Long Now
George Dyson: No Time Is There
### The digital big bang
When the digital universe began, in 1951 in New Jersey, it was just 5...
20th Mar 2013
### The digital big bang
When the digital universe began, in 1951 in New Jersey, it was just 5 kilobytes in size. "That's just half a second of MP3 audio now," said Dyson. The place was the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. The builder was engineer Julian Bigelow. The...
NeuroLogica Blog
Was Jesus a Con Artist?
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots...
1st Aug 2024
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots of clarification. This was, however, the discussion here, while although poorly informed, does raise some interesting questions. This is a Tik Tok video of a popular podcast which...
Long Now
Brewster Kahle: Universal Access to All Knowledge
### All knowledge, to all people, for all time, for free
Universal access to all knowledge, Kahle...
1st Dec 2011
### All knowledge, to all people, for all time, for free
Universal access to all knowledge, Kahle declared, will be one of humanity's greatest achievements. We are already well on the way. "We're building the Library of Alexandria, version 2. We can one-up the Greeks!"
Start...
Works in Progress...
Watch men
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the...
2nd Dec 2025
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
Quantum Frontiers
The Noncommuting-Charges World Tour (Part 1 of 4)
Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many...
1st Feb 2024
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 …...
Long Now
Brittany Cox: Horological Heritage: Generating bird song, magic, and music through mechanism
From kings and philosophers to craftsmen and inventors, horology has been prized as an extraordinary...
6th Nov 2019
From kings and philosophers to craftsmen and inventors, horology has been prized as an extraordinary marriage between art and science. Antiquarian Horologist Brittany Nicole Cox shared her unique experience with objects born from this lineage. We traced their origins to discover...
Long Now
Mariana Mazzucato: The Entrepreneurial State
### Government as radical, patient VC
The iPhone, Mazzucato pointed out, is held up as a classic...
25th Mar 2014
### Government as radical, patient VC
The iPhone, Mazzucato pointed out, is held up as a classic example of world-changing innovation coming from business.
Yet every feature of the iPhone was created, originally, by multi-decade government-funded research. From DARPA came the...
Explorations of an...
The Gambia, Part 1 of 2
In November I visited The Gambia along with ten travellers from Quest Nature Tours. Why The Gambia,...
19th Dec 2025
In November I visited The Gambia along with ten travellers from Quest Nature Tours. Why The Gambia, you may ask? This tiny country is not well-known to the international community, but it is an attractive ecotourism destination. The Gambia is a stable, English-speaking democracy...
Long Now
Dmitry Orlov: Social Collapse Best Practices
### Managing social collapse
With vintage Russian black humor, Orlov described the social collapse...
14th Feb 2009
### Managing social collapse
With vintage Russian black humor, Orlov described the social collapse he witnessed in Russia in the 1990s and spelled out its practical lessons for the American social collapse he sees as inevitable. The American economy in the 1990s described itself...
Works in Progress...
There was no great stagnation
We may not have flying cars but we do have incredible information technology. We’re mismeasuring the...
12th Oct 2022
We may not have flying cars but we do have incredible information technology. We’re mismeasuring the huge benefits it is bringing.
Long Now
Wayne Clough: Smithsonian Forever
### The Smithsonian's long now
[Note for those who mentally enunciate words while reading: the last...
18th Aug 2009
### The Smithsonian's long now
[Note for those who mentally enunciate words while reading: the last name is pronounced "Cluff."]
Secretary Clough reminded the audience that we own the Smithsonian, and what that amounts to is 19 museums and galleries containing 137 million...
Long Now
Alexander Rose: Millennial Precedent
Alexander Rose, Long Now Executive Director and project manager for the Clock of the Long Now,...
6th Apr 2011
Alexander Rose, Long Now Executive Director and project manager for the Clock of the Long Now, discussed lessons learned in multi-millennial site design. Rose covers his trip to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault as well as other sites and precedents like the Mormon Genealogical...
Long Now
David Rumsey: Mapping Time
### Maps and time
David Rumsey's spectacularly illustrated lecture, "Mapping Time" is not just...
15th May 2004
### Maps and time
David Rumsey's spectacularly illustrated lecture, "Mapping Time" is not just about maps. It is the future of data and knowledge handling. People literally gasp at the things Rumsey shows can be done.
I love it when techies, artists, and historians all gasp at...
Works in Progress...
How TV learned to sell itself
Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
11th Mar 2026
Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
wadertales
Four eggs or five?
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their...
6th Mar 2026
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their pointed ends in the middle, as illiustrated in the Ringed Plover nest alongside. There has been an assumption that this is an optimum arrangement for incubation, with strong...
NeuroLogica Blog
Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet...
2nd May 2024
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...
The Quanta Podcast
AI Filters Will Always Have Holes
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But...
6th Jan 2026
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But users have long played a cat-and-mouse game to try to trick language models into providing forbidden information. Just as quickly as these “jailbreaks” appear, AI companies patch them...
Stephen Wolfram...
Games between Programs: The Ruliology of Competition
The Basic Setup
Whether one’s dealing with biology, economics, politics or a host of other fields,...
4th Jun 2026
The Basic Setup
Whether one’s dealing with biology, economics, politics or a host of other fields, it’s common to encounter situations that can be modeled as involving two agents that repeatedly compete with each other. One imagines that at each step each agent can take one of a...
The Quanta Podcast
Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity
A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force.
The post...
6th Dec 2018
A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force.
The post Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
The San Diego infinite housing glitch
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
2nd Oct 2024
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
Long Now
Louis Hyman: The New Deal You Don't Know
Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow:...
2nd Jan 2018
Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow: The American Way of Debt](https://www.amazon.com/Borrow-American-Debt-Vintage-Original/dp/0307741680/)_ , he examines in detail how the evolution of personal debt has not only...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Sound to Modulate the Brain
The technique is called holographic transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation – which sounds like a...
6th Oct 2025
The technique is called holographic transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation – which sounds like a mouthful but just means using multiple sound waves in the ultrasonic frequency to affect brain function. Most people know about ultrasound as an imaging technique, used, for example,...
Quantum Frontiers
The sequel
This October, fantasy readers are devouring a sequel: the final installment in Philip Pullman’s...
27th Oct 2025
This October, fantasy readers are devouring a sequel: the final installment in Philip Pullman’s trilogy The Book of Dust. The series follows student Lyra Silvertongue as she journeys from Oxford to the far east. Her story features alternate worlds, souls … Continue reading →
Uncharted...
What Asian Development Can Teach the World
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US...
7th Mar 2025
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US Tariffs, China’s Future, EU Protectionism, Japan’s Zombie Debt, Argentina’s Arrested Development, and more
Long Now
Robert Neuwirth: The 21st Century Medieval City
### World squatter reality
Humanity is urbanizing at a world-changing pace and in a world-changing...
11th Jun 2005
### World squatter reality
Humanity is urbanizing at a world-changing pace and in a world-changing way. A billion squatters are re-inventing their lives and their cities simultaneously. One of the few to experience the range of the phenomenon first hand is Robert Neuwirth,...
Long Now
Jason Tester: Queering the Future: How LGBTQ Foresight Can Benefit All
Jason Tester asks us to see the powerful potential of "queering the future" - how looking at the...
3rd Feb 2021
Jason Tester asks us to see the powerful potential of "queering the future" - how looking at the future through a lens of difference and openness can reveal unexpected solutions to wicked problems, and new angles on innovation. Might a queer perspective hold some of the keys to...
Long Now
Tim O'Reilly: Birth of the Global Mind
### The global mind is us, augmented
As a student of the classics at Harvard in the 1970s, O’Reilly...
6th Sep 2012
### The global mind is us, augmented
As a student of the classics at Harvard in the 1970s, O’Reilly was impressed by a book titled _The Discovery of the Mind: In Greek Philosophy and Literature_ , by Bruno Snell. In the four centuries between Homer and classical Athens, wrote...
Beautiful Public...
How LiDAR measures the toll of climate disasters
Comparing LiDAR data from before and after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles reveals the scale...
25th Aug 2025
Comparing LiDAR data from before and after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles reveals the scale of devastation in ways satellite imagery can’t match.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Transition to Agriculture
It is generally accepted that the transition from hunter-gatherer communities to agriculture was the...
3rd Apr 2025
It is generally accepted that the transition from hunter-gatherer communities to agriculture was the single most important event in human history, ultimately giving rise to all of civilization. The transition started to take place around 12,000 years ago in the Middle East,...
Inverted Passion
Don’t compete
The Internet is full of people winning all the time. Someone is traveling to exotic locations,...
22nd Mar 2025
The Internet is full of people winning all the time. Someone is traveling to exotic locations, someone else is raising funds, and another person is winning awards. Essentially, everyone around you is succeeding while you do spend your days as the nature intended – sleeping,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
2024 Healthcare Predictions, Out-Of-Pocket Style | Out-Of-Pocket
I'm not a fortune teller, I'm a fortune, teller
12th Dec 2023
I'm not a fortune teller, I'm a fortune, teller
Long Now
Benjamin Bratton: A Philosophy of Planetary Computation
We find ourselves in a pre-paradigmatic moment in which our technology has outpaced our theories of...
20th Mar 2025
We find ourselves in a pre-paradigmatic moment in which our technology has outpaced our theories of what to do with it.
The task of philosophy today is to catch up.
In his Long Now Talk, Philosopher of Technology Benjamin Bratton took us on a whirlwind philosophical journey...
IEEE Spectrum
Ethernet is Still Going Strong After 50 Years
The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California has spawned many pioneering computer technologies...
16th Nov 2023
The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California has spawned many pioneering computer technologies including the Alto—the first personal computer to use a graphical user interface—and the first laser printer.
The PARC facility also is known for the invention of Ethernet, a...
Long Now
Neal Stephenson: ANATHEM Book Launch Event
### _Anathem_ book launch
Neal Stephenson's nearly thousand page tome...
9th Sep 2008
### _Anathem_ book launch
Neal Stephenson's nearly thousand page tome [_Anathem_](https://longnow.org/anathem/) was inspired in part by Long Now's [10,000 Year Clock](https://longnow.org/projects/clock/) project, and so a collaboration on the launch event was a natural fit. With...
The Quanta Podcast
DNA of Giant ‘Corpse Flower’ Parasite Surprises Biologists
The bizarre genome of the world’s most mysterious flowering plants shows how far parasites will go...
5th Aug 2021
The bizarre genome of the world’s most mysterious flowering plants shows how far parasites will go in stealing, deleting and duplicating DNA.
The post DNA of Giant ‘Corpse Flower’ Parasite Surprises Biologists first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars
Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes...
13th Oct 2016
Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes are shaking up astrophysics.
The post Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars first appeared on Quanta Magazine
SubAnima
You've Been Lied To About Genetics
Should we give Mendel's peas a chance? Nah, we've moved on.
20th Jan 2023
Should we give Mendel's peas a chance? Nah, we've moved on.
Long Now
Michael Pollan: Deep Agriculture
### Making farmers cool again
Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past....
6th May 2009
### Making farmers cool again
Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past. Michael Pollan's talk promoted the premise - and hope - that farming can become an occupation and force of the future. In the past century American farmers were given the assignment to...
The Quanta Podcast
The Case Against Dark Matter
A proposed theory of gravity does away with dark matter, even as new astrophysical findings...
8th Dec 2016
A proposed theory of gravity does away with dark matter, even as new astrophysical findings challenge the need for galaxies full of the invisible mystery particles.
The post The Case Against Dark Matter first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
What Are My Politics?
And my unrefined thoughts on US politics
1st Apr 2025
And my unrefined thoughts on US politics
brr
Showering at the South Pole
Potable water, and not much of it.
4th Feb 2023
Potable water, and not much of it.
Long Now
Ken Dychtwald: The Consequences of Human Life Extension
### What long life means
Ken Dychtwald gave a terrific talk Friday evening to a standing-room...
4th Dec 2004
### What long life means
Ken Dychtwald gave a terrific talk Friday evening to a standing-room audience on "The Consequences of Human Life Extension."
The growing--and soon overwhelming--prevalence of the old in developed nations is leading to a "new old." Ken described meeting...
The Quanta Podcast
How the 'Diamond of the Plant World' Helped Land Plants Evolve
Structural studies of the robust material called sporopollenin reveal how it made plants hardy...
9th Nov 2022
Structural studies of the robust material called sporopollenin reveal how it made plants hardy enough to reproduce on dry land. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Redwood Trail” by Audionautix.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Let patients control their prescriptions | Out-Of-Pocket
A walkthrough of how a digital prescription works and what Photon does to let patients control...
2 weeks ago
A walkthrough of how a digital prescription works and what Photon does to let patients control prescriptions themselves
Probably...
My very busy week
I’m not sure who scheduled ODSC and PyConUS during the same week, but I am unhappy with their...
22nd May 2025
I’m not sure who scheduled ODSC and PyConUS during the same week, but I am unhappy with their decisions. Last Tuesday I presented a talk and co-presented a workshop at ODSC, and on Thursday I presented a tutorial at PyCon. If you would like to follow along with my very busy week,...
Uncharted...
The Top 50 US Cities: Why Are They Where They Are?
The geographic and historical reasons that have made some spots in the country the most populated...
8th Jan 2025
The geographic and historical reasons that have made some spots in the country the most populated ones
Eukaryote Writes...
Who invented knitting? The plot thickens
Last time on Eukaryote Writes Blog: You learned about knitting history. You thought you were done...
4th Feb 2023
Last time on Eukaryote Writes Blog: You learned about knitting history. You thought you were done learning about knitting history? You fool. You buffoon. I wanted to double check some things in the last post and found out that the origins of knitting are even weirder than I...
Long Now
Kim Stanley Robinson: How Climate Will Evolve Government and Society
Humanity’s adaptation to climate change will require novel, global cooperation and societal...
1st Aug 2017
Humanity’s adaptation to climate change will require novel, global cooperation and societal evolution. The award-winning science fiction author of _2312_ , the _Mars_ Trilogy, and _Aurora_ shares his vision for how the world must change in advance of his 02017 novel _New York...
The Works in...
How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars: 1973, Israel Maintains
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
5th Oct 2023
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Casey Handmer's blog
Australian Economic Stagnation
It’s not news, at least in my circles, that much of the developed world is seeing economic...
4th Sep 2025
It’s not news, at least in my circles, that much of the developed world is seeing economic stagnation. Last month Australia convened a Productivity Summit/Economic Reform Roundtable to try to better address the sluggish growth of the economy relative, in particular, to ever...
Yale E360
Alaska Wolf Found With Record Amount of Mercury, a Sign of Growing Contamination
When Alaska’s wolves began eating sea otters, it looked like a story of adaptation. Then they...
2nd Jan 2026
When Alaska’s wolves began eating sea otters, it looked like a story of adaptation. Then they started getting sick.
Read more on E360 →
Uncharted...
6 Questions You Asked Yourself about Solar
How fast will it take over, how fast are costs shrinking, why is it so cheap, what industries will...
2nd Nov 2024
How fast will it take over, how fast are costs shrinking, why is it so cheap, what industries will it birth, how much surface will it take up, where will it appear first?
Long Now
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his...
27th Jan 2007
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time...
IEEE Spectrum
Xerox Donates Legendary PARC Research Center
Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI...
2nd May 2023
Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI International. The subsidiary’s pioneering research in the 1970s helped give birth to the era of personal computing. Xerox says the move will allow it to focus on its core business.
The...
Long Now
Jonathan Rose: The Well Tempered City
### Coherent cities
What holds a city together? Rose noted that the earliest cities were built...
21st Sep 2016
### Coherent cities
What holds a city together? Rose noted that the earliest cities were built around a temple and the spirituality it embodied. As the early communities became larger and more diverse and complex, their economic activity intensified. To be effective in trade...
Probably...
Planning for your midlife crisis
Yesterday I presented a talk at ODSC East 2026, called “Counterfactual Analysis with Bayesian...
1st May 2026
Yesterday I presented a talk at ODSC East 2026, called “Counterfactual Analysis with Bayesian Models: What Drives the Life Expectancy Gap?” Here’s the abstract Across nearly every country in the world, women live longer than men—but the size of this gap varies from about two...
Long Now
Sara Seager: Other Earths. Other Life.
## To find living exoplanets
Thanks to recent exoplanet research, Seager began, we now know that...
11th Aug 2015
## To find living exoplanets
Thanks to recent exoplanet research, Seager began, we now know that nearly all of our galaxy’s 300 billion stars are accompanied by planets, and a unexpectedly high number of them are rocky like Earth, and many of those orbit in a “habitable”...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Fine, let’s talk about peptides | Out-Of-Pocket
What and why are people injecting themselves?
5th May 2026
What and why are people injecting themselves?
The Quanta Podcast
A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild
Near an Australian desert mining camp, wild dingoes are losing their fear of humans. Their genetic...
9th Aug 2018
Near an Australian desert mining camp, wild dingoes are losing their fear of humans. Their genetic and behavioral changes may echo those from the domestication of dogs.
The post A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
You Can’t Fail Unless You Try: NASA’s Pioneer P-3 Lunar Orbiter
Space enthusiasts of a certain age, like myself, grew up learning about the trio of NASA’s unmanned...
26th Nov 2024
Space enthusiasts of a certain age, like myself, grew up learning about the trio of NASA’s unmanned programs which provided scientists and engineers with vital information […]
Works in Progress...
How to write for Works in Progress
We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.
4th Apr 2025
We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.
wadertales
Peatland restoration – ploughing for plovers.
Commercial forestry was never a good option for the wet peatlands of northeast Scotland, with...
16th Aug 2025
Commercial forestry was never a good option for the wet peatlands of northeast Scotland, with planting financed by tax subsidies and sold on the mantra of ‘rural jobs’. The trees did not grow well and, thirty years on, more government money started to be spent to restore the same...
pcloadletter
The ChatGPT wrapper product boom is an uncanny valley hellscape
Here we go again: I'm so tired of crypto web3 LLMs.
I'm positive there are wonderful applications...
20th May 2024
Here we go again: I'm so tired of crypto web3 LLMs.
I'm positive there are wonderful applications for LLMs. The ChatGPT web UI seems great for summarizing information from various online sources (as long as you're willing to verify the things that you learn).
But a lot fo the "AI...
Long Now
James Holland Jones: The Science of Climate Fiction: Can Stories Lead to Social Action?
The warming planet is increasingly the subject of all kinds of fiction. Beyond entertainment or...
4th Apr 2019
The warming planet is increasingly the subject of all kinds of fiction. Beyond entertainment or distraction could climate fiction (“Cli-Fi”) actually help us in solving the climate dilemma? Biological anthropologist and environmental scientist [James Holland...
Long Now
Suhanya Raffel: World Art Through The Asian Perspective
Coming to the fore in this century is Asian perspective on everything. A thrilling place to watch...
21st Oct 2019
Coming to the fore in this century is Asian perspective on everything. A thrilling place to watch the shift is in art.
Extraordinary contemporary art from all over the world, especially Asia, has been collected for the new world-class museum in Hong Kong called M+. The massive...
Beautiful Public...
Special Database 18: 3,248 Mugshots Used for Training Image Recognition Systems
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos...
18th Mar 2023
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos of 1,573 people for decades, including 175 minors, until we asked about them.
wadertales
How are migration sites connected?
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
9th Jan 2025
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering locations linked? Forty-four authors have collaborated to bring together ringing, colour-ringing and GPS tracking data in a paper entitled Site-level connectivity identified from...
Long Now
Stefan Kröpelin: Civilization’s Mysterious Desert Cradle
### The Sahara and civilization
“Almost everything breaks in the desert,” Kröpelin began. He showed...
11th Jun 2014
### The Sahara and civilization
“Almost everything breaks in the desert,” Kröpelin began. He showed trucks mired in sand, one vehicle blown up by a land mine, and a Unimog with an impossibly, hopelessly broken axle. (Using the attached backhoe, it hunched its way 50 miles back...
lcamtuf’s thing
Weekend trivia: your process' memory is a file
The underappreciated gem of /proc/
/mem
1st Jun 2026
The underappreciated gem of /proc/
/mem
Works in Progress...
Innovation is not linear
Many have argued that innovation develops in a simple linear fashion – from research to...
19th Oct 2020
Many have argued that innovation develops in a simple linear fashion – from research to experimentation to engineering.
NeuroLogica Blog
Solar Is Booming
Solar power as a source of electricity has been on a meteoric rise, and has crossed some encouraging...
2 weeks ago
Solar power as a source of electricity has been on a meteoric rise, and has crossed some encouraging milestone recently. Every way you look at it, solar is booming. This is driven primarily by the decrease in the cost of adding solar power, so let’s start there.
The Berkley Lab...
Interaction Magic -...
Octopus, solar & e-paper energy dashboards
I built a custom energy dashboard for my house using this beautiful, 2-bit colour, e-paper display....
19th May 2025
I built a custom energy dashboard for my house using this beautiful, 2-bit colour, e-paper display. Hardware, software, data and design.
Chris Grossack's...
$F_2 \times F_2$ is Incoherent -- A Polite Spectral Sequence Computation
Yesterday I watched my friend Jialin Wang defend her thesis,
and as part of her background section...
3rd Sep 2025
Yesterday I watched my friend Jialin Wang defend her thesis,
and as part of her background section she mentioned that the group
$F_2 \times F_2$ is incoherent in the sense that it has a subgroup
that’s finitely generated and not finitely presented. I was curious how
one might...
Peder M. Isager
Four one-sided test of significance (FOST). Dear reader, does this make sense?
In this blog post I propose a four one-sided test of significance (FOST) that can be used to test...
24th May 2024
In this blog post I propose a four one-sided test of significance (FOST) that can be used to test whether an effect is smaller than OR larger than OR equivalent to the smallest effect size of interest. I lay out the general setup and interpretation of FOST, and ask readers to...
IEEE Spectrum
How Tech Automated the January 6 Investigations
Josh Coker’s Facebook page doesn’t show any MAGA memes or Trump quotes. He wasn’t live-streaming on...
5th Jan 2024
Josh Coker’s Facebook page doesn’t show any MAGA memes or Trump quotes. He wasn’t live-streaming on 6 January 2021, and no one has ever stepped forward to identify him as one of the mob that stormed the US Capitol that day.
Oregon, Ohio, with five counts connected to the failed...
Long Now
Eric Debrah Otchere: Sonic Spaces
Eric Debrah Otchere's research revolves around the power of music in the context of work; covering...
10th Feb 2023
Eric Debrah Otchere's research revolves around the power of music in the context of work; covering an ambitious range from ethnographic research on Ghanaian indigenous fishing culture to personalized musical preferences via modern technology.
Throughout history, the power of...
Long Now
Paul Hawken: The New Great Transformation
### Humanity's immune system
The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has...
9th Jun 2007
### Humanity's immune system
The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has two referents, he explained. Economist Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, _The Great Transformation_ , said that the "market society" and modern nation state emerged together in Europe after...
wadertales
The call of the Whimbrel
The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a...
6th Feb 2025
The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a long, dark winter. These wonderful waders are responding badly to recent changes to Iceland’s landscape, such as the ever-expanding areas of non-native forestry and power...
The Roots of...
Where is the YIMBY movement for healthcare?
In the progress movement, some cause areas are about technical breakthroughs, such as fusion power...
10th May 2025
In the progress movement, some cause areas are about technical breakthroughs, such as fusion power or a cure for aging. In other areas, the problems are not technical, but social. Housing, for instance, is technologically a solved problem. We know how to build houses, but housing...
Long Now
Adam Steltzner: Beyond Mars, Earth
### Mighty daring on Mars
Engineer Steltzner took his rapt audience striding with him through the...
16th Oct 2013
### Mighty daring on Mars
Engineer Steltzner took his rapt audience striding with him through the wrong solutions for landing a one-ton rover on Mars that his team worked through a decade ago. Previous rovers had weighed 50 pounds, 385 pounds. This traveling “Mars Science...
Long Now
Daniel Janzen: Third World Conservation: It's ALL Gardening
### Mega gardening
Big as life and twice as opinionated, the renowned preservation biologist Daniel...
10th Apr 2004
### Mega gardening
Big as life and twice as opinionated, the renowned preservation biologist Daniel Janzen spoke for The Long Now on Friday, April 9, 2005. His perspective on preservation may be jarring to some: "It's ALL Gardening".
Dan Janzen is most widely known for his...
Works in Progress...
Who’s afraid of artificial flavors?
‘Artificial’ didn’t scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?
8th May 2026
‘Artificial’ didn’t scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
12th May 2024
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
Peder M. Isager
Why does correlation not equal causation?
In this blog post I will explain why it makes sense to think about causal explanations when we see...
24th Nov 2023
In this blog post I will explain why it makes sense to think about causal explanations when we see correlation, why correlation does not always imply causation, and which alternative causal models to consider when you are trying to figure out why two variables in your data are...
SubAnima
Why do bees die when they sting you?
Suicide is a truly bizarre evolutionary strategy. Why does it exist?
4th Oct 2021
Suicide is a truly bizarre evolutionary strategy. Why does it exist?
Beautiful Public...
Here’s All the Rocks We Hauled Back From the Moon
The 12 human beings who walked on the Moon collected, catalogued and returned 842 pounds of lunar...
2nd May 2023
The 12 human beings who walked on the Moon collected, catalogued and returned 842 pounds of lunar rock and soil. Each sample has been meticulously documented in NASA's Lunar Sample Catalog.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What Do Hospitals Care About? | Out-Of-Pocket
Let’s look at three big priorities and a real hospital
11th Feb 2025
Let’s look at three big priorities and a real hospital
Long Now
Neal Stephenson: Polostan
Neal Stephenson, visionary speculative fiction author and long-time friend of Long Now, joined us...
14th Nov 2024
Neal Stephenson, visionary speculative fiction author and long-time friend of Long Now, joined us for a conversation with journalist Charles C. Mann on the research behind his new novel _Polostan_ , the dawn of the Atomic Age, and the craft of historical storytelling....
Long Now
Stewart Brand: Reviving Extinct Species
### De-extinction begins
The new tools of synthetic biology, I began, are about to liberate...
22nd May 2013
### De-extinction begins
The new tools of synthetic biology, I began, are about to liberate conservation in a spectacular way. It is becoming possible to bring some extinct species back to life.
A project within Long Now called “Revive & Restore” is pushing to make...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
“I Swallowed a Martian” and Water on Mars
The history of water on Mars allows us to wonder if the planet ever had life.
The post “I Swallowed...
14th Jul 2026
The history of water on Mars allows us to wonder if the planet ever had life.
The post “I Swallowed a Martian” and Water on Mars appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
NeuroLogica Blog
Virtual Walking
When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have...
1st Mar 2024
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
What to Make of Havana Syndrome
I have not written before about Havana Syndrome, mostly because I have not been able to come to any...
1st Apr 2024
I have not written before about Havana Syndrome, mostly because I have not been able to come to any strong conclusions about it. In 2016 there was a cluster of strange neurological symptoms among people working at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba. They would suddenly experience...
Asterisk
The State of American Science Funding (For the Next Five Minutes)
A comprehensive but nowhere near exhaustive overview of how the Trump Administration is impacting...
1st Jul 2025
A comprehensive but nowhere near exhaustive overview of how the Trump Administration is impacting American science.
NeuroLogica Blog
Plan To Build First Commercial Fusion Reactor
How close are we to having fusion reactors actually sending electric power to the grid? This is a...
6th Jan 2025
How close are we to having fusion reactors actually sending electric power to the grid? This is a huge and complicated question, and one with massive implications for our civilization. I think we are still at the point where we cannot count on fusion reactors coming online...
The Quanta Podcast
Milestone Experiment Proves Quantum Communication Really Is Faster
In a Paris lab, researchers have shown for the first time that quantum methods of transmitting...
7th Nov 2019
In a Paris lab, researchers have shown for the first time that quantum methods of transmitting information are superior to classical ones.
The post Milestone Experiment Proves Quantum Communication Really Is Faster first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Confessions of a...
Shark Bay: a pristine template for marine ecosystems worldwide
Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity. As such,...
13th Aug 2013
Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity. As such, we have a coastline dominated by many different species of seagrasses – from large, temperate seagrasses like Posidonia australis to small, tropical species like Halodule...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hydrogen Tech
I often get questions like the one below:
“I live part time in Japan. Everyone sees hydrogen powered...
3rd Jul 2026
I often get questions like the one below:
“I live part time in Japan. Everyone sees hydrogen powered generators, trains, trucks, etc regularly. High density population means it’s easy to get enough synergy to justify the infrastructure. So sad we aren’t doing more to utilize this...
The Quanta Podcast
Mathematician Hurls Structure and Disorder Into Century-Old Problem
A new paper shows how to create longer disordered strings than mathematicians had thought possible,...
3rd Feb 2022
A new paper shows how to create longer disordered strings than mathematicians had thought possible, proving that a well-known recent conjecture is “spectacularly wrong.”
The post Mathematician Hurls Structure and Disorder Into Century-Old Problem first appeared on...
Peder M. Isager
Meta-research at the Psychological Science Accelerator
Summary of unconference session at Tilburg Meta-research day 2019.
17th Dec 2019
Summary of unconference session at Tilburg Meta-research day 2019.
The Roots of...
Who regulates the regulators?
IRBs
Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review...
4th May 2023
IRBs
Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review the ethics of medical trials: From Oversight to Overkill, by Dr. Simon Whitney. From the title alone, you can see where this is going.
IRBs are supposed to (among other things)...
Many Worlds
Many Worlds Archive is Available
I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column — sponsored by NASA’s NExSS...
14th Nov 2023
I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column — sponsored by NASA’s NExSS initiative and the Lunar & Planetary Institute — for almost eight years. But the run came to an end in October. Now an archive of the more than 400 columns is easily available at...
lcamtuf’s thing
Weekend trivia: your process' memory is a file
The underappreciated gem of /proc/
/mem
1st Jun 2026
The underappreciated gem of /proc/
/mem
Long Now
Anne Neuberger: Inside the NSA
## The NSA reaches out
Of her eight great-grandparents, seven were murdered at Auschwitz. “So my...
7th Aug 2014
## The NSA reaches out
Of her eight great-grandparents, seven were murdered at Auschwitz. “So my family’s history burned into me a fear of what occurs when the power of a state is turned against its people or other people.”
Seeking freedom from threats like that brought her...
Eukaryote Writes...
A love letter to civilian OSINT
What is civilian OSINT, and could it be used altruistically?
10th Jul 2020
What is civilian OSINT, and could it be used altruistically?
Quanta Magazine
Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine...
2nd Oct 2023
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to mRNA vaccines, such as those that protect against COVID-19.
The post Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023 first appeared on...
Long Now
Geoff Manaugh & Nicola Twilley: Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine
**Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley** track the history and future of quarantine around the globe,...
8th Feb 2022
**Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley** track the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space—from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean, built to contain the Black Death, to an experimental Ebola unit in...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Moon
In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial...
17th Dec 2024
In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial neighbor.
Its face, periodically filled with light and devoured by darkness, has an ever-changing, but dependable presence in our skies.
In this article, we’ll learn about the Moon and its path...
nanoscale views
What is the Aharonov-Bohm effect?
After seeing this latest extremely good video from Veritasium, and looking back through my posts, I...
1st Feb 2026
After seeing this latest extremely good video from Veritasium, and looking back through my posts, I realized that while I've referenced it indirectly, I've never explicitly talked about the Aharonov-Bohm effect. The video is excellent, and that wikipedia page is pretty good, but...
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum computing vs. Grubhub
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my...
3rd Apr 2023
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 →
Long Now
Ramez Naam: Enhancing Humans, Advancing Humanity
### Enhancing humans and humanity
Beginning with the accelerating pace of biotech tools for human...
23rd Jul 2015
### Enhancing humans and humanity
Beginning with the accelerating pace of biotech tools for human health and enhancement, Naam noted that health issues such as disease prevention will be drastically easier to implement than enhancement. Preventing some hereditary diseases can be...
The Quanta Podcast
A New Blast May Have Forged Cosmic Gold
For decades, researchers believed that violent supernovas forged gold and other heavy elements. But...
18th May 2017
For decades, researchers believed that violent supernovas forged gold and other heavy elements. But many now argue for a different cosmic quarry.
The post A New Blast May Have Forged Cosmic Gold first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Benjamin Barber: If Mayors Ruled the World
### City-based global governance
Sovereign nation states have conspicuously failed to cooperate...
6th Jun 2012
### City-based global governance
Sovereign nation states have conspicuously failed to cooperate well enough to deal with increasingly global problems such as climate change, environmental degradation, and organized crime, Barber said. Nations focus on their borders, which are...
The Roots of...
Event, Feb 29: “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” in Boston and on Zoom
On Thursday, February 29, I’ll be giving my talk “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” to the New...
21st Feb 2024
On Thursday, February 29, I’ll be giving my talk “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” to the New England Legal Foundation, for their Economic Liberty Speaker Series. The talk will be held over breakfast at NELF’s offices in Boston, and will also be livestreamed over Zoom. See...
Quantum Frontiers
What distinguishes quantum from classical thermodynamics?
Should you require a model for an Oxford don in a play or novel, look no farther than Andrew Briggs....
27th Nov 2025
Should you require a model for an Oxford don in a play or novel, look no farther than Andrew Briggs. The emeritus professor of nanomaterials speaks with a southern-English accent as crisp as shortbread, exhibits manners to which etiquette influencer … Continue reading →
The Quanta Podcast
To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics
The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love....
2nd Mar 2017
The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them.
The post To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
UK waders: “Into the Red”
If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most...
4th Oct 2022
If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most conservation concern in the UK, they would probably not include Dunlin. Curlew may well be top of their lists, even though the most recent population estimate is 58,500 breeding pairs, but...
brr
South Pole Signage
Please close doors quietly!
23rd Jul 2023
Please close doors quietly!
Long Now
Vernor Vinge: What If the Singularity Does NOT Happen?
### Non-Singularity scenarios
Vinge began by declaring that he still believes that a Singularity...
16th Feb 2007
### Non-Singularity scenarios
Vinge began by declaring that he still believes that a Singularity event in the next few decades is the most likely outcome-- meaning that self-accelerating technologies will speed up to the point of so profound a transformation that the other side...
Long Now
Kara Platoni: Transforming Perception, One Sense at a Time
Kara Platoni, author and journalism professor at UC-Berkeley, set out to find the sensory pioneers...
3rd Jul 2017
Kara Platoni, author and journalism professor at UC-Berkeley, set out to find the sensory pioneers who are changing the way we experience the world. Her boot-strapped and crowd-sourced quest led her to laboratories and workshops around the world. In her book _[We Have The...
NeuroLogica Blog
Telepathy Tapes Promotes Pseudoscience
I was away on vacation the last week, hence no posts, but am now back to my usual schedule. In fact,...
2nd Jun 2025
I was away on vacation the last week, hence no posts, but am now back to my usual schedule. In fact, I hope to be a little more consistent starting this summer because (if you follow me on the SGU you already know this) I am retiring from my day job at Yale at the […]
The post...
NeuroLogica Blog
Challenging the Acceleration of the Universe
South Korean astronomers are challenging the notion that the universe’s expansion is accelerating,...
5th Jan 2026
South Korean astronomers are challenging the notion that the universe’s expansion is accelerating, an observation in the 1990s that lead to the theory of dark energy. This is currently very controversial, and may simply fizzle away or change our understanding of the fate of the...
The Quanta Podcast
Cryptography That Is Provably Secure
Researchers have just released hacker-proof cryptographic code — programs with the same level of...
6th Feb 2020
Researchers have just released hacker-proof cryptographic code — programs with the same level of invincibility as a mathematical proof.
The post Cryptography That Is Provably Secure first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Conservation...
A climate ally needs support — but at what cost?
8th Jul 2025
Damn Interesting
Pushing the Envelope
As is often the case with people in dangerous professions, the Apollo astronauts found that life...
15th Apr 2021
As is often the case with people in dangerous professions, the Apollo astronauts found that life insurance policies were prohibitively expensive. Rather than pay the exorbitant insurance fees, the astronauts devised a system to ensure their wives and children would be financially...
The Roots of...
The Problem-Solving Animal, part 1
Previously: The Flywheel, part 1 and part 2.
I feel sorry for the Rev. Thomas Malthus. He was doomed...
3rd Jun 2025
Previously: The Flywheel, part 1 and part 2.
I feel sorry for the Rev. Thomas Malthus. He was doomed to be misremembered by history.
His Essay on the Principle of Population is remembered as a prophecy of scarcity. But Malthus’s focus was how to deal with scarcity, which he took...
Drew Ex Machina
The Largest Launch Vehicles in Service – 1957 to the Present
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title...
16th Nov 2022
With the successful launch of NASA’s Artemis I test flight, we now have a new holder of the title “the largest launch vehicle in service”: the […]
Eukaryote Writes...
23 lessons you will learn living in a very snowy place
6. Snow is heavier than you think.
You might think physical strength is useful for lots of things,...
22nd Jan 2026
6. Snow is heavier than you think.
You might think physical strength is useful for lots of things, like overall health or familiar household tasks or picking up dudes (literally or metaphorically.) But actually, the main thing physical strength is useful for is letting you...
ToughSF
Riding Sunbeams with Solar Sails
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the...
26th May 2023
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the Solar System, as many times as you want, any time of the year.
Solar sails can carry passengers and they have a nearly unlimited number of uses. You just have to... think...
Inverted Passion
Why aren’t things changing faster?
Been wondering lately that given everyone has a consultant with all the world’s knowledge in their...
4th May 2026
Been wondering lately that given everyone has a consultant with all the world’s knowledge in their pockets, we should be seeing efficiency rise across the board everywhere. Literally everyone can now get personalised advise on how to serve their customers better, improve quality...
Beautiful Public...
Design for the People: The US Web Design System and the Public Sans Typeface
The United States has an official web design system and a custom typeface that belongs to the...
2nd Jul 2024
The United States has an official web design system and a custom typeface that belongs to the people. This thoughtful public design system aims to make government websites not only look good, but to make them accessible and functional for all.
Beautiful Public...
The Naughty Words the FAA Removed From the Sky
New FOIA records from the FAA shed light on the frantic effort in 2015 to rename navigation...
28th May 2024
New FOIA records from the FAA shed light on the frantic effort in 2015 to rename navigation waypoints related to Donald Trump and reveal the list of naughty waypoint names that were changed over the years.
Stephen Wolfram...
What Can We Learn about Engineering and Innovation from Half a Century of the Game of Life Cellular...
Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow...
18th Mar 2025
Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow there’s an arc of progress that’s formed. But are there what amount to “laws of innovation” that govern that arc of progress? There are some exponential and other laws that purport to...
The Quanta Podcast
Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries
By digging out signals hidden within the brain’s electrical chatter, scientists are getting new...
13th May 2021
By digging out signals hidden within the brain’s electrical chatter, scientists are getting new insights into sleep, aging and more.
The post Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries first appeared on Quanta Magazine
lcamtuf’s thing
How much of HN is AI?
TL;DR: As of June 2026, ~50% of daily top stories are about AI or generated by AI.
12th Mar 2026
TL;DR: As of June 2026, ~50% of daily top stories are about AI or generated by AI.
IEEE Spectrum
How the Designer of the First Hydrogen Bomb Got the Gig
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE...
2nd Sep 2024
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE Life Fellow has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, France’s La Grande Médaille de l’Académie des Sciences, and is one of just a handful of people...
Works in Progress...
Watch men
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the...
2nd Dec 2025
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
The Quanta Podcast
Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old Fire
In harsh ecosystems around the world, microbiologists are finding evidence that “microbial seed...
12th Mar 2020
In harsh ecosystems around the world, microbiologists are finding evidence that “microbial seed banks” protect biodiversity from changing conditions.
The post Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old Fire first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
Why America’s Racial Poverty Statistics Are a Lesson for Researchers
What if a single government employee could tell you an entire literature was wrong?
26th Aug 2024
What if a single government employee could tell you an entire literature was wrong?
Quantum Frontiers
Lessons in frustration
Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken. I was a master’s student in...
17th Feb 2025
Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken. I was a master’s student in the Perimeter Scholars International program at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Perimeter trotted in world experts to lecture about modern physics. Many … Continue...
wadertales
Conservation beyond boundaries
When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be...
7th Apr 2023
When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be affected by a new airport, because relatively small flocks are counted during field surveys, is there an assumption that the birds encountered are always the same individuals? What if...
Peder M. Isager
How to share your data online with OSF
The Open Science movement is here to stay. However, incorporating open practices like data sharing...
2nd Oct 2018
The Open Science movement is here to stay. However, incorporating open practices like data sharing into your work flow can seem like a challenging task. If you have never made data available online before, the process can feel a bit daunting. Where should I put the data? What...
Damn Interesting
Hunting For Kobyla
On a January day in 1964, something remarkable happened: Simon Wiesenthal took the afternoon off. He...
7th Feb 2022
On a January day in 1964, something remarkable happened: Simon Wiesenthal took the afternoon off. He parked himself at a table on the terrace of Tel Aviv’s Café Roval, soaking up the sunshine as if he wished to bottle it. The friend he’d come to meet was late, but Wiesenthal had...
The Quanta Podcast
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a...
12th Apr 2018
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors.
The post A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Last call for software engineers + announcing…KNOWLEDGEFEST! | Out-Of-Pocket
we got some good events cookin' up
1st Jul 2026
we got some good events cookin' up
Works in Progress...
How TV learned to sell itself
Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
11th Mar 2026
Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.
pcloadletter
Generative AI will probably make blogs better
Generative AI will probably make blogs better.
Have you ever searched for something on Google and...
30th May 2025
Generative AI will probably make blogs better.
Have you ever searched for something on Google and found the first one, two, or three blog posts to be utter nonsense? That's because these blog posts have been optimized not for human consumption, but rather to entertain the search...
Uncharted...
AI Weeks When Decades Happen
How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
6th Feb 2025
How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Renewable Energy Updates
I came across a few news items that I could possibly write about today and couldn’t decide which to...
4th May 2026
I came across a few news items that I could possibly write about today and couldn’t decide which to cover, so I will write about all of them, since they all relate to renewable energy. The first is a new study comparing direct air capture (DAC) to installing new wind and solar....
Confessions of a...
Predation of juvenile reef fish in coral patches at Ningaloo Reef
The second research article I have decided to discuss is one I had the pleasure to be involved with!...
11th Feb 2013
The second research article I have decided to discuss is one I had the pleasure to be involved with! In fact, it was the first paper I was a co-author on, after linking up with the Department of Environment and Conservation through an ANNiMS internship program. The paper was...
lcamtuf’s thing
A nicer voltmeter clock
Sometimes, electronic circuit design is mostly about wood
16th May 2026
Sometimes, electronic circuit design is mostly about wood
Quantum Frontiers
Nicole’s guide to interviewing for faculty positions
Snow is haunting weather forecasts, home owners are taking down Christmas lights, stores are...
5th Jan 2026
Snow is haunting weather forecasts, home owners are taking down Christmas lights, stores are discounting exercise equipment, and faculty-hiring committees are winnowing down applications. In-person interviews often take place between January and March but can extend from December...
Works in Progress...
Who cares about plagiarism?
Plagiarism is unforgivable in academia but it’s not plagiarism itself that should trouble us. It’s...
21st Jan 2022
Plagiarism is unforgivable in academia but it’s not plagiarism itself that should trouble us. It’s carelessness and a lack of originality.
Chris Grossack's...
Proving Another "Real Theorem" with Topos Theory
Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol.
Somebody asked whether...
25th Mar 2024
Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol.
Somebody asked whether maximizing over a compact set is a continuous thing
to do. That is, given a continuous function $f : K \times X \to \mathbb{R}$ is the
function $x \mapsto \max_{k \in K} f(k,x)$...
NeuroLogica Blog
The New TIGR-Tas Gene Editing System
Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing...
3rd Mar 2025
Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing system which is faster and cheaper than anything that came before it? CRISPR is derived from bacterial systems which uses guide RNA to target a specific sequence on a DNA strand....
Quanta Magazine
Evolution: Fast or Slow? Lizards Help Resolve a Paradox.
Why does natural selection appear to happen slowly on long timescales and quickly on short ones? A...
2nd Jan 2024
Why does natural selection appear to happen slowly on long timescales and quickly on short ones? A multigenerational study of four lizard species addresses biology’s “paradox of stasis.”
The post Evolution: Fast or Slow? Lizards Help Resolve a Paradox. first appeared...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Color View of the Earth & A Tropical Depression from Space – October 5, 1954
While today we are inundated with color images of the Earth, our earliest views from space were...
5th Oct 2024
While today we are inundated with color images of the Earth, our earliest views from space were confined to monochromatic or black and white images (see […]
Casey Handmer's blog
NASA Is Worth Saving
Casey Handmer June 2025 Download a printable PDF. NASA was founded in 1958 in response to Sputnik...
12th Jun 2025
Casey Handmer June 2025 Download a printable PDF. NASA was founded in 1958 in response to Sputnik and the emerging necessity of a robust, government supported space exploration and technology development program to safeguard US interests in space. NASA embodies the US ideals of...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket
The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
3rd Jun 2024
The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How do we increase competition for hospitals? | Out-Of-Pocket
Otherwise prices will keep going up?
5th Feb 2026
Otherwise prices will keep going up?
Eukaryote Writes...
Good posts from the Inkhaven blogging residency
Cannot stress this enough: literally everyone at the writing residency was good at this. Maybe...
28th Feb 2026
Cannot stress this enough: literally everyone at the writing residency was good at this. Maybe you'll find a new favorite blog among these.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The AI Projects From Our B2B Hackathon | Out-Of-Pocket
DME coordination, assessing AI vendors using AI, physician recruiting tools, and more
5th Dec 2025
DME coordination, assessing AI vendors using AI, physician recruiting tools, and more
Peder M. Isager
Why experiments are considered gold standard for answering causal questions
In this blog post, I will briefly explain why experimental designs are considered so valuable by...
7th Aug 2025
In this blog post, I will briefly explain why experimental designs are considered so valuable by scientists and why we often insist that randomized experiments are necessary for answering causal questions. I will use a practical example to illustrate this point. If you’re new to...
IEEE Spectrum
Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story
In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the...
2nd Jul 2023
In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the Apple II team, who had proposed that Apple Computer Inc. make a low-cost “appliance”-type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster. Mr. Raskin believed the computer he...
Inverted Passion
How to coach someone
This essay is part of the series in which I talk about my learnings and insights building a habit...
5th Apr 2026
This essay is part of the series in which I talk about my learnings and insights building a habit coaching app (Nintee) in 2024. It didn’t ultimately work out because an app has marginal influence in a human’s life (v/s that of friends, family, culture and immediate environment)....
Beautiful Public...
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s...
6th Feb 2023
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
The Quanta Podcast
Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because...
4th Jun 2020
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes.
The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Heat waves
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
12th Jul 2024
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
Long Now
James Nestor: Humanity and the Deep Ocean
In _[DEEP: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells us about...
1st Feb 2018
In _[DEEP: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells us about Ourselves](https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Freediving-Renegade-Science-Ourselves/dp/0547985525)_ James Nestor follows extreme athletes, adventurers, and scientists as they plumb the limits of the ocean's...
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote in Asterisk Magazine + New Patreon Per-post setup
Eukaryote elsewhere I have an article in the latest issue of Asterisk Magazine. After you get really...
14th Apr 2023
Eukaryote elsewhere I have an article in the latest issue of Asterisk Magazine. After you get really deep into the weeds of invertebrate sentience and fish welfare and the scale of factory farming, what do you do with that information vis-a-vis what you feel comfortable eating?...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3
The post Heads Up: Total...
25th Feb 2026
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3
The post Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
The Quanta Podcast
Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed
Some researchers are using a complexity framework thought to be purely theoretical to understand...
31st Oct 2019
Some researchers are using a complexity framework thought to be purely theoretical to understand evolutionary dynamics in biological and computational systems.
The post Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
South Pole Water Infrastructure
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
8th Jun 2024
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
Conservation...
Climate Week: Money, nature and what really matters
14th May 2024
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Things I’m watching in healthcare 2023 | Out-Of-Pocket
it's been a weird year
5th Mar 2024
Probably...
Announcing Think Stats 3e
The third edition of Think Stats is on its way to the printer! You can preorder now from...
6th Apr 2025
The third edition of Think Stats is on its way to the printer! You can preorder now from Bookshop.org and Amazon (those are affiliate links), or if you can’t wait to get a paper copy, you can read the free, online version here. Here’s the new cover, still featuring a...
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,...
20th May 2020
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
lcamtuf’s thing
Fluorescent lamps (don’t) have ears
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Journal of Negative Results
2 weeks ago
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Journal of Negative Results
The Roots of...
Cellular reprogramming, pneumatic launch systems, and terraforming Mars
In December, I went to the Foresight Institute’s Vision Weekend 2023 in San Francisco. I had a lot...
4th Jan 2024
In December, I went to the Foresight Institute’s Vision Weekend 2023 in San Francisco. I had a lot of fun talking to a bunch of weird and ambitious geeks about the glorious abundant technological future. Here are few things I learned about (with the caveat that this is mostly...
Stephen Wolfram...
In Memory of My Wife, Elise Cawley (1961–2026), with Thanks for 36 Wonderful Years
4th Aug 2026
IEEE Spectrum
A Brief History of the World’s First Planetarium
In 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea:...
1st May 2024
In 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea: Could you project an artificial starry sky onto a dome, as a way of demonstrating astronomical principles to the public?
It was such a novel concept that when von Miller approached...
Casey Handmer's blog
To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization
[Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap...
8th Apr 2025
[Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate that we had kicked off the process of recompiling the foundation layer of our entire industrial...
Explorations of an...
Dominican Republic, October 2025: Introduction and Parque Nacional Los Haitises
I have recently returned from an eight-day blitz of the Dominican Republic with my wife, Laura, and...
29th Oct 2025
I have recently returned from an eight-day blitz of the Dominican Republic with my wife, Laura, and good friend, Daniel Riley. Now October isn't really an ideal time for a birding trip to the Dominican Republic for a few reasons. First, October is the off-season and few birds are...
Quantum Frontiers
Mo’ heights mo’ challenges – Climbing mount grad school
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride,...
4th Oct 2022
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride, Colorado. We spent ten days in Telluride, where I spoke at the Information Engines at the Frontiers of Nanoscale Thermodynamics workshop. Telluride is a gorgeous … Continue reading...
Quanta Magazine
Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life
Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent...
2nd Jan 2025
Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent home inside another. For the first time, biologists made it happen in the lab.
The post Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life first appeared...
Quanta Magazine
How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps.
The post How Math Has...
1st Jun 2023
New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps.
The post How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound...
2nd Sep 2021
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics.
The post The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
The Soviet Zond 3 Lunar Flyby: Revealing the Rest of the Far Side
Naturally, the early history of space exploration is filled with firsts. Just six decades ago at...
18th Jul 2025
Naturally, the early history of space exploration is filled with firsts. Just six decades ago at this time, the world watched as NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft […]
Beautiful Public...
FAA Aviation Maps
Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a...
29th Jan 2024
Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a higher information density than the Federal Aviation Administration’s aviation maps.
Eukaryote Writes...
Did photos of the 1917 Miracle of the Sun at Fatima prove the sun was at an impossible place in the...
I do agree that if these photos showed that the sun was at an odd angle, that would be evidence for...
1st Oct 2025
I do agree that if these photos showed that the sun was at an odd angle, that would be evidence for a miracle. But I read Dalleur (2021) and I’m really not sold that the photos indicate anything celestially weird going on.
wadertales
Making full use of tracking data
This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are...
6th May 2025
This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are being revealed through shorebird tracking work and to encourage scientists to make their data available via the Global Wader platform. If small numbers of waders are going to be...
Long Now
Susan Freinkel: Eternal Plastic
### Making plastic even better
Plastic is so new, Freinkel began, that among all the objects...
23rd May 2012
### Making plastic even better
Plastic is so new, Freinkel began, that among all the objects preserved in the sunken _Titanic_ , none are synthetic plastic, because there was hardly any available in 1912. Natural plastic, however, was a familiar material. Amber was popular....
The Quanta Podcast
The Math of Catastrophe
Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to...
14th Oct 2025
Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to dry out, becoming the desert that we know today. Tipping points are moments in Earth’s history where gradual change suddenly becomes rapid and forms a new equilibrium.
They’re one...
NeuroLogica Blog
2023 Hottest Year on Record
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we...
2nd Jan 2024
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we can also say that the last 10 years are the hottest decade on record. 2023 dethrones 2016 as the previous warmest year and bumps 2010 out of the top 10. Further, in the last half of...
Eukaryote Writes...
Will the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not?
If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected...
25th Jun 2023
If a fatal neurological virus were spreading across deer in the US, and showed up in cooked infected meat, my default assumption would be “we're in danger.” But a prion isn’t a virus. Why does that matter?
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some sick wearable projects | Out-Of-Pocket
Robots, wearables for kids, and more
3rd Jun 2026
Robots, wearables for kids, and more
Marine Madness
Book club: ‘Being Salmon Being Human’ by Martin Lee Mueller
Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild Norwegian and Pacific Northwest salmon industries...
1st Jun 2021
Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild Norwegian and Pacific Northwest salmon industries remain largely overlooked and Martin Lee Mueller cleverly weaves the stories of artificially inseminated and reared salmon to highlight the long-standing notion of human...
Quantum Frontiers
Memories of things past
My best friend—who’s held the title of best friend since kindergarten—calls me the keeper of her...
6th Mar 2023
My best friend—who’s held the title of best friend since kindergarten—calls me the keeper of her childhood memories. I recall which toys we played with, the first time I visited her house,1 and which beverages our classmates drank during snack … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
City Planning and CO2 Emissions
In Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel he imagines a future in which most of humanity lives in...
1st Jun 2026
In Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel he imagines a future in which most of humanity lives in gigantic cities, extending many levels underground. This leaves the majority of the Earth’s surface for industrial farming, necessary to feed all those densely populated cities. If you...
The Quanta Podcast
The Fundamental Tension at the Heart of Math
We tend to think of math as all about logic and rigor. But what “rigor” actually means has been...
7th Apr 2026
We tend to think of math as all about logic and rigor. But what “rigor” actually means has been shaken up quite a few times over the past few centuries. The newest attempt to formalize math comes in the form of the computer program Lean. Mathematicians have mixed feelings. On...
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