...
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Identify the Best Versions of Iconic Shapes Researchers are discovering the shortest knots and fattest Möbius strips, among other “optimal...
a year ago
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a year ago
Researchers are discovering the shortest knots and fattest Möbius strips, among other “optimal shapes.” The post Mathematicians Identify the Best Versions of Iconic Shapes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Damn Interesting
Lofty Ambitions One summer day in 1933, in a brief pocket of time between the two World Wars, a British man named...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
One summer day in 1933, in a brief pocket of time between the two World Wars, a British man named Maurice Wilson clutched the stick of his tiny, open air biplane and watched his fuel gauge dwindle. He had only learned to fly two months earlier, but inexperience was not his...
Melting Asphalt
Here Be Sermons I've long turned up my nose at sermons and related forms of mass moralizing. One reason, quite...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
I've long turned up my nose at sermons and related forms of mass moralizing. One reason, quite simply, is that they bore me. Honesty good. Violence bad. My eyes glaze over. Empathy, rah! Racism, boo! Please, don't we know this… Read more ›
NeuroLogica Blog
Germany and Nuclear Power Germany has been thrown around a lot as an example of both what to do and what not to do in terms of...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
Germany has been thrown around a lot as an example of both what to do and what not to do in terms of addressing global warming by embracing green energy technology. It’s possible to look back now and review the numbers, to see what the effect was of its decision to embrace...
Casey Handmer's blog
Maximizing electrical power output from a nuclear reactor delivered by Starship to a base on Mars This post is a follow on from Powering the Mars Base. It’s an extended riff on the following thought...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
This post is a follow on from Powering the Mars Base. It’s an extended riff on the following thought experiment: What is the most electrical power you could extract from an integrated Starship-delivered nuclear reactor on Mars? The usual caveats apply. I have taught nuclear...
Quanta Magazine
The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it...
a year ago
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a year ago
The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it is, in fact, a hub of sensory and emotional processing in the brain. The post The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Latest Starship Launch SpaceX has conducted their most successful test launch of a Starship system to date. The system they...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
SpaceX has conducted their most successful test launch of a Starship system to date. The system they tested has three basic components – the Super Heavy first stage rocket booster, the Starship second stage (which is the actual space ship that will go places), and the...
Quanta Magazine
Perplexing the Web, One Probability Puzzle at a Time The mathematician Daniel Litt has driven social media users to distraction with a series of...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
The mathematician Daniel Litt has driven social media users to distraction with a series of simple-seeming but counterintuitive probability puzzles. The post Perplexing the Web, One Probability Puzzle at a Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and...
over a year ago
Chris Grossack's...
Analytic Combinatorics -- A Worked Example Another day, another blog post that starts with “I was on mse the other day…”. This time, someone...
3 months ago
83
3 months ago
Another day, another blog post that starts with “I was on mse the other day…”. This time, someone asked an interesting question amounting to “how many unordered rooted ternary trees with $n$ nodes are there, up to isomorphism?”. I’m a sucker for these kinds of combinatorial...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Rethinking organization structures | Out-Of-Pocket Is there something beyond top-down hierarchies?
a year ago
Asterisk
A Chinese Internet Phrasebook The latest slang on Weibo reveals a world of cynicism, ennui — and concrete pasta.
8 months ago
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum automata Do you know when an engineer built the first artificial automaton—the first human-made machine that...
2 months ago
15
2 months ago
Do you know when an engineer built the first artificial automaton—the first human-made machine that operated by itself, without external control mechanisms that altered the machine’s behavior over time as the machine undertook its mission? The ancient Greek thinker Archytas …...
Quanta Magazine
Computation Is All Around Us, and You Can See It if You Try Computer scientist Lance Fortnow writes that by embracing the computations that surround us, we can...
a year ago
55
a year 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
Chris Grossack's...
Preprint -- The RAAG Functor as a Categorical Embedding After almost a year of sitting on my hard drive, I finally had time in August to finish revising my...
a year ago
21
a year ago
After almost a year of sitting on my hard drive, I finally had time in August to finish revising my new preprint on Right Angled Artin Groups (Raags). And in September I had time to put it on the arxiv for people to see! Within 24 hours I had an email from somebody who had...
Quanta Magazine
The Computer Scientist Peering Inside AI’s Black Boxes Cynthia Rudin wants machine learning models, responsible for increasingly important decisions, to...
over a year ago
66
over a year ago
Cynthia Rudin wants machine learning models, responsible for increasingly important decisions, to show their work. The post The Computer Scientist Peering Inside AI’s Black Boxes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Structuring the Unstructured and ScienceIO | Out-Of-Pocket how to train your model, the animated movie
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Cultural Blindness One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the...
a year ago
29
a year ago
One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the recognition that while the human brain is a powerful information processing machine, it also has many frailties. One of those frailties is perception – we do not perceive the world in...
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum Algorithms: A Call To Action Quantum computing finds itself in a peculiar situation. The number one question asked about quantum...
2 months ago
39
2 months ago
Quantum computing finds itself in a peculiar situation. The number one question asked about quantum computers by outsiders is very common sensical: What are they good for? The honest answer reveals an elephant in the room: We don’t fully know yet. For theorists like me, it’s an...
Yale E360
Taiwan to Ramp Up Gas Imports After Shuttering Last Nuclear Plant Having shut down its last remaining nuclear plant Saturday, Taiwan is working to secure new imports...
a month ago
6
a month ago
Having shut down its last remaining nuclear plant Saturday, Taiwan is working to secure new imports of natural gas. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
The Jagged, Monstrous Function That Broke Calculus In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as...
5 months ago
80
5 months ago
In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as nothing less than a “deplorable evil.” In time, it would transform the foundations of mathematics. The post The Jagged, Monstrous Function That Broke Calculus first...
Quanta Magazine
Secret Messages Can Hide in AI-Generated Media In steganography, an ordinary message masks the presence of a secret communication. Humans can never...
over a year ago
138
over a year ago
In steganography, an ordinary message masks the presence of a secret communication. Humans can never do it perfectly, but a new study shows it’s possible for machines. The post Secret Messages Can Hide in AI-Generated Media first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
‘Embryo Models’ Challenge Legal, Ethical and Biological Concepts With embryolike constructs built entirely from stem cells, researchers can revolutionize our...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
With embryolike constructs built entirely from stem cells, researchers can revolutionize our understanding of development. But how close to an embryo is too close? The post ‘Embryo Models’ Challenge Legal, Ethical and Biological Concepts first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
UFOs and the Pandemic Did UFO reporting increase during the pandemic? A group of researchers set out to answer that...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
Did UFO reporting increase during the pandemic? A group of researchers set out to answer that question, and recently published their results. Their hypothesis was two-fold, including the notion that people had more free time during the shutdown and perhaps spent more time out...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Radiology, Residency, and Physician Tools with Henry Li | Out-Of-Pocket What's actually happening in the hospital?
a year ago
The Works in...
Womb for improvement Pregnancy can be painful and, for some women, impossible. New technology may allow more women to...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
Pregnancy can be painful and, for some women, impossible. New technology may allow more women to have children and save the lives of prematurely born infants.
NeuroLogica Blog
How Much Do Couples Share Traits? Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms,...
a year ago
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a year ago
Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms, which means that they are commonly offered as generally accepted truths, but also that they may by wrong. People like pithy phrases, so they spread prolifically, but that does not mean...
Quanta Magazine
Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.” The post Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
How a Human Smell Receptor Works Is Finally Revealed After decades of frustration, researchers have finally determined how an airborne scent molecule...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
After decades of frustration, researchers have finally determined how an airborne scent molecule links to a human smell receptor. The post How a Human Smell Receptor Works Is Finally Revealed first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Issue 15: To change a norm Plus: bland buildings can't be blamed on labor costs, reasons to be sceptical about prediction...
a year ago
108
a year ago
Plus: bland buildings can't be blamed on labor costs, reasons to be sceptical about prediction markets, and gentrification policies that actually help.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
OOP Slack Application is Open! And A New FREE Course!! | Out-Of-Pocket Plus we’re running an experiment…
a month ago
The Works in...
Upzoning New Zealand How a small country started building a lot of homes
a year ago
Yale E360
Did Climate Change Help Fuel the Los Angeles Wildfires? Wildfires in Southern California have burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of...
6 months ago
1
6 months ago
Wildfires in Southern California have burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of buildings, and killed at least 10 people. Experts say global warming may have set the stage for the catastrophic blazes. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
The ‘Green’ Aviation Fuel That Would Increase Carbon Emissions The U.S. agriculture lobby has long promoted ethanol for cars. If President Trump’s “Big Beautiful...
a month ago
2
a month ago
The U.S. agriculture lobby has long promoted ethanol for cars. If President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” becomes law, the industry would be given tax credits for producing crop-based fuel for planes, too, despite evidence it would spur deforestation and increase emissions. Read...
NeuroLogica Blog
Boeing Starliner Launches Soon If all goes well, Boeing’s Starliner capsule will launch on Monday May 6th with two crew members...
a year ago
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a year ago
If all goes well, Boeing’s Starliner capsule will launch on Monday May 6th with two crew members aboard, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will be spending a week aboard the ISS. This is the last (hopefully) test of the new capsule, and if successful it will become officially...
Uncharted...
Wind and Solar, a Perfect Match Also, why solar will beat wind, why they are so complementary, the nuclear renaissance, the poor...
8 months ago
37
8 months ago
Also, why solar will beat wind, why they are so complementary, the nuclear renaissance, the poor state of German energy, and more.
Quanta Magazine
Touch, Our Most Complex Sense, Is a Landscape of Cellular Sensors Every soft caress of wind, searing burn and seismic rumble is detected by our skin’s tangle of touch...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
Every soft caress of wind, searing burn and seismic rumble is detected by our skin’s tangle of touch sensors. David Ginty has spent his career cataloging the neurons beneath everyday sensations. The post Touch, Our Most Complex Sense, Is a Landscape of Cellular...
Apoorva Srinivasan
on edward jenner and creativity One common question that’s on everyone’s minds as we fiercely scrub our hands, pool our resources,...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
One common question that’s on everyone’s minds as we fiercely scrub our hands, pool our resources, conserve our consumption, stock up (but not hoard), invent calculus or write King Lear is: when will this end? Nobody knows what the answer to that question is but we
Yale E360
Cheap Chinese Solar Panels Sparking a Renewable Boom in the Global South Facing trade barriers in the U.S. and other wealthy nations, Chinese solar firms are exporting cheap...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Facing trade barriers in the U.S. and other wealthy nations, Chinese solar firms are exporting cheap panels to poorer countries, fueling a surge in solar installations in parts of the developing world. Read more on E360 →
Blog - Practical...
Was Starship’s Stage Zero a Bad Pad? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On April 20, 2023, SpaceX...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On April 20, 2023, SpaceX launched it’s first orbital test flight of its Starship spacecraft from Boca Chica on the gulf coast of Texas. You probably saw this, if not live, at least in the stunning videos that...
IEEE Spectrum
Sci-fi and Hi-fi Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire companies around an idea introduced in a story they read, as the founders of Second Life and Meta did, working from the metaverse as imagined by Neal Stephenson in his seminal 1992...
The Works in...
Three Maintenance Philosophies Fought for Control of the Auto Industry A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
over a year ago
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Don't Sink [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The essence of a bridge is not...
a year ago
135
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The essence of a bridge is not just that it goes over something, but that there’s clear space underneath for a river, railway, or road. Maybe this is already obvious to you, but bridges present a unique...
NeuroLogica Blog
Bury Broadband and Electricity We may have a unique opportunity to make an infrastructure investment that can demonstrably save...
3 months ago
23
3 months ago
We may have a unique opportunity to make an infrastructure investment that can demonstrably save money over the long term – by burying power and broadband lines. This is always an option, of course, but since we are in the early phases of rolling out fiber optic service, and also...
Yale E360
In a First, California Tribe May Freely Burn Its Ancestral Lands In California, a state increasingly beset by devastating wildfires, the Karuk Tribe will be able to...
4 months ago
3
4 months ago
In California, a state increasingly beset by devastating wildfires, the Karuk Tribe will be able to freely set controlled burns, helping to clear the dense underbrush that fuels larger and more destructive fires. Read more on E360 →
Yale E360
In Test, A.I. Weather Model Fails to Predict Freak Storm Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than...
a month ago
3
a month ago
Artificial intelligence is powering weather forecasts that are generally more accurate than conventional forecasts and are faster and cheaper to produce. But new research shows A.I. may fail to predict unprecedented weather events, a troubling finding as warming fuels new...
Yale E360
As Oceans Warm, Predators Are Falling Out of Sync with Their Prey In the sea as on land, climate change is driving shifts in the abundance and distribution of...
5 months ago
5
5 months ago
In the sea as on land, climate change is driving shifts in the abundance and distribution of species. Scientists are just beginning to focus on why some fish predators and prey — like striped bass and menhaden on the U.S. East Coast — are changing their behavior as waters warm....
Blog - Practical...
The Most Confusing Part of the Power Grid [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In March of 1989, Earth...
a year ago
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a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In March of 1989, Earth experienced one of its strongest geomagnetic storms in modern history. It all started when scientists observed a cluster of sunspots—active, magnetic areas on the sun's surface—emerging...
Quanta Magazine
What Makes Life Tick? Mitochondria May Keep Time for Cells Every species develops at its own unique tempo, leaving scientist to wonder what governed their...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Every species develops at its own unique tempo, leaving scientist to wonder what governed their timing. A suite of new findings suggests that cells use basic metabolic processes as clocks. The post What Makes Life Tick? Mitochondria May Keep Time for Cells first...
Breck's Blog
Information is the Easiest Job
2 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
32 Bits That Changed Microprocessor Design In the late 1970s, a time when 8-bit processors were state of the art and CMOS was the underdog of...
a month ago
90
a month ago
In the late 1970s, a time when 8-bit processors were state of the art and CMOS was the underdog of semiconductor technology, engineers at AT&T’s Bell Labs took a bold leap into the future. They made a high-stakes bet to outpace IBM, Intel, and other competitors in chip...
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
39
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 →
The Works in...
The world of tomorrow When the future arrived, it felt… ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow?
a month ago
Yale E360
Microplastics Block Blood Flow in Brains of Mice A new study finds microplastics can block the flow of blood in the brains of mice. The study comes...
5 months ago
5
5 months ago
A new study finds microplastics can block the flow of blood in the brains of mice. The study comes on the heels of other research showing, for the first time, that microplastics can lodge in human brains. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Regret After Transitioning In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was enough to trigger very specific feedback, often making erroneous scientific claims. Each claim requires a deep dive and article-length discussion. Even though the discussion that...
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Discover Novel Way to Predict Structure in Graphs In new work on graphs’ hidden structure, mathematicians probe the limits of randomness. ...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
In new work on graphs’ hidden structure, mathematicians probe the limits of randomness. The post Mathematicians Discover Novel Way to Predict Structure in Graphs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic Are we really living through a uniquely lonely moment in American history? When it comes to...
8 months ago
34
8 months ago
Are we really living through a uniquely lonely moment in American history? When it comes to friendship, this isn’t the first time that authorities have cried wolf.
Yale E360
As Earth's Magnetic Field Grows Stronger, Oxygen Levels Rise When the magnetic field around the Earth grows stronger, oxygen levels rise. That is the surprising...
4 weeks ago
16
4 weeks ago
When the magnetic field around the Earth grows stronger, oxygen levels rise. That is the surprising finding of a new study looking at more than half a billion years of planetary history. Read more on E360 →
Wanderingspace
Enter Prometheus “Here's a view of Saturn's moon Prometheus, made from images captured with the narrow-angle camera...
7 months ago
76
7 months ago
“Here's a view of Saturn's moon Prometheus, made from images captured with the narrow-angle camera on Cassini on December 6, 2015. Cassini was about 37,400 km from Prometheus when the images were acquired. Part of the F ring is visible in the background at the top.” — Jason Major
NeuroLogica Blog
New Material for Nanoconductors One of the things I have come to understand from following technology news for decades is that...
6 months ago
51
6 months ago
One of the things I have come to understand from following technology news for decades is that perhaps the most important breakthroughs, and often the least appreciated, are those in material science. We can get better at engineering and making stuff out of the materials we have,...
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour To Borneo: Tabin Wildlife Reserve And Danum Valley We left the Kinabatangan River behind and transferred to our next destination, the Tabin Wildlife...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
We left the Kinabatangan River behind and transferred to our next destination, the Tabin Wildlife Reserve. This is the largest swath of protected forest; an area of lowland primary and logged forest that is home to iconic species like the Bornean Pygmy Elephant, the Sun Bear and...
Quanta Magazine
Finding Beauty and Truth in Mundane Occurrences The physicist Sidney Nagel delights in solving mysteries of the universe that are hiding in plain...
2 months ago
98
2 months ago
The physicist Sidney Nagel delights in solving mysteries of the universe that are hiding in plain sight. The post Finding Beauty and Truth in Mundane Occurrences first appeared on Quanta Magazine
ToughSF
Cold, Laser-Coupled Particle Beams This is a follow-up to the Particle Beams in Space post. This time, we look at two concepts that...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
This is a follow-up to the Particle Beams in Space post. This time, we look at two concepts that can massively increase the effective range of particle beam: one is being applied every day in modern accelerators, and the other is an outgrowth of a tool used in...
The Roots of...
Video: Intro to progress studies at Learning Night Boston I got invited to speak at Learning Night Boston and give an intro to progress studies: why study...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I got invited to speak at Learning Night Boston and give an intro to progress studies: why study progress, and why do we need a new philosophy of progress? There are then a few minutes of Q&A. (It was in a bar and the audio quality is poor, sorry.)
Yale E360
To Protect Amazon from Drug Traffickers, Title Indigenous Lands, Report Says Drug traffickers are violently seizing Indigenous lands in the Peruvian Amazon to clear rainforest...
a month ago
2
a month ago
Drug traffickers are violently seizing Indigenous lands in the Peruvian Amazon to clear rainforest and grow coca. To combat the drug trade, a new report calls for titling Indigenous territories along major trafficking routes.  Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Subjective Neurological Experience On the SGU we recently talked about aphantasia, the condition in which some people have a decreased...
9 months ago
68
9 months ago
On the SGU we recently talked about aphantasia, the condition in which some people have a decreased or entirely absent ability to imagine things. The term was coined recently, in 2015, by neurologist Adam Zeman, who described the condition of “congenital aphantasia,” that he...
Quanta Magazine
How Smell Guides Our Inner World A better understanding of human smell is emerging as scientists interrogate its fundamental...
a week ago
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a week ago
A better understanding of human smell is emerging as scientists interrogate its fundamental elements: the odor molecules that enter your nose and the individual neurons that translate them into perception in your brain. The post How Smell Guides Our Inner World first...
Uncharted...
Where Geniuses Hide Today Where are today’s Michelangelos?
7 months ago
Asterisk
Golden States
a year ago
The Works in...
Youtube Rules A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Asterisk
America Doesn’t Know Tofu China has spent millennia exploring the culinary possibilities of soybean curds. The West has barely...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
China has spent millennia exploring the culinary possibilities of soybean curds. The West has barely scratched the surface.
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunter-Gatherers and Childcare What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused...
a year ago
27
a year ago
What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused concept. Primarily this is because humans are adaptable – we adapt to our environment, our situation, and our culture. So it is “natural” for us not to have a natural state. But this...
IEEE Spectrum
The Birth of the University as Innovation Incubator This article is excerpted from Every American an Innovator: How Innovation Became a Way of Life, by...
a month ago
20
a month ago
This article is excerpted from Every American an Innovator: How Innovation Became a Way of Life, by Matthew Wisnioski (The MIT Press, 2025). Imagine a point-to-point transportation service in which two parties communicate at a distance. A passenger in need of a ride contacts the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Solution Aversion Fallacy I like to think deeply about informal logical fallacies. I write about them a lot, and even have an...
a year ago
64
a year ago
I like to think deeply about informal logical fallacies. I write about them a lot, and even have an occasional segment of the SGU dedicated to them. They are a great way to crystalize our thinking about the many ways in which logic can go wrong. Formal logic deals with arguments...
Wanderingspace
Phobos over mount Sharp Taken by the Curiosity rover. This is one of Mars tiny moons as seen from the ground. Impressive as...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
Taken by the Curiosity rover. This is one of Mars tiny moons as seen from the ground. Impressive as it is only 14 long and you can actually see its shape from the surface. See Phobos below for reference.
Quanta Magazine
‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis. ...
a year ago
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a year ago
The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis. The post ‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Agglomeration benefits are here to stay Building more homes in the most productive cities could massively boost productivity
over a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The AI Conundrum What the true impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is and soon will be remains a point of...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
What the true impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is and soon will be remains a point of contention. Even among scientifically literate skeptics people tend to fall into decidedly different narratives. Also, when being interviewed I can almost guarantee now that I will be...
Yale E360
Why U.S. Geothermal May Advance, Despite Political Headwinds The Trump administration is outwardly hostile to clean energy sourced from solar and wind. But...
2 weeks ago
2
2 weeks ago
The Trump administration is outwardly hostile to clean energy sourced from solar and wind. But thanks to close ties to the fossil fuel industry and new technological breakthroughs, U.S. geothermal power may survive the GOP assaults on support for renewables and even thrive. Read...
Yale E360
Exposure to Air Pollution Can Make It Harder to Focus, Study Finds A person’s ability to focus on everyday tasks is affected by short-term exposure to air pollution, a...
5 months ago
6
5 months ago
A person’s ability to focus on everyday tasks is affected by short-term exposure to air pollution, a study has found. Read more on E360 →
Confessions of a...
A first step into the unknown world of academia……. At the beginning of this blog I did promise to include some writings that would at least be...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
At the beginning of this blog I did promise to include some writings that would at least be semi-useful (hopefully!) to future students hoping to move into a career in marine science; so here it goes! From today I am beginning a year long Postgraduate Teaching Internship at UWA....
The Works in...
How to redraw a city The planning trick that created Japan's famous urbanism
3 weeks ago
NeuroLogica Blog
New Generation of Electric Robots Boston Dynamics (now owned by Hyundai) has revealed its electric version of its Atlas robot. These...
a year ago
98
a year ago
Boston Dynamics (now owned by Hyundai) has revealed its electric version of its Atlas robot. These robot videos always look impressive, but at the very least we know that we are seeing the best take. We don’t know how many times the robot failed to get the one great video. There...
Quanta Magazine
A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene...
a year ago
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a year ago
Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene regulation. The post A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Ciitizen And The Patient Data Marketplace | Out-Of-Pocket The path to our personal health record
a year ago
The Roots of...
The Commission for Stopping Further Improvements On May 24, 1847, a bridge over the Dee River in Chester, England, collapsed. A passenger train...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
On May 24, 1847, a bridge over the Dee River in Chester, England, collapsed. A passenger train plunged into the river; five people were killed and nine seriously injured. The subsequent investigation blamed the bridge’s cast iron girders. Cast iron, like concrete but unlike...
Asterisk
Making Sense of Moral Change A conversation about abolitionism, moral progress, and the pitfalls of historical counterfactuals.
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
A conversation about abolitionism, moral progress, and the pitfalls of historical counterfactuals.
Yale E360
China's Disastrous Summer Floods Linked to Unusually Warm Spring in Tibet A new study links devastating summer floods in southern China to unusually warm spring weather over...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
A new study links devastating summer floods in southern China to unusually warm spring weather over the Tibetan plateau. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
AI – Is It Time to Panic? I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential as powerful tools. I am also concerned about unintended consequences. As with any really powerful tool, there is the potential for abuse and also disruption. But I also think that...
Quanta Magazine
Deep Beneath Earth’s Surface, Clues to Life’s Origins Last spring, scientists retrieved a trove of mantle rocks from underneath the Atlantic seafloor — a...
a year ago
55
a year ago
Last spring, scientists retrieved a trove of mantle rocks from underneath the Atlantic seafloor — a bounty that could help write the first chapter of life's story on Earth. The post Deep Beneath Earth’s Surface, Clues to Life’s Origins first appeared on Quanta...
Yale E360
In Pakistan, a Solar Revolution Is Bringing Power to the People Fed up with pricey electricity from an unreliable grid, Pakistanis have gobbled up cheap solar...
6 days ago
6
6 days ago
Fed up with pricey electricity from an unreliable grid, Pakistanis have gobbled up cheap solar panels. In an interview, Muhammad Mustafa Amjad, of Islamabad-based Renewables First, says his country can stand as a model for other nations as they transition away from fossil...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
SWORD Health And Virtual Musculoskeletal Care | Out-Of-Pocket A first person account
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Betavoltaic Batteries In 1964 Isaac Asimov, asked to imagine the world 50 years in the future, wrote: “The appliances of...
a year ago
35
a year ago
In 1964 Isaac Asimov, asked to imagine the world 50 years in the future, wrote: “The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes. The isotopes will not be expensive for they will be by-...
Blog - Practical...
Why are Smokestacks So Tall? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] “The big black stacks of the...
a month ago
21
a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] “The big black stacks of the Illium Works of the Federal Apparatus Corporation spewed acid fumes and soot over the hundreds of men and women who were lined up before the red-brick employment office.” That’s the...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Whale Fossil – Possibly Heaviest Animal Ever The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale,...
a year ago
20
a year ago
The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale, which is extant today. The blue whale is larger than any dinosaur, even the giant sauropods. The average weight of a blue whale is 160 tons, with the largest specimen being 190 tons,...
Quanta Magazine
Researchers Refute a Widespread Belief About Online Algorithms Three computer scientists have disproved a long-standing conjecture about a fundamental problem...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Three computer scientists have disproved a long-standing conjecture about a fundamental problem involving imperfect information. The post Researchers Refute a Widespread Belief About Online Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Doors of McMurdo Doors, in a variety of shapes and styles.
over a year ago
brr
Engineering for Slow Internet How to minimize user frustration in Antarctica.
a year ago
nanoscale views
Recent papers to distract.... Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers...
8 months ago
15
8 months ago
Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers who are US citizens:  vote if you have not already done so!). Reaching back, this preprint by Aharonov, Collins, Popescu talks about a thought experiment in which angular...
Stephen Wolfram...
On the Nature of Time The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is...
9 months ago
117
9 months ago
The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is it? In traditional scientific accounts it’s often represented as some kind of coordinate much like space (though a coordinate that for some reason is always systematically...
Yale E360
Cuts to U.S. Climate Aid Will Leave Large Gap in Global Funding The U.S. provides nearly a tenth of all climate finance globally, a well of funding that is at risk...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
The U.S. provides nearly a tenth of all climate finance globally, a well of funding that is at risk of drying up as the Trump administration takes aim at overseas spending. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Should more people be using urgent care? | Out-Of-Pocket is the rise of urgent care a good or bad thing?
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
Endeavour's Wild Journey Through the Streets of Los Angeles [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In May of 1992, the Space...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In May of 1992, the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched to low earth orbit on its very first flight. That first mission was a big one: the crew captured a wayward communications satellite stuck in the wrong orbit,...
Blog - Practical...
The Most Implausible Tunneling Method [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The original plan to get I-95...
a month ago
26
a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The original plan to get I-95 over the Baltimore Harbor was a double-deck bridge from Fort McHenry to Lazaretto Point. The problem with the plan was this: the bridge would have to be extremely high so that...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How to analyze public healthcare datasets (even if you're non-technical) | Out-Of-Pocket Plus: using ChatGPT to analyze datasets?
a year ago
The Works in...
The value of family Traditional values don't deliver babies
a year ago
Yale E360
Planned EV Battery Plant Threatens Uncontacted Tribe in Indonesia A planned EV battery factory in Indonesia poses a grave threat to an uncontacted tribe, a watchdog...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks ago
A planned EV battery factory in Indonesia poses a grave threat to an uncontacted tribe, a watchdog group warns. Read more on E360 →
symmetry magazine
Practice makes perfect (particle detectors) Prototyping is an indispensable step in the development of particle physics experiments like DUNE...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
Prototyping is an indispensable step in the development of particle physics experiments like DUNE and projects like PIP-II. When complete, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or DUNE, will be the world’s most comprehensive neutrino experiment—and...
The Roots of...
If you wish to make an apple pie, you must first become dictator of the universe The word “robot” is derived from the Czech robota, which means “serfdom.” It was introduced over a...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
The word “robot” is derived from the Czech robota, which means “serfdom.” It was introduced over a century ago by the Czech play R.U.R., for “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” In the play, the smartest and best-educated of the robots leads a slave revolt that wipes out most of...
Quanta Magazine
RNA Is the Cell’s Emergency Alert System How does a cell know when it’s been damaged? A molecular alarm, set off by mutated RNA and colliding...
yesterday
4
yesterday
How does a cell know when it’s been damaged? A molecular alarm, set off by mutated RNA and colliding ribosomes, signals danger. The post RNA Is the Cell’s Emergency Alert System first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The Alef Flying Car The flying car is an icon of futuristic technology – in more ways than one. This is partly why I...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
The flying car is an icon of futuristic technology – in more ways than one. This is partly why I can’t resist a good flying car story. I was recently sent this YouTube video on the Alef flying car. The company says his is a street-legal flying car, with vertical take off and...
Asterisk
Animal Welfare in the Anthropocene Wild animals outnumber farmed animals by orders of magnitude. Are we obligated to help them? And...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Wild animals outnumber farmed animals by orders of magnitude. Are we obligated to help them? And even if we wanted to, do we know how?
Eukaryote Writes...
COVID-19 FAQ A lot of people have been asking me questions about the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) outbreak, in my...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
A lot of people have been asking me questions about the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) outbreak, in my informal capacity as “local biodefense person”.
The Works in...
What's new in building beautifully Interesting developments from the last two decades
2 months ago
Uncharted...
Canada vs the 51st State How can Canada fight against an aggressive US?
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
The Ecosystem Dynamics That Can Make or Break an Invasion By speedrunning ecosystems with microbes, researchers revealed intrinsic properties that may make a...
4 weeks ago
14
4 weeks ago
By speedrunning ecosystems with microbes, researchers revealed intrinsic properties that may make a community susceptible to invasion. The post The Ecosystem Dynamics That Can Make or Break an Invasion first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Coming Up: Einstein without Tears; Religion and Extraterrestrial Life Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The...
9 months ago
66
9 months ago
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State Presents: A non-technical, 6-week class with Professor Andrew Fraknoi Einstein without Tears Tuesdays from 12:30 to 2:30...
Yale E360
Biotech Firm Unveils ‘Woolly Mice,’ a Step Toward Recreating Woolly Mammoths A U.S. biotech firm working to bring back extinct animals said it had reached a milestone in its...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
A U.S. biotech firm working to bring back extinct animals said it had reached a milestone in its quest to recreate woolly mammoths. This week it unveiled “woolly mice” — mice that had been genetically engineered to sport woolly coats reminiscent of long-dead mammoths. Read more...
Yale E360
Head of African Bank Warns of "Carbon Grabs" by Foreign Firms Akinwumi Adesina, outgoing president of the African Development Bank, is warning that foreign firms...
3 months ago
9
3 months ago
Akinwumi Adesina, outgoing president of the African Development Bank, is warning that foreign firms are underpaying for carbon credits from African forests. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Chinese towers and American blocks The difference comes down to regulation, not culture.
3 months ago
The Works in...
How DC densified Washington, DC, has avoided the worst price rises that have plagued other American cities. Arlington...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Washington, DC, has avoided the worst price rises that have plagued other American cities. Arlington might be the reason.
Yale E360
A Decade After a Lead Crisis, Flint Has At Last Replaced Its Pipes A decade after Flint, Michigan, was beset by widespread lead contamination, officials confirmed the...
a week ago
25
a week ago
A decade after Flint, Michigan, was beset by widespread lead contamination, officials confirmed the city has replaced its lead pipes, as ordered by a federal court. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
The Maintenance Race was just the beginning A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
The Year in Computer Science Artificial intelligence learned how to generate text and art better than ever before, while computer...
a year ago
28
a year ago
Artificial intelligence learned how to generate text and art better than ever before, while computer scientists developed algorithms that solved long-standing problems. The post The Year in Computer Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Evolution and Copy-Paste Errors Evolution deniers (I know there is a spectrum, but generally speaking) are terrible scientists and...
a year ago
85
a year ago
Evolution deniers (I know there is a spectrum, but generally speaking) are terrible scientists and logicians. The obvious reason is because they are committing the primary mortal sin of pseudoscience – working backwards from a desired conclusion rather than following evidence and...
Yale E360
Saving U.S. Climate and Environmental Data Before It Goes Away Some 2,000 records went missing from government data sets after the Trump administration took office...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Some 2,000 records went missing from government data sets after the Trump administration took office in January. Canadian geographer Eric Nost talks about the work he and colleagues are doing to archive data related to climate and the environment while it is still...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is Planned Obsolescence Real Yes – it is well-documented that in many industries the design of products incorporates a plan for...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Yes – it is well-documented that in many industries the design of products incorporates a plan for when the product will need to be replaced. A blatant example was in 1924 when an international meeting of lightbulb manufacturers decided to limit the lifespan of lightbulbs to...
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printing With Metallic Gel One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive manufacturing). 3D printing has already created a revolution in manufacturing, but I think the general public does not have a high awareness of this technology because it is not yet at the...
Yale E360
How Wolves Could Help Bring Back Scottish Forests Wolves have been gone from the Scottish Highlands for more than 200 years, and in their absence red...
4 months ago
7
4 months ago
Wolves have been gone from the Scottish Highlands for more than 200 years, and in their absence red deer have proliferated. Researchers say that returning wolves to the Highlands would keep deer in check, allowing large areas of native woodland to regrow. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
How to Build an Origami Computer Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible...
a year ago
65
a year ago
Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible computation. The post How to Build an Origami Computer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Wanderingspace
Hope for Mars Nothing really. Just a gorgeous image of Mars from the UAE Hope mission.
over a year ago
Yale E360
Penguin Droppings May Be Seeding Clouds, Study Finds Penguin droppings may play a role in the formation of clouds over Antarctica, new research...
a month ago
4
a month ago
Penguin droppings may play a role in the formation of clouds over Antarctica, new research finds. Read more on E360 →
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
over a year ago
Wanderingspace
Venus from Earth (with Stacking) Image taken by @TheVastReaches. According to the photographer, “It takes just a few minutes to...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
Image taken by @TheVastReaches. According to the photographer, “It takes just a few minutes to collect all the frames. This started as 6 video files, 45,000 frames total. Then they are stacked and combined.”
Out-of-Pocket Blog
My investing theses | Out-Of-Pocket Hit up ya boi
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
The Quest to Quantify Quantumness What makes a quantum computer more powerful than a classical computer? It’s a surprisingly subtle...
a year ago
22
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...
How This Bridge Was Rebuilt in 15 Days After Hurricane Ian [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On September 28, 2022,...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall on the western coast of Florida as a Category 4 storm, bringing enormous volumes of rainfall and extreme winds to the state. Ian was the deadliest hurricane to...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How To Self-Publish A Children's Book and How Much You Can Expect To Make | Out-Of-Pocket spoiler: you will make very little lol
a year ago
Damn Interesting
The Unceasing Cessna Hacienda Warren “Doc” Bayley was a man of the people. When he and his wife Judy opened their Las Vegas resort...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
Warren “Doc” Bayley was a man of the people. When he and his wife Judy opened their Las Vegas resort in 1956, Bayley had no plans to compete with the flashier, corporate casinos at the center of the Strip. Instead, the Hacienda Hotel catered to families, as well as to locals who...
NeuroLogica Blog
Gene Editing Chickens to Resist Bird Flu There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat....
a year ago
23
a year ago
There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat. They are a high efficiency source of high quality protein. It’s the kind of thing we need to do if we want to feed 8 billion people. Similarly we have planted 4.62 billion acres of...
Cremieux Recueil
The Holistic Judgment Conceit Holistic evaluations are for machines, not people
2 months ago
Uncharted...
The Israel–Hamas Ceasefire Won’t Last Israel & Palestine, One Year Later
5 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Cutting to the Bone One potentially positive outcome from the COVID pandemic is that it was a wakeup call – if there was...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
One potentially positive outcome from the COVID pandemic is that it was a wakeup call – if there was any doubt previously about the fact that we all live in one giant interconnected world, it should not have survived the recent pandemic. This is particularly true when it comes to...
Quanta Magazine
Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining...
a year ago
80
a year ago
Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining many online security protocols. Now a researcher has shown how to do it even faster. The post Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring first appeared on...
Quanta Magazine
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...
over a year ago
59
over 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...
Casey Handmer's blog
SLS is still a national disgrace Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the...
9 months ago
41
9 months ago
Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the NASA SLS (Space Launch System), I wrote one. If you’re unfamiliar with the topic, you should read it first.  It is hard to …
Quanta Magazine
Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation. The post Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit first appeared on Quanta...
The Works in...
How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars - 2022, Ukraine Maintains A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Wanderingspace
Cassini’s Final Look at Enceladus Taken on August 28, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This is from images...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
Taken on August 28, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This is from images obtained by Cassini shortly before plunging into the Saturnian atmosphere. The images were taken over 14 hours and compiled into this animation.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Other End of the Autism Spectrum In my previous post I wrote about how we think about and talk about autism spectrum disorder (ASD),...
2 months ago
15
2 months ago
In my previous post I wrote about how we think about and talk about autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and how RFK Jr misunderstands and exploits this complexity to weave his anti-vaccine crank narrative. There is also another challenge in the conversation about autism, which exists...
Quanta Magazine
Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain...
a year ago
35
a year ago
In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain whole underground ecosystems. The post Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
What Makes for ‘Good’ Mathematics? Terence Tao, who has been called the “Mozart of Mathematics,” wrote an essay in 2007 about the...
a year ago
67
a year ago
Terence Tao, who has been called the “Mozart of Mathematics,” wrote an essay in 2007 about the common ingredients in “good” mathematical research. In this episode, the Fields Medalist joins Steven Strogatz to revisit the topic. The post What Makes for ‘Good’...
Yale E360
To Cope With Extreme Heat, Clownfish Shrink During a severe heat wave in 2023, scientists scuba diving off the coast of Papua New Guinea...
a month ago
18
a month ago
During a severe heat wave in 2023, scientists scuba diving off the coast of Papua New Guinea captured clownfish to measure their bodies. Between February and August, they calculated the length of 134 of these iconic, orange and white fish once a month, taking a total of six...
Quanta Magazine
Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its...
over a year ago
98
over a year ago
There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its last surviving remnants. The post Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New (Experimental) Ways To Tackle The Mental Health Crisis | Out-Of-Pocket let's try some new stuff to scale mental health care
a year ago
The Works in...
Animals as chemical factories The price of purple
a month ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Is Mars the New Frontier? In the excellent sci fi show, The Expanse, which takes place a couple hundred years in the future,...
a year ago
39
a year ago
In the excellent sci fi show, The Expanse, which takes place a couple hundred years in the future, Mars has been settled and is an independent self-sustaining society. In fact, Mars is presented as the most scientifically and technologically advanced society of humans in the...
Quanta Magazine
Echoes of Electromagnetism Found in Number Theory A new magnum opus posits the existence of a hidden mathematical link akin to the connection between...
a year ago
25
a year ago
A new magnum opus posits the existence of a hidden mathematical link akin to the connection between electricity and magnetism. The post Echoes of Electromagnetism Found in Number Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale E360
In a Major Reversal, the World Bank Is Backing Mega Dams Despite continued opposition, the World Bank has approved the first of five big dam projects...
6 months ago
4
6 months ago
Despite continued opposition, the World Bank has approved the first of five big dam projects expected to get its support in the coming months. Climate change has upped the need for renewable energy, but the environmental and social costs of building such massive projects...
IEEE Spectrum
What It Takes To Let People Play With the Past Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet...
9 months ago
82
9 months ago
Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet functional, technology. Located on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, the MAL is where you can watch a magic lantern show, play Star Castle on a Vectrex games console, or check...
The Works in...
The road from serfdom Using opt-ins to reform Russia's backwards tsarist agricultural sector
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
OOP’s 2025 Healthcare AI Hackathon Projects | Out-Of-Pocket Copilots for parents, Chaining Agents, Talking to Your Genome, and more.
a month ago
ToughSF
NTER: Nuclear Thermal-Electric Rocket There is a type of nuclear propulsion that can have most of the acceleration of a nuclear thermal...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
There is a type of nuclear propulsion that can have most of the acceleration of a nuclear thermal rocket but also the high Isp of an electric thruster.  Let’s have a look at nuclear ‘thermal-electric’ engines and their advantages. The title image is from 'dV: Rings of...
Asterisk
Through a Glass Darkly Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Nobody predicted the AI revolution, except for the 352 experts who were asked to predict it.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
a year ago
Yale E360
To Help Growers and the Grid, Build Solar on Farmland, Research Says Two new studies suggest that devoting a small fraction of U.S. farmland to solar power would be a...
2 months ago
5
2 months ago
Two new studies suggest that devoting a small fraction of U.S. farmland to solar power would be a boon both for the energy system and for farmers themselves. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities New modeling work suggests why nature is more diverse than niche-based ecological theory predicts. ...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
New modeling work suggests why nature is more diverse than niche-based ecological theory predicts. The post The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
The End of Credentialism? Cognitive testing might be making a comeback. That could be very important.
4 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Medical Tourism: A Tarpit Idea | Out-Of-Pocket trust me, you're not the first to look into this
a year ago
The Works in...
What's new in biology, summer 2025 edition The first gonorrhea vaccination program, contact lenses that see infrared light, the protein behind...
6 days ago
11
6 days ago
The first gonorrhea vaccination program, contact lenses that see infrared light, the protein behind sweet tastes, a baby cured with gene therapy, and more
Quanta Magazine
How Quickly Do Large Language Models Learn Unexpected Skills? A new study suggests that so-called emergent abilities actually develop gradually and predictably,...
a year ago
55
a year ago
A new study suggests that so-called emergent abilities actually develop gradually and predictably, depending on how you measure them. The post How Quickly Do Large Language Models Learn Unexpected Skills? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum computing vs. Grubhub pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my...
over a year ago
67
over a year ago
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my eyebrows. I’d be participating in a panel discussion with Mike Evans, the founder of Grubhub? But I hadn’t created an app that’s a household name. I … Continue reading →
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...
a year ago
107
a year 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...
Yale E360
Warming Linked to Rising Cancer Rates Among Women in the Middle East New research finds a link between increasingly extreme heat in the Middle East and rising rates of...
a month ago
3
a month ago
New research finds a link between increasingly extreme heat in the Middle East and rising rates of cancer in women. Read more on E360 →
Wanderingspace
China's Zhurong Mars Rover How adorable is this. The Zhurong rover placed a camera on the ground, backed up and took a selfie...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
How adorable is this. The Zhurong rover placed a camera on the ground, backed up and took a selfie next to the landing platform it emerged from last month.
Asterisk
The Science of Woo A conversation about neuroscience, meditation, and the many paths to insight.
4 months ago
Confessions of a...
Cottesloe Fish Habitat Protection Area Today I am teaching my first tutorial in the second year unit ‘Marine Systems‘, which will introduce...
over a year ago
93
over a year ago
Today I am teaching my first tutorial in the second year unit ‘Marine Systems‘, which will introduce students to their major project, which is centred around a field trip to the Cottelsoe Fish Habitat Protection Area (CFHPA).  I’m pretty excited to introduce a few of my new ideas...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Plants as Biofactories When you think about it, plants are self-reproducing solar-powered biological factories. They are...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
When you think about it, plants are self-reproducing solar-powered biological factories. They are powered by the sun, extract raw material from the air and soil, and make all sorts of useful molecules. Mostly we use them to make edible molecules (food), but also to make textiles,...
Probably...
Algorithmic Fairness This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com...
5 months ago
19
5 months ago
This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. This article is based on the Recidivism Case Study, which is about algorithmic fairness. The goal of the case study is to explain the statistical arguments...
Asterisk
The Fault in Our Forecasts It’s impossible to predict when an earthquake will strike. This puts seismologists in a nearly...
a year ago
19
a year ago
It’s impossible to predict when an earthquake will strike. This puts seismologists in a nearly impossible bind: how can they convince the public to take earthquakes seriously without crying wolf?
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printed Rocket Launches This is one of those technology news stories where the implications of the technology is greater...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
This is one of those technology news stories where the implications of the technology is greater than the thing itself. Relativity Space, a rocket company based in California, launched their first Terran-1 rocket. The launch ultimately failed when the second stage failed to...
Quanta Magazine
How Can AI Researchers Save Energy? By Going Backward. Reversible programs run backward as easily as they run forward, saving energy in theory. After...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Reversible programs run backward as easily as they run forward, saving energy in theory. After decades of research, they may soon power AI. The post How Can AI Researchers Save Energy? By Going Backward. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
To change a norm How the war on drunk driving was won
a year ago
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...
a year ago
86
a year 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....
Quanta Magazine
Viruses Finally Reveal Their Complex Social Life New research has uncovered a social world of viruses full of cheating, cooperation and other...
a year ago
44
a year ago
New research has uncovered a social world of viruses full of cheating, cooperation and other intrigues, suggesting that viruses make sense only as members of a community. The post Viruses Finally Reveal Their Complex Social Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine