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Wanderingspace
Dust Storm On Mars A dust storm in Olympia Planum's north polar dune fields was triggered by a late Martian summer cold...
11 months ago
52
11 months ago
A dust storm in Olympia Planum's north polar dune fields was triggered by a late Martian summer cold front. As the northern polar cap shrinks fast, it releases cold air that sometimes moves south, like on Earth. These cold fronts strengthen in late summer and early fall due to...
symmetry magazine
Celebrating Dark Matter Day in Latin America Scientists, artists, communicators and physics fans find creative ways to mark the unofficial...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Scientists, artists, communicators and physics fans find creative ways to mark the unofficial holiday devoted to dark matter.
Math Is Still...
The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA By treating DNA as a language, Brian Hie’s “ChatGPT for genomes” could pick up patterns that humans...
a month ago
19
a month ago
By treating DNA as a language, Brian Hie’s “ChatGPT for genomes” could pick up patterns that humans can’t see, accelerating biological design. The post The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Eating Methane Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce anthropogenic climate change, we talk about decarbonizing our electrical and transport sectors, and carbon removal. But methane is also a greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming,...
Eukaryote Writes...
Fiber arts, mysterious dodecahedrons, and waiting on “Eureka!” Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
over a year ago
brr
Sunset Hunkering down for the winter!
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
What Really Happened During the Yellowstone Park Flood? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Every year, a deluge of...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Every year, a deluge of tourists stream into Yellowstone National Park, America’s first and possibly most famous national park, and (I would argue) one of the most beautiful and geographically rich places on...
Wanderingspace
Enter Prometheus “Here's a view of Saturn's moon Prometheus, made from images captured with the narrow-angle camera...
3 months ago
51
3 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
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The College Health Opportunity | Out-Of-Pocket We can make college healthcare better! And honestly we have to
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Provider Directories, Physician data, and Ribbon Health | Out-Of-Pocket why can't I find any important info about my doctor lol
a year ago
The Roots of...
Can we “cure” cancer? In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes: Ask most biologists...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
In an excellent recent essay on “big visions for biology,” Sam Rodriques writes: Ask most biologists about the cure for cancer, and they will tell you it doesn’t exist: cancer is many diseases that are mostly unrelated to each other, and that all have to be cured one at a...
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 3) Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Repairs, number stations, the only good Twitters, a low-key infohazard about pictures of butterflies, and more.
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
8
over a year ago
China has spent millennia exploring the culinary possibilities of soybean curds. The West has barely scratched the surface.
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, June 2023 A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find...
a year ago
147
a year ago
A monthly feature. As usual, recent blog posts and news stories are omitted from this; you can find them in my links digests. In all quotes below, any emphasis in bold was added by me. Books Thomas S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution, 1760–1830 (1948). A classic in the field,...
Asterisk
The Transistor Cliff Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
a year ago
Cremieux Recueil
Just Pay Them Off The International Longshoremen's Association is protecting people whose jobs are no longer...
5 months ago
19
5 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.
SubAnima
The Problem With Richard Dawkins How should we view The Selfish Gene 50 years on?
a year ago
Cremieux Recueil
Eliminating Distractions in Longevity Research Longevity maximizers should invest in biotechnology, not modifiable lifestyle factors
5 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Woman with Catatonia for Years Wakes After Treatment The story of a woman, in a severe state of catatonia for years and “waking up” after being treated...
a year ago
57
a year ago
The story of a woman, in a severe state of catatonia for years and “waking up” after being treated for an autoimmune disease, is making the rounds and deserves a little bit of context. April Burrell was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia resulting in catatonia, and has...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Patient Communities Should Change | Out-Of-Pocket Evolving from ads to outcomes
a year ago
Probably...
We Have a Book! My copy of Probably Overthinking It has arrived! If you want a copy for yourself, you can get a 30%...
a year ago
19
a year ago
My copy of Probably Overthinking It has arrived! If you want a copy for yourself, you can get a 30% discount if you order from the publisher and use the code UCPNEW. You can also order from Amazon or, if you want to support independent bookstores, from Bookshop.org. The official...
NeuroLogica Blog
Living a Hybrid Life The cultural effects of the COVID pandemic can still be felt reverberating through society. One of...
7 months ago
49
7 months ago
The cultural effects of the COVID pandemic can still be felt reverberating through society. One of the positive effects, in my opinion, was the sudden boost to remote technology – connecting remotely for meetings and other uses through Zoom or a similar application. This...
symmetry magazine
Searching for the matter that hides its shine Just because matter is visible doesn’t mean it’s easy to see.
a year ago
Math Is Still...
How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to...
6 months ago
69
6 months ago
Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of mind such as mood, pleasure and fear. The post How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection first appeared on...
Probably...
Should divorce be more difficult? “The Christian right is coming for divorce next,” according to this recent Vox article, and “Some...
9 months ago
75
9 months ago
“The Christian right is coming for divorce next,” according to this recent Vox article, and “Some conservatives want to make it a lot harder to dissolve a marriage.” As always when I read an article like this, I want to see data — and the General Social Survey has just the data I...
Math Is Still...
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
41
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...
Math Is Still...
In a Monster Star’s Light, a Hint of Darkness Astronomers are scouring the cosmos for fingerprints of the invisible — tiny clumps of pure dark...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Astronomers are scouring the cosmos for fingerprints of the invisible — tiny clumps of pure dark matter that might solve a long-standing cosmic mystery. The post In a Monster Star’s Light, a Hint of Darkness first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
In the ‘Wild West’ of Geometry, Mathematicians Redefine the Sphere High-dimensional spheres can have a much wider variety of structures than mathematicians thought...
a year ago
15
a year ago
High-dimensional spheres can have a much wider variety of structures than mathematicians thought possible. The post In the ‘Wild West’ of Geometry, Mathematicians Redefine the Sphere 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
Math Is Still...
How Does Life Happen When There’s Barely Any Light? Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the...
a month ago
19
a month ago
Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the lowest light levels ever observed in nature. The post How Does Life Happen When There’s Barely Any Light? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Anemia and Malaria In malaria endemic regions, being anemic could be keeping children safe
4 months ago
Math Is Still...
Meet Strange Metals: Where Electricity May Flow Without Electrons For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new...
a year ago
15
a year ago
For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart. The post Meet Strange Metals: Where Electricity May Flow Without Electrons first...
NeuroLogica Blog
Concrete Battery I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about...
8 months ago
74
8 months ago
I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about concrete, or potential version of concrete that is able to function as a battery. If we can get the technology to work this could an extremely useful item for a future of green...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More 2023 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket should just start 2024 predictions I guess
11 months ago
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%
2 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Have Current AI Reached Their Limit? We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications,...
a year ago
109
a year ago
We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications, specifically the large language models and so-called “transformers” like Chat GPT. Transformers are a deep learning model that use self-attention to differentially weight the...
Math Is Still...
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
14
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
Asterisk
Mysticism & Empiricism The best way to predict if you’ll benefit from psychedelic therapy is a questionnaire asking if...
a year ago
7
a year ago
The best way to predict if you’ll benefit from psychedelic therapy is a questionnaire asking if you’ve met God. Where did it come from, and what is it really measuring?
Blog - Practical...
Which Is Easier To Pull? (Railcars vs. Road Cars) [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Imagine the room you’re in...
a year ago
36
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Imagine the room you’re in right now was filled to the top with gravel. (I promise I’m headed somewhere with this.) I don’t know the size of the room you’re in, but if it’s anywhere near an average-sized...
Math Is Still...
Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction. The post Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
The Style Guide for America’s Highways: The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices Driving across America, you will encounter a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people and...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
Driving across America, you will encounter a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people and animals. But the one consistent thing that will stay the same from Maine to California are the signs you pass on the highway. That is because America’s roads and highways have a big, fat...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Special Edition - WoW | Out-Of-Pocket World Of Warcraft vs. COVID-19
a year ago
Asterisk
A Field Guide to AI Safety AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a...
a year ago
6
a year ago
AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a decade still have strong disagreements.
The Works in...
Links in Progress: Snakebites, Pig Hearts, and More A round up of the most important things happening in biotechnology and medicine
a month ago
symmetry magazine
Applications of quantum mechanics at the beach How does sunscreen work on the atomic level?
a year ago
Wanderingspace
Saturn Family Portrait From planetary.org: On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
From planetary.org: On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with its narrow-angle camera: Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Rhea, and Mimas. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. This is a full-color look at a view that was originally published in...
Light from Space
The Rosette Nebula Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring astrophotographer. Located not too far from Orion in Monoceros, this large H II region has spectacular features, centered around a star cluster. Click or tap to...
Math Is Still...
To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the cost of forgetting the path they took. A new result suggests that the trade-off may be inevitable. The post To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past...
Willem Pennings
ClockSquared improvements My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply called the “Birthday word clock”. I haven’t spent much time on the project in recent years, but I’ve upgraded the internals a while ago and finally felt like writing a post about it....
Math Is Still...
What Are Sheaves? These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics. The post...
7 months ago
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Plant Sounds My early adulthood coincided with the New Age movement and its belief in many discredited past...
7 months ago
9
7 months ago
My early adulthood coincided with the New Age movement and its belief in many discredited past ideas, such as astrology. One New Age idea that seemed strange at the time was that talking to plants helped them to grow. What could be more New Age than a hippie chick talking to a...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: 2. Starbase A city of dreams
a month ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What Do Hospitals Care About? | Out-Of-Pocket Let’s look at three big priorities and a real hospital
4 weeks ago
Math Is Still...
Behold Modular Forms, the ‘Fifth Fundamental Operation’ of Math Modular forms are one of the most beautiful and mysterious objects in mathematics. What are they? ...
a year ago
24
a year ago
Modular forms are one of the most beautiful and mysterious objects in mathematics. What are they? The post Behold Modular Forms, the ‘Fifth Fundamental Operation’ of Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Obstacles To Value-Based Care | Out-Of-Pocket taking on risk is easier said than done
a year ago
Math Is Still...
How Do Machines ‘Grok’ Data? By apparently overtraining them, researchers have seen neural networks discover novel solutions to...
11 months ago
72
11 months ago
By apparently overtraining them, researchers have seen neural networks discover novel solutions to problems. The post How Do Machines ‘Grok’ Data? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
A Bit of Energy Pseudoscience Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age well. The basic plot is that Nazi chemists during WWII developed a formula for synthetic gasoline. A detective investigating a murder gets embroiled in a conspiracy to cover up the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Immune Cells to Fight Cancer There is a recent medical advance that you may not have heard about unless you are a healthcare...
a year ago
29
a year ago
There is a recent medical advance that you may not have heard about unless you are a healthcare professional or encountered it from the patient side – CAR-T cell therapy. A recent study shows the potential for continued incremental advance of this technology, but already it is a...
Math Is Still...
Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe Is the universe flat and infinite, or something more complex? We can’t say for sure, but a new...
a month ago
62
a month ago
Is the universe flat and infinite, or something more complex? We can’t say for sure, but a new search strategy is mapping out the subtle signals that could reveal if the universe had a shape. The post Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe...
NeuroLogica Blog
Marmosets Call Each Other By Name Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has...
6 months ago
50
6 months ago
Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has only been identified in a few other species, dolphins, elephants, and some parrots. Interestingly, it has never been documented in our closest relatives, non-human primates – that...
IEEE Spectrum
Tragedy Spurred the First Effective Land-Mine Detector Land mines have been around in one form or another for more than a thousand years. By now, you’d...
2 months ago
31
2 months ago
Land mines have been around in one form or another for more than a thousand years. By now, you’d think a simple and safe way of locating and removing the devices would’ve been engineered. But that’s not the case. In fact, up until World War II, the most common method for finding...
The Works in...
Getting people to donate their organs Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier?
11 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More weird rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket 3 liters of blood, sequential billing, COBRA, and more
9 months ago
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...
11 months ago
69
11 months ago
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...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Breakfast with g IQ, lived experience, and my boyfriend’s underpants
over a year ago
The Works in...
The concept of sustainment A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
symmetry magazine
From inventor to entrepreneur Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for...
a year ago
70
a year ago
Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for physicists and engineers, but the help of experts can improve their chances.
Math Is Still...
Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup. The post Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
a month ago
42
a month 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 →
NeuroLogica Blog
Scammers on the Rise Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume...
a year ago
63
a year ago
Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume it’s a scam and you will probably be right. Recently I was called on my cell phone by someone claiming to be from Venmo. They asked me to confirm if I had just made two fund...
Math Is Still...
How Chain-of-Thought Reasoning Helps Neural Networks Compute Large language models do better at solving problems when they show their work. Researchers are...
11 months ago
44
11 months ago
Large language models do better at solving problems when they show their work. Researchers are beginning to understand why. The post How Chain-of-Thought Reasoning Helps Neural Networks Compute first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
When IBM Built a War Room for Executives Computer History Museum’s collection has a biography of sorts—a life before CHM, a tale about how it...
3 months ago
80
3 months ago
Computer History Museum’s collection has a biography of sorts—a life before CHM, a tale about how it came to us, and a life within the museum. The chapters of that biography include the uses made of it, and the historical and interpretive stories it can be made to tell. This then...
Wanderingspace
COMET 67P/CG ANIMATED FROM ROSETTA STILLS COMET #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO INTERNATIONAL #ROSETTA MISSION Date 18 jul 2015 Distance to...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
COMET #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO INTERNATIONAL #ROSETTA MISSION Date 18 jul 2015 Distance to Target 182 km Orange+Blue filtershttps://t.co/ZuYVehJOLx ESA/Rosetta/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA/J. Roger pic.twitter.com/Fg8rNmjbNy — landru79 (@landru79) June 13, 2022 Hit...
Asterisk
The Devil in the Details: Matthew Desmond’s Poverty by America Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America is one of the most celebrated books on the subject....
a year ago
9
a year ago
Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America is one of the most celebrated books on the subject. Unfortunately, carelessness about the ways we measure poverty undercuts its main argument.
Blog - Practical...
What’s Inside a Manhole? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] For as straightforward as they...
a month ago
21
a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] For as straightforward as they are, there’s a lot of mystery to sewers. They’re mostly out of sight, out of mind, and ideally out of smell too. But there’s one familiar place you can get a hint of what’s...
NeuroLogica Blog
Power-To-X and Climate Change Policy What is Power-to-X (PtX)? It’s just a fancy marketing term for green hydrogen – using green energy,...
3 months ago
47
3 months ago
What is Power-to-X (PtX)? It’s just a fancy marketing term for green hydrogen – using green energy, like wind, solar, nuclear, or hydroelectric, to make hydrogen from water. This process does not release any CO2, just oxygen, and when the hydrogen is burned back with that oxygen...
Math Is Still...
Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more...
3 months ago
84
3 months ago
In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications. The post Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold first appeared on Quanta...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Race And Healthcare: Recognizing And Addressing the Issues Facing Black Patients | Out-Of-Pocket The systemic issues that plague black communities are extremely prevalent in healthcare, and we...
a year ago
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Cold Brew Coffee While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory...
8 months ago
10
8 months 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...
Eukaryote Writes...
Recommendation: reports on the search for missing hiker Bill Ewasko How to find someone who has died in the wilderness.
7 months ago
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, November 2023 A ~monthly feature. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in...
a year ago
40
a year ago
A ~monthly feature. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in my links digests. All emphasis in bold in the quotes below was added by me. Books Finished Lynn White, Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962). Last time I talked about the...
Math Is Still...
A Close-Up View Reveals the ‘Melting’ Point of an Infinite Graph Just as ice melts to water, graphs undergo phase transitions. Two mathematicians showed that they...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Just as ice melts to water, graphs undergo phase transitions. Two mathematicians showed that they can pinpoint such transitions by examining only local structure. The post A Close-Up View Reveals the ‘Melting’ Point of an Infinite Graph first appeared on Quanta...
The Works in...
Apply to come to Invisible College Our new residential seminar for 18 to 22-year-olds, during August 2024
10 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Boeing Starliner Launches Soon If all goes well, Boeing’s Starliner capsule will launch on Monday May 6th with two crew members...
10 months ago
72
10 months 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...
Drew Ex Machina
GOES Video of Solar Eclipse – October 14, 2023 Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14,...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023 was no different. Unlike a total solar eclipse where the […]
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...
a year ago
40
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...
Math Is Still...
Bats Use the Same Brain Cells to Map Physical and Social Worlds New research in social bats raises the intriguing possibility that evolution can reprogram the...
a year ago
20
a year ago
New research in social bats raises the intriguing possibility that evolution can reprogram the brain’s “place cells,” which are typically associated with location, to encode all kinds of environmental information. The post Bats Use the Same Brain Cells to Map Physical...
The Roots of...
Making every researcher seek grants is a broken model When Galileo wanted to study the heavens through his telescope, he got money from those legendary...
a year ago
51
a year ago
When Galileo wanted to study the heavens through his telescope, he got money from those legendary patrons of the Renaissance, the Medici. To win their favor, when he discovered the moons of Jupiter, he named them the Medicean Stars. Other scientists and inventors offered flashy...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Engineering Behind Healthcare LLMs with Abridge | Out-Of-Pocket What kinds of challenges come up with creating a speech-to-text gen AI product?
6 months ago
The Roots of...
Why you, personally, should want a larger human population What is the ideal size of the human population? One common answer is “much smaller.” Paul Ehrlich,...
a year ago
38
a year ago
What is the ideal size of the human population? One common answer is “much smaller.” Paul Ehrlich, co-author of The Population Bomb (1968), has as recently as 2018 promoted the idea that “the world’s optimum population is less than two billion people,” a reduction of the current...
IEEE Spectrum
Lord Kelvin and His Analog Computer William Thomson, mourning the death of his wife and flush with cash from various patents related to...
9 months ago
85
9 months ago
William Thomson, mourning the death of his wife and flush with cash from various patents related to the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, decided to buy a yacht. His schooner, the Lalla Rookh, became Thomson’s summer home and his base for hosting scientific...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fake Fossils In 1931 a fossil lizard was recovered from the Italian Alps, believed to be a 280 million year old...
a year ago
34
a year ago
In 1931 a fossil lizard was recovered from the Italian Alps, believed to be a 280 million year old specimen. The fossil was also rare in that it appeared to have some preserved soft tissue. It was given the species designation Tridentinosaurus antiquus and was thought to be part...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 15: More From Explorama Lodge (February 20 - 21, 2024) February 20, 2024 A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went...
a month ago
4
a month ago
February 20, 2024 A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went off at 5:00 AM. It was going to be a good day.  At dinner the previous night Luis, Laura and I had come up with a plan for our full day at Explorama Lodge. We would begin by taking...
Math Is Still...
Physicists Who Explored Tiny Glimpses of Time Win Nobel Prize The development of attosecond pulses of light allowed researchers to explore the frame-by-frame...
a year ago
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a year ago
The development of attosecond pulses of light allowed researchers to explore the frame-by-frame movement of electrons. The post Physicists Who Explored Tiny Glimpses of Time Win Nobel Prize 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...
4 months ago
20
4 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.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Cool Ideas For Dentistry + Medicine With Nisarg Patel | Out-Of-Pocket plus what actually happens in the operating room?
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Latest Starship Launch SpaceX has conducted their most successful test launch of a Starship system to date. The system they...
4 months ago
45
4 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...
The Roots of...
Can submarines swim? Did any science fiction predict that when AI arrived, it would be unreliable, often illogical, and...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
Did any science fiction predict that when AI arrived, it would be unreliable, often illogical, and frequently bullshitting? Usually in fiction, if the AI says something factually incorrect or illogical, that is a deep portent of something very wrong: the AI is sick, or turning...
Math Is Still...
Scientists Find a Fast Way to Describe Quantum Systems After years of false starts, a team of computer scientists has found a way to efficiently deduce the...
10 months ago
51
10 months ago
After years of false starts, a team of computer scientists has found a way to efficiently deduce the Hamiltonian of a physical system at any constant temperature. The post Scientists Find a Fast Way to Describe Quantum Systems first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Redeployment Part Two Station opening, and my flight out of Pole!
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
An Engineer’s Love Letter to Cable-Stayed Bridges [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I’m Grady, and this is...
3 weeks ago
14
3 weeks ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I’m Grady, and this is Practical Engineering. You know, every once in a while, all the science, technology, economic factors, and stylistic tastes converge into a singular, beautiful idea of absolute...
Wanderingspace
Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the rest are thought to be active volcanos on the Io surface. The moons are not a primary target of the Juno mission, but they do occasionally take a peek to try and monitor such...
Uncharted...
10 Other Places Where Geniuses Hide Groups, networks, the Internet, IQ, state sponsorship, and many more
2 months ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Solar and batteries for generic use cases A brief note on using solar and batteries as generic power sources. Over the last few years of work...
4 months ago
24
4 months ago
A brief note on using solar and batteries as generic power sources. Over the last few years of work at Terraform Industries, we’ve developed several useful heuristics to understand how rapid progress in solar and battery costs will change industry. This includes the bifurcation...
Inverted Passion
Why time seems to pass faster as we age 1/ I’ve been mega-obsessed with this feeling. A year as a 36-year-old seems so much shorter as...
a year ago
92
a year ago
1/ I’ve been mega-obsessed with this feeling. A year as a 36-year-old seems so much shorter as compared to when I was a kid or even as a teen. It seems cosmically unfair – we have fewer years to live, and each year flies by faster. 2/ But, why is that happening? My tentative...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Out-Of-Pocket’s 2023 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket mine are right all the others are wrong
11 months ago
The Works in...
New York’s long road to congestion pricing The decades of work that went into getting the policy very, very close to the finish line
7 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Cultural Blindness One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the...
a year ago
17
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...
Math Is Still...
New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What...
a year ago
25
a year ago
Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies? The post New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
The rain in Portugal My husband taught me how to pronounce the name of the city where I’d be presenting a talk late last...
a year ago
83
a year ago
My husband taught me how to pronounce the name of the city where I’d be presenting a talk late last July: Aveiro, Portugal. Having studied Spanish, I pronounced the name as Ah-VEH-roh, with a v partway to a hard b. … Continue reading →
Casey Handmer's blog
Salton Sea statistics I wanted to gain better insights into the Salton Sea level, evaporation, inflows and outflows. Step...
2 months ago
37
2 months ago
I wanted to gain better insights into the Salton Sea level, evaporation, inflows and outflows. Step one was to gather publicly available data about its level, and collate it into a single graph. Here we see that despite the continual formation of Salton Sea advisory committees,...
nanoscale views
Seeing through tissue and Kramers-Kronig There is a paper in Science this week that is just a great piece of work.  The authors find that by...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
There is a paper in Science this week that is just a great piece of work.  The authors find that by dyeing living tissue with a particular biocompatible dye molecule, they can make that tissue effectively transparent, so you can see through it.  The paper includes images (and...
Math Is Still...
Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept...
a year ago
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a year ago
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon. The post Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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”
11 months ago
Math Is Still...
Unfolding the Mysteries of Polygonal Billiards The surprisingly subtle geometry of a familiar game shows how quickly math gets complicated. ...
a year ago
42
a year ago
The surprisingly subtle geometry of a familiar game shows how quickly math gets complicated. The post Unfolding the Mysteries of Polygonal Billiards first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Can Space-Time Be Saved? Curious connections between physics and math suggest to Latham Boyle that space-time may survive the...
5 months ago
34
5 months ago
Curious connections between physics and math suggest to Latham Boyle that space-time may survive the jump to the next theory of reality. The post Can Space-Time Be Saved? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
History is in the making It's technology and ideas, not politics, that change our lives the most. History should reflect...
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Hardware Demands of AI I am of the generation that essentially lived through the introduction and evolution of the personal...
a year ago
59
a year ago
I am of the generation that essentially lived through the introduction and evolution of the personal computer. I have decades of experience as an active user and enthusiast, so I have been able to notice some patterns. One pattern is the relationship between the power of...
The Works in...
Where inflation comes from How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences...
3 months ago
39
3 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.
NeuroLogica Blog
Journalists Fail on UAP Story Nothing about the recent resurgence in interest in UFOs (now called UAPs for unidentified anomalous...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Nothing about the recent resurgence in interest in UFOs (now called UAPs for unidentified anomalous phenomena) is really new. It’s basically the same stories with the same level of completely unconvincing evidence. But what is somewhat new is the level of credulity and outright...
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...
3 weeks ago
16
3 weeks ago
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...
Math Is Still...
The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent...
9 months ago
76
9 months ago
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent parts. A new framework has researchers hopeful that a solution is near. The post The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Washington Post on Past Lives Generally speaking the mainstream media does a terrible job of reporting anything in the realm of...
10 months ago
78
10 months ago
Generally speaking the mainstream media does a terrible job of reporting anything in the realm of pseudoscience or the paranormal. The Washington Post’s recent article on children who apparently remember their past lives is no exception. Journalists generally don’t have the...
Math Is Still...
Fossilized Molecules Reveal a Lost World of Ancient Life A new analysis of ancient sediments fills a gap in the fossil record — revealing a massive dynasty...
a year ago
17
a year ago
A new analysis of ancient sediments fills a gap in the fossil record — revealing a massive dynasty of ancient eukaryotes, which may have reigned for 800 million years and shaped the history of life of Earth. The post Fossilized Molecules Reveal a Lost World of Ancient...
Math Is Still...
Avi Wigderson, Complexity Theory Pioneer, Wins Turing Award The prolific researcher found deep connections between randomness and computation and spent a career...
11 months ago
50
11 months ago
The prolific researcher found deep connections between randomness and computation and spent a career influencing cryptographers, complexity researchers and more. The post Avi Wigderson, Complexity Theory Pioneer, Wins Turing Award first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Math Is Still Catching Up to the Mysterious Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan Born poor in colonial India and dead at 32, Ramanujan had fantastical, out-of-nowhere visions that...
4 months ago
66
4 months ago
Born poor in colonial India and dead at 32, Ramanujan had fantastical, out-of-nowhere visions that continue to shape the field today. The post Math Is Still Catching Up to the Mysterious Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Apoorva Srinivasan
getting started with bayesian inference In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the method that is commonly taught in STAT101 classes. But for many decades, some statisticians have argued for another approach to conduct statistical analysis based on bayes...
ToughSF
How to Live on Other Planets: Uranus The weirdest of the planets. A blue giant, resting on its side. Could we find a home in...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
The weirdest of the planets. A blue giant, resting on its side. Could we find a home in the Uranian system? Description Uranus is the fourth-largest planet and the first ‘ice giant’. It orbits between 18.3 and 20.1 AU from the Sun, making it four times more distant than...
NeuroLogica Blog
Spider-Man’s Web Shooter I have to admit that my favorite superhero as a kid, and still today, is Spider-Man (and yes, that’s...
5 months ago
41
5 months ago
I have to admit that my favorite superhero as a kid, and still today, is Spider-Man (and yes, that’s the correct spelling). There are a number of narrative reasons for this that I grew to appreciate more as I aged. First, Spider-Man is in the sweet spot of super abilities – he is...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Digital health needs more creative financing options | Out-Of-Pocket And does venture actually work for healthcare services?
11 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Dental Insurance, Value-Based Dental, and Beam Benefits | Out-Of-Pocket Why doesn’t dental have value-based care?
a year ago
Math Is Still...
The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics. ...
a year ago
56
a year ago
Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics. The post The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
5 months ago
65
5 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...
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for a feature of nature that is frequently misunderstood: quanta. (We’ve...
a year ago
31
a year ago
This year we give thanks for a feature of nature that is frequently misunderstood: quanta. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory, the error bar, gauge...
NeuroLogica Blog
Finding Small Primordial Black Holes Astrophysicists come up with a lot of whacky ideas, some of which actually turn out to be possibly...
3 months ago
52
3 months ago
Astrophysicists come up with a lot of whacky ideas, some of which actually turn out to be possibly true (like the Big Bang, black holes, accelerating cosmic expansion, dark matter). Of course, all of these conclusions are provisional, but some are now backed by compelling...
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
7
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.
Math Is Still...
New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes Physicists hope that understanding the churning region near singularities might help them reconcile...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
Physicists hope that understanding the churning region near singularities might help them reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. The post New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Between the Lines: A History of the Most Important Concept in Global Poverty The global poverty line helps determine how billions of dollars in aid are allocated. But where did...
a year ago
6
a year ago
The global poverty line helps determine how billions of dollars in aid are allocated. But where did the idea of measuring poverty come from — and how might it be holding us back?
Math Is Still...
Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive Ten years ago, researchers proved that adding full memory can theoretically aid computation. They’re...
3 weeks ago
21
3 weeks ago
Ten years ago, researchers proved that adding full memory can theoretically aid computation. They’re just now beginning to understand the implications. The post Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird health insurance concepts | Out-Of-Pocket Intercompany eliminations, copay shenanigans, and reference-based pricing
4 months ago
Math Is Still...
What Is Distributed Computing? Our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines. The...
3 months ago
50
3 months ago
Our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines. The post What Is Distributed Computing? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Christian Health Insurance | Out-Of-Pocket Love thy neighbor, pay for thy neighbor
a year ago
Math Is Still...
A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of...
a year ago
53
a year ago
So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of complex quantum systems. The post A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Actually good 2024 healthcare predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
Why Construction Projects Always Go Over Budget [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Boston, Massachusetts is one...
a year ago
38
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Boston, Massachusetts is one of the oldest cities in America, founded in 1630, more than a few years before the advent of modern motor vehicles. In the 1980s, traffic in downtown Boston was nearly unbearable...
NeuroLogica Blog
Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease For my entire career as a neurologist, spanning three decades, I have been hearing about various...
3 days ago
4
3 days ago
For my entire career as a neurologist, spanning three decades, I have been hearing about various kinds of stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Now a Phase I clinical trial is under way studying the latest stem cell technology, autologous induced pluripotent stem cells,...
Casey Handmer's blog
Why do we need a Department of Government Efficiency? President Trump’s recent sweeping electoral victory is a clear mandate for change. There is some...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
President Trump’s recent sweeping electoral victory is a clear mandate for change. There is some urgency, and Trump has assembled the early stages of a team and coalition that can deliver it. It’s not exactly a mystery what Elon and Vivek plan for The Department of Government...
SubAnima
How information and individuality are connected Discrete categorisation of individuals and non-individuals is like herding cats. Thinking about...
over a year ago
3
over a year ago
Discrete categorisation of individuals and non-individuals is like herding cats. Thinking about individuality more generally offers some solutions
Cremieux Recueil
American Elections Are Unfair Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
4 months ago
Interaction Magic -...
Designing bikes or bike lanes? Which impacts the cycling experience more: the design of the bike or the bike lanes? Interview and...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Which impacts the cycling experience more: the design of the bike or the bike lanes? Interview and podcast with city transport planners Catherine Osborn and David Wills.
Blog - Practical...
How French Drains Work [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February of 2017, one of...
7 months ago
70
7 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February of 2017, one of the largest spillways in the world, the one at Oroville Dam in northern California, was severely damaged during releases from heavy rain. You might remember this. I made a video...
NeuroLogica Blog
Multipurpose Superconducting Highway When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very...
a year ago
39
a year ago
When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very bottom of the pyramid is pure speculation, just throwing out “what if” ideas to feed the conceptual pipeline. A subset of these ideas will pass the sniff test enough to justify...
Quantum Frontiers
The Book of Mark Mark Srednicki doesn’t look like a high priest. He’s a professor of physics at the University of...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Mark Srednicki doesn’t look like a high priest. He’s a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB); and you’ll sooner find him in khakis than in sacred vestments. Humor suits his round face better than channeling … Continue reading →
The Works in...
Links in Progress: What are children for? And how the UN’s birth rate forecasts keep getting it wrong
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s...
9 months ago
83
9 months ago
By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s first moments. The post Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Interesting News & Game Theory of Sex | Q3 2024 Trans & bathrooms, the end of nation states, woke pendulum, trigger warnings, is breastfeeding...
4 months ago
24
4 months ago
Trans & bathrooms, the end of nation states, woke pendulum, trigger warnings, is breastfeeding actually good for IQ, are differences in household work justified, and more
Drew Ex Machina
Apollo A-002: Testing the Limits of the Launch Escape System One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed...
3 months ago
56
3 months ago
One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed spacecraft have had launch abort options to cover […]
Asterisk
Read This, Not That: The Hidden Cost of Nutrition Misinformation Our daily lives are inundated with misleading claims about nutrition. That’s not just distracting —...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
Our daily lives are inundated with misleading claims about nutrition. That’s not just distracting — it’s also harming our health.
Asterisk
Making Sense of Moral Change A conversation about abolitionism, moral progress, and the pitfalls of historical counterfactuals.
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
A conversation about abolitionism, moral progress, and the pitfalls of historical counterfactuals.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Random Uncontrolled Trials/Tweets | Out-Of-Pocket I need to deactivate my Twitter smh
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
The Marimba Virtuoso’s Desktop Planetarium The United States was at the time approaching “peak space.” The previous year, cosmonaut Yuri...
a year ago
13
a year ago
The United States was at the time approaching “peak space.” The previous year, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human to reach outer space, and on 12 September 1962 President Kennedy would announce the United States’ intention to put a man on the moon before the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Controlling the Narrative with AI There is an ongoing battle in our society to control the narrative, to influence the flow of...
a year ago
30
a year ago
There is an ongoing battle in our society to control the narrative, to influence the flow of information, and thereby move the needle on what people think and how they behave. This is nothing new, but the mechanisms for controlling the narrative are evolving as our communication...
Math Is Still...
Two Students Shoot Down a Widely Believed Math Conjecture Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures known as Apollonian circles. But a summer project would lead to its downfall. The post Two Students Shoot Down a Widely Believed Math Conjecture first appeared on Quanta...
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...
9 months ago
83
9 months ago
I write this blog because I enjoy writing. Some people enjoy reading what I write, which makes me feel really great! Recently, I took down a post and stopped writing for a few months because I didn't love the reaction I was getting on social media sites like Reddit and Hacker...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Part 2: How To Build Patient Communities | Out-Of-Pocket And my investments in Most Days + Little Otter
a year ago
The Works in...
Should you infect yourself with Zika? What life is like in a challenge trial
11 months ago
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
34
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”.
Asterisk
Community Organizing
4 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence Suggests Lunar Cave Astronomers have discovered multiple “pits” on the surface of the moon – these look superficially...
7 months ago
71
7 months ago
Astronomers have discovered multiple “pits” on the surface of the moon – these look superficially like craters, but on closer inspection are actually vertical pits. There has been considerable speculation that these pits might be cave openings. Now, an analysis of data from the...
wadertales
Counting breeding shorebirds using listening devices With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments...
3 months ago
55
3 months ago
With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments such as wind turbines and monoculture forestry, conservationists are often asked to assess the potential effects of landscape change. Do passive acoustic devices have a role to play...
Uncharted...
Should You Be Able to Experiment on Your Own Cancer? A researcher in virology and immunotherapy got bad news: Her cancer was back with a vengeance; the...
5 months ago
17
5 months ago
A researcher in virology and immunotherapy got bad news: Her cancer was back with a vengeance; the treatments weren’t working. She decided to treat it herself.
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...
8 months ago
94
8 months ago
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.
Math Is Still...
How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are...
8 months ago
65
8 months ago
Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are rigorously defined. The post How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in...
8 months ago
50
8 months ago
Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in science to date, accelerating molecular research and kindling deep questions about why we do science. The post How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It...
Math Is Still...
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
41
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...
wadertales
Iceland’s waders in decline It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in West Europe and West Africa. There is a lot of guesswork associated with this number and little national monitoring information to assess whether species are doing well or badly....
Asterisk
It’s 2024 and Drought is Optional In the early 20th century, the United States diverted and dammed nearly every major river that runs...
10 months ago
8
10 months ago
In the early 20th century, the United States diverted and dammed nearly every major river that runs through the West, ushering in an era of unparalleled dominion over water. Today, California once again struggles with water scarcity — but solar energy could change all that.
The Works in...
Works in Progress: 2023 Wrapped Our most read work of the year
a year ago
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...
7 months ago
58
7 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 […]
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Placebos Are Getting Stronger | Out-Of-Pocket Should we incorporate them into clinical practice?
a year ago
Inverted Passion
Getting things done by not trying I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned....
4 months ago
79
4 months ago
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned. It’s an unconventional self-help book disguised as a computer science research exposition (that’s why the publisher is Springer). I strongly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of...
IEEE Spectrum
50 Years Later, This Apollo-Era Antenna Still Talks to Voyager 2 For more than 50 years, Deep Space Station 43 has been an invaluable tool for space probes as they...
10 months ago
80
10 months ago
For more than 50 years, Deep Space Station 43 has been an invaluable tool for space probes as they explore our solar system and push into the beyond. The DSS-43 radio antenna, located at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, near Canberra, Australia, keeps open the line...
Many Worlds
A Real ET Discovery With Promise, Amid Some Other Quite Questionable Claims Beware easy answers to the question of whether life exists beyond Earth. Be they “alien” skeletons...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Beware easy answers to the question of whether life exists beyond Earth. Be they “alien” skeletons in Mexico City, interstellar probes that briefly pass through our solar system, UFOs of all sorts and claims to have found “biosignature” chemical byproducts of life around planets...
Math Is Still...
Computer Scientists Inch Closer to Major Algorithmic Goal A new paper finds a faster method for determining when two mathematical groups are the same. ...
a year ago
25
a year ago
A new paper finds a faster method for determining when two mathematical groups are the same. The post Computer Scientists Inch Closer to Major Algorithmic Goal first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Time Toxicity - A Real-World Example | Out-Of-Pocket Being sick is already annoying, now I gotta spend time on the phone???
a year ago
Asterisk
Yes, Shrimp Matter What made a private equity analyst decide to devote his life to tiny aquatic crustaceans?
2 months ago
Math Is Still...
If the Universe Is a Hologram, This Long-Forgotten Math Could Decode It A 1930s-era breakthrough is helping physicists understand how quantum threads could weave together...
5 months ago
33
5 months ago
A 1930s-era breakthrough is helping physicists understand how quantum threads could weave together into a holographic space-time fabric. The post If the Universe Is a Hologram, This Long-Forgotten Math Could Decode It first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Showering at the South Pole Potable water, and not much of it.
over a year ago
Uncharted...
100 Billion Humans The world can carry them!
3 months ago
nanoscale views
Technological civilization and losing object permanence In the grand tradition of physicists writing about areas outside their expertise, I wanted to put...
2 months ago
3
2 months ago
In the grand tradition of physicists writing about areas outside their expertise, I wanted to put down some thoughts on a societal trend.  This isn't physics or nanoscience, so feel free to skip this post. Object permanence is a term from developmental psychology.  A person (or...
Asterisk
Manufacturing Bliss A growing community centered on the Bay Area is rediscovering the jhanas, a meditation technique...
11 months ago
6
11 months ago
A growing community centered on the Bay Area is rediscovering the jhanas, a meditation technique that practitioners claim could upend how we think about the brain — and transform our lives in the process.
Math Is Still...
Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient essential for life. The pair are in the process of merging into a single organism. The post Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient first appeared on Quanta...
Probably...
Young Americans are Marrying Later or Never I’ve written before about changes in marriage patterns in the U.S., and it’s one of the examples in...
3 months ago
60
3 months ago
I’ve written before about changes in marriage patterns in the U.S., and it’s one of the examples in Chapter 13 of the new third edition of Think Stats. My analysis uses data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Today they released the most recent data, from surveys...
Math Is Still...
Memories Help Brains Recognize New Events Worth Remembering Memories may affect how well the brain will learn about future events by shifting our perceptions of...
a year ago
95
a year ago
Memories may affect how well the brain will learn about future events by shifting our perceptions of the world. The post Memories Help Brains Recognize New Events Worth Remembering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Baseball Mud A manufactured baseball has a smooth surface with very little friction, and this makes it hard for a...
8 months ago
9
8 months ago
A manufactured baseball has a smooth surface with very little friction, and this makes it hard for a baseball pitcher to throw with great accuracy. Pitchers in the early days of baseball enhanced the friction by several ad hoc techniques that included rubbing with tobacco juice...
Quantum Frontiers
Finding Ed Jaynes’s ghost You might have heard of the conundrum “What do you give the man who has everything?” I discovered a...
2 months ago
50
2 months ago
You might have heard of the conundrum “What do you give the man who has everything?” I discovered a variation on it last October: how do you celebrate the man who studied (nearly) everything? Physicist Edwin Thompson Jaynes impacted disciplines from quantum information theory to...
wadertales
Learning lessons from Slender-billed Curlews The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct,...
3 months ago
48
3 months ago
The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct, tells a sad tale. We now know that, by the time that the Slender-billed Curlew Action Plan was published in 1996, it was already too late to save the species. Resources expended...
Probably...
Another step toward a two-hour marathon This is an update to an analysis I run each time the marathon world record is broken. If you like...
a year ago
13
a year ago
This is an update to an analysis I run each time the marathon world record is broken. If you like this sort of thing, you will like my forthcoming book, Probably Overthinking It, which is available for preorder now. On October 8, 2023, Kelvin Kiptum ran the Chicago Marathon in...
IEEE Spectrum
The Man Who Coined The Word "Robot" Defends Himself You’re familiar with Karel Čapek, right? If not, you should be—he’s the guy who (along with his...
a year ago
40
a year ago
You’re familiar with Karel Čapek, right? If not, you should be—he’s the guy who (along with his brother Josef) invented the word “robot.” Čapek introduced robots to the world in 1921, when his play “R.U.R.” (subtitled “Rossum’s Universal Robots”) was first performed in Prague. It...
Math Is Still...
What Is Quantum Teleportation? Teleporting people through space is still science fiction. But quantum teleportation is dramatically...
12 months ago
49
12 months ago
Teleporting people through space is still science fiction. But quantum teleportation is dramatically different and entirely real. In this episode, Janna Levin interviews the theoretical physicist John Preskill about teleporting bits and the promise of quantum technology. ...
NeuroLogica Blog
What Is Orbitronics You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of...
5 months ago
50
5 months ago
You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of spintronics and photonics. Now there is also the possibility of orbitronics. What do these cool-sounding words mean? Electronic technology is one of those core technologies that has...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Issue With The COVID Bailout | Out-Of-Pocket A WHOLE NEW WORLD, A NEW PANDEMIC POINT OF VIEW
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
This Engineer Became a Star in Technology Publishing Donald Christiansen, who transformed IEEE Spectrum from a promising but erratic technology magazine...
4 months ago
51
4 months ago
Donald Christiansen, who transformed IEEE Spectrum from a promising but erratic technology magazine into a repeat National Magazine Award winner, died on 2 October 2024, at the age of 97, in Huntington, N.Y. served aboard the aircraft carrier San Jacinto, an experience that led...
Confessions of a...
Shark Bay: a pristine template for marine ecosystems worldwide Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity.  As such,...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity.  As such, we have a coastline dominated by many different species of seagrasses – from large, temperate seagrasses like Posidonia australis to small, tropical species like Halodule...
The Works in...
Rust never sleeps A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
nanoscale views
Nanopasta, no, really Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun physics.  As you might readily imagine, there is a good deal of interdisciplinary and industrial interest in wanting to create fine fibers out of solution-based materials.  One...
NeuroLogica Blog
Moon Spacesuit Prototype Unveiled Good spacesuits are deceptively difficult to design, even with today’s technology. NASA is planning...
a year ago
72
a year ago
Good spacesuits are deceptively difficult to design, even with today’s technology. NASA is planning to return to the moon in 2025 (if all goes well) but the spacesuit the astronauts will wear is one piece to the puzzle they have not completed yet (the other being the lunar...
Probably...
What size is that correlation? This article is related to Chapter 6 of Probably Overthinking It, which is available for preorder...
a year ago
10
a year ago
This article is related to Chapter 6 of Probably Overthinking It, which is available for preorder now. It is also related to a new course at Brilliant.org, Explaining Variation. Suppose you find a correlation of 0.36. How would you characterize it? I posed this question to the...
Asterisk
The EA-Progress Studies War is Here, and It’s a Constructive Dialogue! We’re hoping Marc Andreessen doesn’t read this and polarize everyone again.
8 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on Quantum Computers There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still...
a year ago
34
a year ago
There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still a technology that is slowly advancing in the background, while actual applications have been limited. There is a threshold effect at play – at some point, quantum computers will be...
Math Is Still...
The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change An ultra-precise measurement of a transition in the hearts of thorium atoms gives physicists a tool...
6 months ago
42
6 months ago
An ultra-precise measurement of a transition in the hearts of thorium atoms gives physicists a tool to probe the forces that bind the universe. The post The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Is AI Sentient – Revisited This happened sooner than I thought. Last June I wrote about Google employee, Blake Lemoine, who...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
This happened sooner than I thought. Last June I wrote about Google employee, Blake Lemoine, who claimed that the LaMDA  chatbot he was working on was probably sentient. I didn’t buy it then and I still don’t, but Lemoine is not backing away from his claims. In an interview on H3...
Math Is Still...
Pleasure or Pain? He Maps the Neural Circuits That Decide. The work of the neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has opened up a world of insights into precisely...
11 months ago
75
11 months ago
The work of the neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has opened up a world of insights into precisely how much pleasure and pain animals experience during different forms of touch. The post Pleasure or Pain? He Maps the Neural Circuits That Decide. first appeared on...
The Works in...
The asbestos times How asbestos saved cities, before we realized its risks
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Next Step in Space Travel The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space...
a year ago
14
a year ago
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space capsule. This will be used initially for cargo, but then eventually for crew as well. They anticipate a maiden voyage in 2028. I think this is a positive development. It seems we are...
IEEE Spectrum
Who Really Invented the Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery? Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value....
a year ago
17
a year ago
Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value. It’s used in billions of laptops, cellphones, power tools, and cars. Global sales top US $45 billion a year, on their way to more than $100 billion in the coming decade. The first...
Math Is Still...
The Cryptographer Who Ensures We Can Trust Our Computers Yael Tauman Kalai’s breakthroughs secure our digital world, from cloud computing to our quantum...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Yael Tauman Kalai’s breakthroughs secure our digital world, from cloud computing to our quantum future. The post The Cryptographer Who Ensures We Can Trust Our Computers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Chris Grossack's...
Externalizing Some Simple Topos Statements Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done math in any serious capacity for almost the past month. It’s been a lot of hard work trying to get fair contracts out of the UC, but I had a lot of travel plans this December to...
Math Is Still...
What Is the Nature of Consciousness? Consciousness, our experience of being in the world, is one of the mind’s greatest mysteries, but as...
a year ago
27
a year ago
Consciousness, our experience of being in the world, is one of the mind’s greatest mysteries, but as the neuroscientist Anil Seth explains to Steven Strogatz, research is making progress in understanding this elusive phenomenon. The post What Is the Nature of...
Quantum Frontiers
My favorite rocket scientist Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is...
8 months ago
74
8 months ago
Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is a researcher at Princeton University, and she showed me her lab this June. When I first met Jamie, she was testing instruments to … Continue reading →
Asterisk
Sins of the Children The circle of life on Chelicer 14d.
8 months ago
The Works in...
Whatever happened to the industrial R&D lab? From the Works in Progress archives.
a year ago
SubAnima
Could There Be Laws Of Biology? Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles or axioms for biology?
Math Is Still...
How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how...
4 months ago
46
4 months ago
Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how the brain creates something out of nothing. The post How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
10
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...
Chris Grossack's...
Life in Johnstone's Topological Topos 1 -- Fundamentals I’ve been thinking a lot about the internal logic of topoi again, and I want to have more examples...
8 months ago
43
8 months ago
I’ve been thinking a lot about the internal logic of topoi again, and I want to have more examples of topoi that I understand well enough to externalize some statements. There’s more to life than just a localic $\mathsf{Sh}(B)$, and since I’m starting to feel like I understand...
Math Is Still...
New AI Tools Predict How Life’s Building Blocks Assemble Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold3 and other deep learning algorithms can now predict the shapes of...
10 months ago
94
10 months ago
Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold3 and other deep learning algorithms can now predict the shapes of interacting complexes of protein, DNA, RNA and other molecules, better capturing cells’ biological landscapes. The post New AI Tools Predict How Life’s Building Blocks...
Asterisk
China’s Policy Failures China’s experimental policy regime catalyzed the country’s economic ascent. Today, the system seems...
a year ago
8
a year ago
China’s experimental policy regime catalyzed the country’s economic ascent. Today, the system seems incapable of providing effective governance.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Why are docs late? Why can’t I find prices for anything? | Out-Of-Pocket And why can’t I get my record into one place?
a week ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Clinical Pharmacists, Generative AI, and InpharmD | Out-Of-Pocket Going under the hood of a generative AI product
a year ago
Asterisk
The Ruin of Mumbai Mumbai’s land use regulations are designed to keep population density low. Instead, they force...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Mumbai’s land use regulations are designed to keep population density low. Instead, they force Mumbaikars into slums, while all of India pays the price.
Beautiful Public...
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
NeuroLogica Blog
Subjective Neurological Experience On the SGU we recently talked about aphantasia, the condition in which some people have a decreased...
5 months ago
55
5 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...
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...
a year ago
3
a year ago
Reset your expectations of solar sails. They are a fast and free way to travel to any point in the Solar System, as many times as you want, any time of the year. Solar sails can carry passengers and they have a nearly unlimited number of uses. You just have to... think...
Math Is Still...
Concept Cells Help Your Brain Abstract Information and Build Memories Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as...
a month ago
34
a month ago
Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as “Jennifer Aniston cells,” help us think, imagine and remember episodes from our lives. The post Concept Cells Help Your Brain Abstract Information and Build Memories first...
NeuroLogica Blog
Do We Have Free Will? Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free will? This comes up not infrequently whenever I write here about neuroscience, most recently when I wrote about hunger circuitry, because the notion of the brain as a physical...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Bicycle There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling...
a year ago
121
a year ago
There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling to move forward and turning the handlebars to steer makes bike riding an effortless activity. In the demonstration below, you can guide the rider with the slider, and you can also...
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
45
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 Prove Prevention Works Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Thank you, dear. Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. Homer: Oh, how does it work? Lisa: It doesn’t work. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa:...
Math Is Still...
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
24
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...
IEEE Spectrum
The Forgotten History of Chinese Keyboards Today, typing in Chinese works by converting QWERTY keystrokes into Chinese characters via a...
9 months ago
83
9 months ago
Today, typing in Chinese works by converting QWERTY keystrokes into Chinese characters via a software interface, known as an input method editor. But this was not always the case. Thomas S. Mullaney’s new book, The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Collapsars and Gravitational Waves The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that...
6 months ago
56
6 months ago
The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that people like to spread around. Gravitational waves have opened up an entirely new type of astronomy, a way to explore the universe through very subtle ripples in spacetime produce by...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fruit Fly Connectome Completed Scientists have just published in Nature that they have completed the entire connectome of a fruit...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
Scientists have just published in Nature that they have completed the entire connectome of a fruit fly: Network statistics of the whole-brain connectome of Drosophila. The map includes 140,000 neurons and more than 50 million connections. This is an incredible achievement that...
The Works in...
Three percent more Monaco: Links in Progress, infrastructure edition Plus: high speed rail in Vietnam, India's first vertical lift sea bridge, and a £100 million bat...
2 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
GMOs – Ask a Farmer The topic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a great target for science communication...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
The topic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a great target for science communication because public attitudes have largely been shaped by deliberate misinformation, and the research suggests that those attitudes can change in response to more accurate information. It is...
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
Math Is Still...
How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction? With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about all sorts of complex phenomena. Today, this practice is evolving to harness the power of machine learning and massive datasets. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with...
Math Is Still...
New Proof Threads the Needle on a Sticky Geometry Problem A new proof marks major progress toward solving the Kakeya conjecture, a deceptively simple question...
a year ago
29
a year ago
A new proof marks major progress toward solving the Kakeya conjecture, a deceptively simple question that underpins a tower of conjectures. The post New Proof Threads the Needle on a Sticky Geometry Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Winners of the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest During the past seven months, I’ve steamed across the Atlantic, sailed in a flying castle,...
a year ago
80
a year ago
During the past seven months, I’ve steamed across the Atlantic, sailed in a flying castle, teleported across the globe, and shuttled forward and backward in time. Literarily, not literally—the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest began welcoming submissions in October 2022. We...
NeuroLogica Blog
An Earth-like Climate is Fragile One of the biggest questions of exoplanet astronomy is how many potentially habitable planets are...
a year ago
17
a year ago
One of the biggest questions of exoplanet astronomy is how many potentially habitable planets are out there in the galaxy. By one estimate the answer is 6 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way. But of course we have to set parameters and make estimates, so this number can...
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...
3 weeks ago
14
3 weeks 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...
symmetry magazine
A collaboration pairs Fermilab with fashion students Fashion students at the College of DuPage successfully designed gear to protect Fermilab’s SPOT...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Fashion students at the College of DuPage successfully designed gear to protect Fermilab’s SPOT robot from radioactive dust. In a recent demonstration for Engineers Week in Chicago, an engineering physicist took the stage accompanied by an unusual guest: a...
Probably...
Regrets and Regression It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
8 months ago
80
8 months ago
It’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. standardize Standardization and Normalization¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. I want to write a research...
Blog - Practical...
Engineering The Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is my friend Jade,...
a year ago
33
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is my friend Jade, creator of the Up and Atom channel. She makes these incredible math and physics explainers that I absolutely love, and she recently got the opportunity to visit ITER (eater) in France....
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI and Social Media to Measure Climate Change Denial A recent study finds that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in global climate change. This number is...
a year ago
37
a year ago
A recent study finds that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in global climate change. This number is roughly in line with what recent survey have found, such as this 2024 Yale study which put the figure at 16%. In 2009, by comparison, the figure was at 33% (although this was a...
Math Is Still...
Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to prove that all knots can be...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to prove that all knots can be found in a fractal called the Menger sponge. The post Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Diophantine Equations Piebald is an unusual word that appears in the Archimedes' cattle problem, a Diophantine problem...
7 months ago
12
7 months ago
Piebald is an unusual word that appears in the Archimedes' cattle problem, a Diophantine problem supposedly communicated by Archimedes to his friend, Eratosthenes. It's a Diophantine equation system of seven equations in eight unknowns, but it can be solved with the requirement...
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...
a year ago
69
a year ago
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?...
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...
2 months ago
symmetry magazine
Kétévi Assamagan pays it forward Kétévi Assamagan's contributions to physics go beyond his research at the Large Hadron...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Kétévi Assamagan's contributions to physics go beyond his research at the Large Hadron Collider. Kétévi Assamagan first became interested in physics in high school—because he had to be. His school in Togo, in West Africa, required students to declare a major....
NeuroLogica Blog
The Experience Machine Thought Experiment In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the...
11 months ago
40
11 months ago
In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the following thought experiment: If you could be plugged into an “experience machine” (what we would likely call today a virtual reality or “Matrix”) that could perfectly replicate real-life...
Wanderingspace
ISS Looks Like a Toy These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are real. Each frame is taken with ground based amateur telescopes and then pieced together with common image software like Adobe Photoshop. It is incredible to me that there are people...
Willem Pennings
Fixing my heating system The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm...
10 months ago
48
10 months ago
The heating system in my apartment building consists of a group of heat pumps that deliver warm water to the underfloor heating system of about a dozen apartments, including mine. During the warm summer months, the system supplies cool water instead. The heat pumps figure out...
NeuroLogica Blog
Magnetohydrodynamic Drive – Silent Water Propulsion DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now working on developing a...
a year ago
37
a year ago
DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now working on developing a magnet-driven silent water propulsion system – the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) drive. The primary reason is to develop silent military naval craft. Imagine a nuclear submarine with an MHD drive,...
wadertales
Curlew nest survival The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,  largely due to a rapid decline in breeding numbers. In this context, the fact that there are a few pink squares (indicating increased numbers) on the map showing breeding...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Rebuttal The climate change discussion would benefit most from good-faith evidence and science-based...
a year ago
34
a year ago
The climate change discussion would benefit most from good-faith evidence and science-based discussion. Unfortunately, humans tend to prefer emotion, ideology, motivated reasoning, and confirmation bias. As an example, I was sent an excerpt from a climate change podcast as a...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Powered Bionic Arm My younger self, seeing that title – AI Powered Bionic Arm – would definitely feel as if the future...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
My younger self, seeing that title – AI Powered Bionic Arm – would definitely feel as if the future had arrived, and in many ways it has. This is not the bionic arm of the 1970s TV show, however. That level of tech is probably closer to the 2070s than the 1970s. But we are...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Viz.ai and why workflow > tech | Out-Of-Pocket Also ?? about AI business models
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
SWORD Health And Virtual Musculoskeletal Care | Out-Of-Pocket A first person account
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Ins and Outs of Fundraising Today | Out-Of-Pocket Some stuff I’ve learned doing a little healthcare startup investing
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
The Incredible Story Behind the First Transistor Radio But that’s pretty much what Pat Haggerty, vice president of Texas Instruments, did in 1954. The...
5 months ago
56
5 months ago
But that’s pretty much what Pat Haggerty, vice president of Texas Instruments, did in 1954. The result was the Regency TR-1, the world’s first commercial transistor radio, which debuted 70 years ago this month. The engineers delivered on Haggerty’s audacious goal, and I...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
“There Are Too Many Entrenched Interests” | Out-Of-Pocket The Six Stages Of Health Tech Grief Part 3
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Are Small Modular Reactors Finally Coming? Small nuclear reactors have been around since the 1950s. They mostly have been used in military...
a week ago
8
a week ago
Small nuclear reactors have been around since the 1950s. They mostly have been used in military ships, like aircraft carriers and submarines. They have the specific advantage that such ships could remain at sea for long periods of time without needing to refuel. But small modular...
Asterisk
From Warp Speed to 100 Days During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is...
a year ago
11
a year ago
During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is testing that they work. To get even faster, we need innovations in clinical trial design.
Drew Ex Machina
Failure to Launch: The First Moon Race 1958-60 While it has been a few months since I have published a new post on the Drew Ex Machina website,...
a year ago
32
a year ago
While it has been a few months since I have published a new post on the Drew Ex Machina website, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t […]
Probably...
Zipf’s Law Elements of Data Science is in print now, available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. To...
4 months ago
40
4 months ago
Elements of Data Science is in print now, available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. To celebrate, I’ll post some excerpts here, starting with one of my favorite examples, Zipf’s Law. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab. In almost any...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Retail and community pharmacies are changing | Out-Of-Pocket COVID tailwinds are changing the role of the pharmacy and pharmacist
a year ago
Wanderingspace
The Green Light of Day Image of tire tracks on Mars with an unusual green tone. . Taken by Perseverance on February 4th.
over a year ago
24
over a year ago
Image of tire tracks on Mars with an unusual green tone. . Taken by Perseverance on February 4th.
wadertales
UK waders: “Into the Red” If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most conservation concern in the UK, they would probably not include Dunlin. Curlew may well be top of their lists, even though the most recent population estimate is 58,500 breeding pairs, but...
Wanderingspace
Mars Express is Still Making Great Images 20 Years Later Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In...
6 months ago
57
6 months ago
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In one shot, you can see Mars as a half-lit disk, with Phobos, its tiny moon, hovering above. Right below Phobos is Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano, towering 22 km...
Asterisk
When Was the Last Time We Built a New City? California Forever wants to build a new city in Solano county. On paper, it would be an affordable,...
11 months ago
7
11 months ago
California Forever wants to build a new city in Solano county. On paper, it would be an affordable, high-density urbanist wonderland — but can they actually pull it off?
NeuroLogica Blog
Factory Farming is Better Than Organic Farming Some narratives are simply ubiquitous in our culture (every culture has its universal narratives)....
2 months ago
55
2 months ago
Some narratives are simply ubiquitous in our culture (every culture has its universal narratives). Sometimes these narratives emerge out of shared values, like liberty and freedom. Sometimes they emerge out of foundational beliefs (the US still has a puritanical bent). And...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Discussion about Biological Sex At CSICON this year I gave talk about topics over which skeptics have and continue to disagree with...
4 months ago
52
4 months ago
At CSICON this year I gave talk about topics over which skeptics have and continue to disagree with each other. My core theme was that these are the topics we absolutely should be discussing with each other, especially at skeptical conferences. Nothing should be taboo or too...
NeuroLogica Blog
Deep South – A Neuromorphic Supercomputer Australian researchers at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Australian researchers at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney University have announced they are building what they are calling Deep South (based on IBM’s Deep Blue). This will be the world’s largest neuromorphic supercomputer, with 228...
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A...
5 months ago
60
5 months ago
Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A surprisingly simple construction has given them an answer. The post Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Confidently Wrong How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and do you have a process for determining what your confidence level should be or do you just follow your gut feelings? Thinking about confidence is a form of metacognition – thinking...
brr
Frost Everyday objects, but cold.
over a year ago
Asterisk
The Great Inflection? A Debate About AI and Explosive Growth A conversation about what happens to the economy when intelligence becomes too cheap to meter.
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on AI Art It’s been a while since I discussed artificial intelligence (AI) generated art here. What I have...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
It’s been a while since I discussed artificial intelligence (AI) generated art here. What I have said in the past is that AI art appears a bit soulless and there are details it has difficulty creating without bizarre distortions (hands are particularly difficult). But I also...
ToughSF
Nuclear Reactor Lasers: from Fission to Photon Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
Nuclear reactor lasers are devices that can generate lasers from nuclear energy with little to no intermediate conversion steps.  We work out just how effective they can be, and how they stack up against conventional electrically-powered lasers. You might want to re-think your...
Blog - Practical...
Why Is Desalination So Difficult? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Carlsbad...
a year ago
48
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Carlsbad Desalination Plant outside of San Diego, California. It produces roughly ten percent of the area’s fresh water, around 50 million gallons or 23,000 cubic meters per day. Unlike most...
Math Is Still...
What Can Birdsong Teach Us About Human Language? We often consider spoken language to be a feature that distinguishes humans from other forms of...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
We often consider spoken language to be a feature that distinguishes humans from other forms of animal life. Brain research, however, suggests that other creatures — including certain birds — share some of our neural circuitry related to language. In this episode, co-host Janna...
Asterisk
Silicon Valley’s Gold Rush Roots Silicon Valley, purveyor of disruptive technologies, likes to think of itself as sui generis. But...
11 months ago
7
11 months ago
Silicon Valley, purveyor of disruptive technologies, likes to think of itself as sui generis. But there’s a clear line from tech’s knowledge economy to the Bay Area’s first economy: gold mining.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Gender Boxing Hubub Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at...
7 months ago
48
7 months ago
Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at the 2024 Olympics. This has caused a controversy because both boxers, according to reports, have some form of DSD – difference of sex development. This means they have been caught...
Asterisk
Half A Million Kinksters Can’t Be Wrong The story of how one independent researcher conducted the largest-ever survey on fetishes, and what...
a year ago
9
a year ago
The story of how one independent researcher conducted the largest-ever survey on fetishes, and what it has to teach us about sex, pleasure, and social science methodology.
Asterisk
Is Wine Fake? Wine commands wealth, prestige, and attention from aficionados. How much of what they admire is in...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Wine commands wealth, prestige, and attention from aficionados. How much of what they admire is in their heads?
NeuroLogica Blog
Bill Gates Backs Nuclear No one ever said that nuclear power is simple or easy. It’s a tricky and expensive technology. But...
9 months ago
77
9 months ago
No one ever said that nuclear power is simple or easy. It’s a tricky and expensive technology. But it also has tremendous potential to create large amounts of reliable green low carbon energy, and many believe that we cannot ignore this potential if we are going to tackle climate...
Quantum Frontiers
Crossing the quantum chasm: From NISQ to fault tolerance On December 6, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2023 Conference in Silicon Valley. Here is a...
a year ago
30
a year ago
On December 6, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2023 Conference in Silicon Valley. Here is a transcript of my remarks. Toward quantum value The theme of this year’s Q2B meeting is “The Roadmap to Quantum Value.” I … Continue reading →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Ways to give power to the patients | Out-Of-Pocket can software give us agency?
11 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...
11 months ago
83
11 months 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...