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Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare Ideas That Look Good But Are Bad | Out-Of-Pocket clinical trial matching, "find a specialist", and more
10 months ago
Math Is Still...
The S-Matrix Is the Oracle Physicists Turn To in Times of Crisis Particle physicists in search of the next theory of reality are consulting a mathematical structure...
9 months ago
59
9 months ago
Particle physicists in search of the next theory of reality are consulting a mathematical structure that they know will never fail: a table of possibilities known as the S-matrix. The post The S-Matrix Is the Oracle Physicists Turn To in Times of Crisis first appeared...
Probably...
Hazard and Survival Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. If I have a tumor that I’ve been told has a...
3 months ago
45
3 months ago
Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. If I have a tumor that I’ve been told has a malignancy rate of 2% per year, does that compound? So after 5 years there’s a 10% chance it will turn malignant? This turns out to be an interesting question, because the answer...
Inverted Passion
Notes from the book “Hooked” I re-read the book Hooked by Nir Eyal and these are my notes. 1/ The key question that the book...
a year ago
21
a year ago
I re-read the book Hooked by Nir Eyal and these are my notes. 1/ The key question that the book answers is: how to make habit-forming products. And its answer is a model that involves four stages: a) trigger; b) action; c) variable reward; d) investment 2/ Why should products be...
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...
Quantum Frontiers
Explorations in Quantum TiqTaqToe Several years ago, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across a video of Paul Rudd playing...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Several years ago, while scrolling through YouTube, I came across a video of Paul Rudd playing something called “Quantum Chess.” I had no idea what it was, nor did I know that it would become one of the most gloriously … Continue reading →
Math Is Still...
Elliptic Curve ‘Murmurations’ Found With AI Take Flight Mathematicians are working to fully explain unusual behaviors uncovered using artificial...
a year ago
39
a year ago
Mathematicians are working to fully explain unusual behaviors uncovered using artificial intelligence. The post Elliptic Curve ‘Murmurations’ Found With AI Take Flight first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Robots and a Sense of Self Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption)...
3 months ago
49
3 months ago
Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption) have a sense of self. This sense has several components – we feel as if we occupy our physical bodies, that our bodies are distinct entities separate from the rest of the universe,...
Asterisk
A Chinese Internet Phrasebook The latest slang on Weibo reveals a world of cynicism, ennui — and concrete pasta.
4 months ago
Blog - Practical...
Endeavour's Wild Journey Through the Streets of Los Angeles [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In May of 1992, the Space...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In May of 1992, the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched to low earth orbit on its very first flight. That first mission was a big one: the crew captured a wayward communications satellite stuck in the wrong orbit,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Malpractice, Expert Witnesses, and Lawsuits with Dr. Eric Funk | Out-Of-Pocket Suits and White Coats
a year ago
Math Is Still...
The Physical Process That Powers a New Type of Generative AI Some modern image generators rely on the principles of diffusion to create images. Alternatives...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Some modern image generators rely on the principles of diffusion to create images. Alternatives based on the process behind the distribution of charged particles may yield even better results. The post The Physical Process That Powers a New Type of Generative AI first...
Math Is Still...
The Question of What’s Fair Illuminates the Question of What’s Hard Computational complexity theorists have discovered a surprising new way to understand what makes...
8 months ago
37
8 months ago
Computational complexity theorists have discovered a surprising new way to understand what makes certain problems hard. The post The Question of What’s Fair Illuminates the Question of What’s Hard first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
2024 (Part 2 of 2) June and July I always sound like a broken record each year when discussing June and July. I was...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
June and July I always sound like a broken record each year when discussing June and July. I was fortunate to have a lot of field work in 2024 which kept me occupied for most of these two months. But it's one of the best jobs in the world as I spend each and every day outside,...
The Works in...
The concept of sustainment A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Asterisk
Shutting the California Prison System’s Revolving Door Between 2009 and 2014, California passed a series of laws to reduce the population in its prison...
8 months ago
10
8 months ago
Between 2009 and 2014, California passed a series of laws to reduce the population in its prison system, which for years had operated over capacity. Determining whether those laws worked was not a straightforward task.
Math Is Still...
A Mutation Turned Ants Into Parasites in One Generation A new genetics study of ant “social parasites” shows how complex sets of features can emerge rapidly...
a year ago
77
a year ago
A new genetics study of ant “social parasites” shows how complex sets of features can emerge rapidly and potentially split species. The post A Mutation Turned Ants Into Parasites in One Generation first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Diamond Boom The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us...
a year ago
40
a year ago
The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us something about a post-scarcity world. Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. However, it like to form with other elements and therefore it was very difficulty to...
NeuroLogica Blog
Framing and Global Warming When we talk publicly about the effects of human activity on the climate should we refer to “global...
7 months ago
49
7 months ago
When we talk publicly about the effects of human activity on the climate should we refer to “global warming”, “climate change”, the “climate crisis” or to “climate justice”? Perhaps we should also be more technical and say specifically, “anthropogenic climate change”. This kind...
Math Is Still...
How Quantum Physicists Explained Earth’s Oscillating Weather Patterns By treating Earth as a topological insulator — a state of quantum matter — physicists found a...
a year ago
13
a year ago
By treating Earth as a topological insulator — a state of quantum matter — physicists found a powerful explanation for the movements of the planet’s air and seas. The post How Quantum Physicists Explained Earth’s Oscillating Weather Patterns first appeared on Quanta...
Blog - Practical...
Was Starship’s Stage Zero a Bad Pad? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On April 20, 2023, SpaceX...
a year ago
70
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] On April 20, 2023, SpaceX launched it’s first orbital test flight of its Starship spacecraft from Boca Chica on the gulf coast of Texas. You probably saw this, if not live, at least in the stunning videos that...
wadertales
How are migration sites connected? Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
2 months ago
78
2 months ago
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering locations linked? Forty-four authors have collaborated to bring together ringing, colour-ringing and GPS tracking data in a paper entitled Site-level connectivity identified from...
wadertales
Juvenile settlement in Black-tailed Godwits Adult waders tend to be exceptionally consistent in their use of time and space, with marked...
5 months ago
54
5 months ago
Adult waders tend to be exceptionally consistent in their use of time and space, with marked individuals turning up on the same estuaries at the same time year after year, as discussed in the Whimbrel blog ‘Whimbrel: time to leave’. How do these patterns become established? Do...
IEEE Spectrum
Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the...
a year ago
16
a year ago
In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the Apple II team, who had proposed that Apple Computer Inc. make a low-cost “appliance”-type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster. Mr. Raskin believed the computer he...
NeuroLogica Blog
Should You Get a Heat Pump? Starting around 1550 and lasting through the 1600s, England had an energy crisis. They were running...
a year ago
62
a year ago
Starting around 1550 and lasting through the 1600s, England had an energy crisis. They were running out of wood, which was the main source of fuel for residential and commercial heating. England also needed a lot of wood for their massive navy – it took about 2,000 trees to build...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Random Uncontrolled Trials/Tweets | Out-Of-Pocket I need to deactivate my Twitter smh
a year ago
Math Is Still...
New Proofs Probe the Limits of Mathematical Truth By proving a broader version of Hilbert’s famous 10th problem, two groups of mathematicians have...
a month ago
13
a month ago
By proving a broader version of Hilbert’s famous 10th problem, two groups of mathematicians have expanded the realm of mathematical unknowability. The post New Proofs Probe the Limits of Mathematical Truth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Why Is Everyone Suddenly Furious About AI Regulation? Please tell us, because we're stumped.
10 months ago
wadertales
Broad-billed Sandpiper: Now a Red-listed wader A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since...
3 months ago
52
3 months ago
A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since 1993. One of the focal species of their fieldwork is the secretive Broad-billed Sandpiper, an unusual taiga wader which nests on low-lying tussocks embedded in floating mats of...
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
13
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
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving This year we give thanks for something we’ve all heard of, but maybe don’t appreciate as much as we...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for something we’ve all heard of, but maybe don’t appreciate as much as we should: electromagnetism. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field...
The Works in...
Unending World A foretaste of Ch. 11 of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance on Books in Progress
4 months ago
Asterisk
Michael Lewis’s Blind Side In Going Infinite, the famed chronicler of American finance proves he’s more interested in myths...
a year ago
12
a year ago
In Going Infinite, the famed chronicler of American finance proves he’s more interested in myths than morals — or even math.
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
3D Printing Superalloys This is a cool material science development that nicely illustrates recent technological...
over a year ago
41
over a year ago
This is a cool material science development that nicely illustrates recent technological advancements. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have created a superalloy using additive manufacturing (3D printing). That may not sound that impressive at first, but consider the...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Change Healthcare Debacle | Out-Of-Pocket what are clearinghouses and do we still need them?
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How Health Data Gets Sold: Moving From Third-Party to First-Party | Out-Of-Pocket The shift from third-party to first-party data consent, and how far should it go?
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Physics of Flocks Most people have watched large flocks of birds. They are fascinating, and have interested scientists...
10 months ago
49
10 months ago
Most people have watched large flocks of birds. They are fascinating, and have interested scientists for a long time. How, exactly, do so many birds maintain their cohesion as a flock? It’s obviously a dynamic process, but what are the mechanisms? When I was young I was taught...
Light from Space
Bubble Nebula and Neighborhood The constellation of Cassiopeia is full of rich gas clouds and a myriad of different Nebulas and...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
The constellation of Cassiopeia is full of rich gas clouds and a myriad of different Nebulas and Star Clusters. Click or tap to enlarge/double-tap to zoom Total exposure time: 37h 20m (134,400s) Image resolution: 4,784 × 6,840px (1.919″/px) Shot from my driveway near
IEEE Spectrum
Zen and the Art of Aibo Engineering Sony’s team made that happen. And since Aibo’s debut, the company has sold more than 170,000 of...
3 months ago
45
3 months ago
Sony’s team made that happen. And since Aibo’s debut, the company has sold more than 170,000 of the cute little quadrupeds—a huge number considering their price of several thousand dollars each. From the start, Aibo could express a range of simulated emotions and learn through...
Blog - Practical...
Why are the Dutch So Famous for Waterworks? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Veluwemeer...
a month ago
34
a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Veluwemeer (velOOwemeer) Aqueduct in Harderwijk (HAR-der-vehk), Netherlands. It solves a pretty simple problem. If you put a bridge for vehicles over a navigable waterway, you often have to make it...
Wanderingspace
Hope for Mars Nothing really. Just a gorgeous image of Mars from the UAE Hope mission.
over a year ago
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
18
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....
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
NeuroLogica Blog
Eclipse 2024 I am currently in Dallas Texas waiting to see, hopefully, the 2024 total solar eclipse. This would...
11 months ago
71
11 months ago
I am currently in Dallas Texas waiting to see, hopefully, the 2024 total solar eclipse. This would be my first total eclipse, and everything I have heard indicates that it is an incredible experience. Unfortunately, the weather calls for some clouds, although forecasts have been...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: 2. Starbase A city of dreams
a month ago
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 3 This is the third episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
60
a year ago
This is the third episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
NeuroLogica Blog
Making Fuel from Sunshine When it comes to big problems it’s generally a good idea to remember some basic principles. One is...
a year ago
71
a year ago
When it comes to big problems it’s generally a good idea to remember some basic principles. One is that there is no free lunch. This is a cliche because it’s true. Another way to put this is – there are no solutions, only trade offs. Sometimes there is a genuine advance that does...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Secret Research Techniques | Out-Of-Pocket A magician always reveals his tricks for the purposes of engagement
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Gene Editing Chickens to Resist Bird Flu There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat....
a year ago
14
a year ago
There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat. They are a high efficiency source of high quality protein. It’s the kind of thing we need to do if we want to feed 8 billion people. Similarly we have planted 4.62 billion acres of...
Math Is Still...
Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite...
a year ago
88
a year ago
Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach. The post Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
The Misery Bomb Children across the Western world are getting less happy. If we can’t find a way to reverse the...
8 months ago
6
8 months ago
Children across the Western world are getting less happy. If we can’t find a way to reverse the trend, it might have an outsized impact on their future.
The Works in...
A review of Charles Piller’s Doctored How fraud and bad research derailed years of Alzheimer's progress
a week ago
ToughSF
Nuclear Photon Rockets: Flashlights to the Stars In this post, we will have a look at the concept of using a nuclear photon rocket for interstellar...
over a year ago
2
over a year ago
In this post, we will have a look at the concept of using a nuclear photon rocket for interstellar travel. They are an old concept that should theoretically be the ultimate form of relativistic propulsion. However, today they are unknown or unpopular. Why might that be the...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
All of the main problems with US healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket let's get all of our problems out on the table
11 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Spotting Misinformation There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they...
10 months ago
90
10 months ago
There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they verify information they encounter in the news and on social media, and 96% of Americans say that we need to limit the spread of misinformation online. And yet, the spread of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Podcast Pseudoscience A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for...
2 months ago
48
2 months ago
A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for ourselves. The BBC investigated the number one ranked UK podcast, Diary of a CEO with host Steven Bartlett, for the accuracy of the medical claims recently made on the show. While...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Bicycle There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling...
a year ago
120
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Dwarf Planet Ring Mystery Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence consistent with existing theories, providing further confirmation, but it’s exciting to find evidence that cannot be explained with existing theories. Astronomers may have found such...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How Value-Based Care Contracting Works with Accorded | Out-Of-Pocket With calculators and contracts you can see yourself
a year ago
Asterisk
The Art of Asking Questions Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other...
3 months ago
19
3 months ago
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other inaccuracies. We all use them anyway. How can we ask them better?
Interaction Magic -...
3 tips for co-designing with kids Designing future sports products with a group of 11 year olds.
a year ago
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...
IEEE Spectrum
What Is an Electronic Sackbut? If you, like me, think of musical synthesizers as an artifact of 1970s rock and disco, then you,...
a year ago
65
a year ago
If you, like me, think of musical synthesizers as an artifact of 1970s rock and disco, then you, like me, will be surprised to learn that the first electronic synthesizer predates those genres by several decades In 1945, Hugh Le Caine, a physicist at Canada’s National Research...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Pharmacies Inside-and-Out With John Capecelatro | Out-Of-Pocket How does a pharmacy actually work?
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Era Of Digital Therapeutics | Out-Of-Pocket Guess it's time to start defining the term again
a year ago
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...
Probably...
Migration and Population Growth On a recent run I was talking with a friend from Spain about immigration in Europe. We speculated...
9 months ago
70
9 months ago
On a recent run I was talking with a friend from Spain about immigration in Europe. We speculated about whether the population of Spain would be growing or shrinking if there were no international migration. I thought it might be shrinking, but we were not sure. Fortunately, Our...
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
How Antivirus Software Has Changed With the Internet We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the...
a month ago
32
a month ago
We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the Internet itself: The first version of what would become McAfee antivirus came out in 1987—just four years after the Internet booted up. For many of us, antivirus software is an...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Good Meteor Shower This Week Wednesday evening and Thursday morning (Dec. 13-14) is the peak time for one of the best meteor...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Wednesday evening and Thursday morning (Dec. 13-14) is the peak time for one of the best meteor showers of the year – the Geminids.  The post Good Meteor Shower This Week appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
symmetry magazine
Do hidden influences give neutrinos their tiny mass? The quest to understand the small mass of neutrinos is also a quest to discover new particles. ...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
The quest to understand the small mass of neutrinos is also a quest to discover new particles. Neutrinos are the byproducts of astronomical events that give us life.  They shoot out from the nuclear fusion reaction within the sun and radiate from supernovas....
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
10 months ago
14
10 months ago
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
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...
Asterisk
Why We Have Prison Gangs America’s prison gangs first emerged in the late 1950s. Why did they form? What keeps them going?...
4 months ago
8
4 months ago
America’s prison gangs first emerged in the late 1950s. Why did they form? What keeps them going? And how do they govern themselves?
NeuroLogica Blog
Thermoelectric Cooling – It’s Cooler Than You Think I am fascinated by the technologies that live largely behind the scenes. These are not generally...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
I am fascinated by the technologies that live largely behind the scenes. These are not generally consumer devices, but they may be components of consumer products, or may largely have a role in industry – but they make our modern world possible, or make it much better. In...
Quantum Frontiers
My experimental adventures in quantum thermodynamics Imagine a billiard ball bouncing around on a pool table. High-school level physics enables us to...
11 months ago
87
11 months ago
Imagine a billiard ball bouncing around on a pool table. High-school level physics enables us to predict its motion until the end of time using simple equations for energy and momentum conservation, as long as you know the initial conditions … Continue reading →
The Works in...
Flipping the switch on far-UVC We’ve known about far-UVC’s promise for a decade. Why isn't it everywhere?
23 hours ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI for Neuroforecasting I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies...
a year ago
33
a year ago
I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies and concerns. I tend to fall on the side of – AI is a powerful tool, we should continue to develop it and use it responsibly. We don’t need to panic, and highly restrictive laws...
Drew Ex Machina
Star Way of Humanity: American Space Art During the COVID-19 shutdown three years ago, I spent a lot of my time at home digging through my...
a year ago
22
a year ago
During the COVID-19 shutdown three years ago, I spent a lot of my time at home digging through my archives discovering all sorts of items I […]
Sean Carroll
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Just in case there are any blog readers out there who haven’t heard from other channels: I have a new book out! The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion is Volume One of a planned three-volume series. It grew out of the videos that I did in 2020, trying to offer...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Video Games x Healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket Video games should be our models for engagement
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Ninth Dedekind Number Found by Two Independent Groups The numbers count a variety of seemingly unrelated mathematical structures. The post...
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Using CRISPR To Treat HIV CRISPR has been big scientific news since it was introduced in 2012. The science actually goes back...
11 months ago
38
11 months ago
CRISPR has been big scientific news since it was introduced in 2012. The science actually goes back to 1987, but the CRISPR/Cas9 system was patented in 2012, and the developers won the Noble Prize in Chemistry in 2020. The system gives researchers the ability to quickly and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Accusation of Mental Illness as a Political Strategy I am not the first to say this but it bears repeating – it is wrong to use the accusation of a...
6 months ago
44
6 months ago
I am not the first to say this but it bears repeating – it is wrong to use the accusation of a mental illness as a political strategy. It is unfair, stigmatizing, and dismissive. Thomas Szasz (let me say straight up – I am not a Szaszian) was a psychiatrist who made it his...
nanoscale views
Items for discussion, including google's latest quantum computing result As we head toward the end of the calendar year, a few items: Google published a new result in...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
As we head toward the end of the calendar year, a few items: Google published a new result in Nature a few days ago.  This made a big news splash, including this accompanying press piece from google themselves, this nice article in Quanta, and the always thoughtful blog post by...
The Roots of...
Quote quiz answer Here’s the answer to the recent quote quiz: The author was Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber. The...
a year ago
49
a year ago
Here’s the answer to the recent quote quiz: The author was Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber. The quote was taken from his manifesto, “Industrial Society and Its Future.” Here’s a slightly longer, and unaltered, quote: First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in...
Asterisk
Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich? The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed economists for decades. What makes it so hard to answer?
The Works in...
The Maintenance Race was just the beginning A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
a year ago
Probably...
Extremes, outliers, and GOATS The video from my PyData Global 2023 talk, Extremes, outliers, and GOATS, is available now: The...
a year ago
27
a year ago
The video from my PyData Global 2023 talk, Extremes, outliers, and GOATS, is available now: The slides are here. There are two Jupyter notebooks that contain the analysis I presented: Here’s the abstract: The fastest runners are much faster than we expect from a Gaussian...
symmetry magazine
A different way of thinking Neurodivergent physicists face barriers in STEM, but there are also benefits to being who they are.
a year ago
The Works in...
How to start an advance market commitment A practical guide from the founders of Frontier
9 months ago
The Works in...
The prophet of parking A eulogy for the great Donald Shoup
3 weeks ago
Probably...
How Does World Population Grow? Recently I posed this question on Twitter: “Since 1960, has world population grown exponentially,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Recently I posed this question on Twitter: “Since 1960, has world population grown exponentially, quadratically, linearly, or logarithmically?” Here are the responses: By a narrow margin, the most popular answer is correct — since 1960 world population growth has been roughly...
Math Is Still...
Pierre de Fermat’s Link to a High School Student’s Prime Math Proof How Fermat’s less famous ‘little theorem’ got mathematicians young and old to play with prime-like...
a year ago
32
a year ago
How Fermat’s less famous ‘little theorem’ got mathematicians young and old to play with prime-like Carmichael numbers. The post Pierre de Fermat’s Link to a High School Student’s Prime Math Proof first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
SAGE Journey program ignites interest in STEM Three SAGE alumni talk about their experiences with a program meant to broaden gender diversity in...
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
Smalltalk Blew Steve Jobs’s Mind Late in 1979, Steve Jobs and other colleagues from Apple visited the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Late in 1979, Steve Jobs and other colleagues from Apple visited the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). There they were introduced to the experimental Alto computer and the Smalltalk language and computing environment, developed by Alan Kay’s Learning Research Group....
Math Is Still...
Does AI Know What an Apple Is? She Aims to Find Out. The computer scientist Ellie Pavlick is translating philosophical concepts such as “meaning” into...
10 months ago
42
10 months ago
The computer scientist Ellie Pavlick is translating philosophical concepts such as “meaning” into concrete, testable ideas. The post Does AI Know What an Apple Is? She Aims to Find Out. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
The Making of Community Notes The team that built X’s Community Notes talks about their design process and the philosophy behind...
4 months ago
11
4 months ago
The team that built X’s Community Notes talks about their design process and the philosophy behind their approach to combatting false information on the platform.
Math Is Still...
New Proof Shows That ‘Expander’ Graphs Synchronize The proof establishes new conditions that cause connected oscillators to sway in sync. ...
a year ago
17
a year ago
The proof establishes new conditions that cause connected oscillators to sway in sync. The post New Proof Shows That ‘Expander’ Graphs Synchronize first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
Utah Highway LiDAR Scans Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces and area surrounding 15,000 miles of its roads.
NeuroLogica Blog
Deep Sea Mining for Minerals Could Harm Environment It is an unfortunate reality that with over 8 billion people on the planet almost anything we...
a year ago
38
a year ago
It is an unfortunate reality that with over 8 billion people on the planet almost anything we collectively do has the potential to have huge environmental impacts. When the human population was in the mere millions we could treat the planet as an essentially unlimited resource....
NeuroLogica Blog
New Whale Fossil – Possibly Heaviest Animal Ever The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale,...
a year ago
12
a year ago
The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale, which is extant today. The blue whale is larger than any dinosaur, even the giant sauropods. The average weight of a blue whale is 160 tons, with the largest specimen being 190 tons,...
Cremieux Recueil
Trump Should Finish What He Started A guestpost calling for Trump to finish radically reforming the tax system
3 months ago
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
Math Is Still...
Physicists Finally Find a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Can Do Researchers have shown that a problem relating to the energy of a quantum system is easy for quantum...
12 months ago
45
12 months ago
Researchers have shown that a problem relating to the energy of a quantum system is easy for quantum computers but hard for classical ones. The post Physicists Finally Find a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Can Do first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Intelligence Testing Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how much.
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...
Math Is Still...
The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans,...
2 months ago
45
2 months ago
Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, suggesting that the world is far more interconnected than anyone realized. The post The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria first appeared on Quanta...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare should NOT be local | Out-Of-Pocket Let's think bigger
a year ago
symmetry magazine
A cosmological headache For over a century, scientists have wondered what is counteracting the force of gravity in the...
a year ago
50
a year ago
For over a century, scientists have wondered what is counteracting the force of gravity in the universe.
Blog - Practical...
How Do Fish Ladders Work? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Building a dam imparts a...
11 months ago
107
11 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Building a dam imparts a stupendous change to the environment, and as with any change, there are winners and losers. The winners are usually us, people, through hydropower generation, protection from flooding,...
Math Is Still...
An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents...
a year ago
52
a year ago
The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents to NASA’s preparations for visits to other ocean worlds in our solar system. The post An Explorer of Abyssal Depths Looks to Oceans on Other Worlds first appeared on...
brr
Cape Crozier A nearby field camp, and my first helicopter flight!
over a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Licensing and Credentialing Nonsense with Assured | Out-Of-Pocket
3 months ago
Uncharted...
100 Billion Humans The world can carry them!
3 months ago
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Injecting Caution Into Media Reports of Northern Lights as far South as California Friday, May 10, there was a lot of discussion on the news, on social media, and on different web...
10 months ago
33
10 months ago
Friday, May 10, there was a lot of discussion on the news, on social media, and on different web sites about storms on the Sun that are unleashing great outbursts of radiation and particles, some of them toward Earth. The fact that we are seeing such “space weather” now certainly...
IEEE Spectrum
A Brief History of the Office Cubicle Robert Propst, a designer at the Herman Miller furniture company. Four years earlier, he had...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Robert Propst, a designer at the Herman Miller furniture company. Four years earlier, he had proposed a radical alternative to the office bullpen: the Action Office. He envisioned it as a holistic and integrated system designed to increase worker efficiency while providing an...
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...
Asterisk
Prediction Markets Have an Elections Problem Weeks after it was clear that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, you could still make pennies on...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Weeks after it was clear that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, you could still make pennies on the dollar betting Joe Biden would win. Why doesn’t smart money drive out dumb money in election markets?
Math Is Still...
The Jagged, Monstrous Function That Broke Calculus In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as...
a month ago
34
a month ago
In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as nothing less than a “deplorable evil.” In time, it would transform the foundations of mathematics. The post The Jagged, Monstrous Function That Broke Calculus first...
Math Is Still...
The Physicist Working to Build Science-Literate AI By training machine learning models with enough examples of basic science, Miles Cranmer hopes to...
a week ago
8
a week ago
By training machine learning models with enough examples of basic science, Miles Cranmer hopes to push the pace of scientific discovery forward. The post The Physicist Working to Build Science-Literate AI first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2024, 1) Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras...
12 months ago
113
12 months ago
Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras used for good and evil, ant heaven now, and more.
Math Is Still...
She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and neurochemistry in one of the country's epicenters of substance use disorder and addiction. The post She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain first appeared...
Math Is Still...
The Year in Math Landmark results in geometry and number theory marked an exciting year for mathematics, at a time...
2 months ago
87
2 months ago
Landmark results in geometry and number theory marked an exciting year for mathematics, at a time when advances in artificial intelligence are starting to transform the subject’s future. The post The Year in Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
First Dollar and the HSA wedge | Out-Of-Pocket Triple. Tax. Advantage.
a year ago
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
The Roots of...
What is progress? In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another...
a year ago
93
a year ago
In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another sense, it contains an entire worldview. The most basic meaning of “progress” is simply advancement along a path, or more generally from one state to another that is considered more...
The Works in...
Works in Progress: 2023 Wrapped Our most read work of the year
a year ago
Stephen Wolfram...
Computing the Eclipse: Astronomy in the Wolfram Language Basic Eclipse Computation It’s taken millennia to get to the point where it’s possible to accurately...
11 months ago
43
11 months ago
Basic Eclipse Computation It’s taken millennia to get to the point where it’s possible to accurately compute eclipses. But now—as a tiny part of making “everything in the world” computable—computation about eclipses is just a built-in feature of the Wolfram Language. The core...
Drew Ex Machina
Recollections of NASA’s Apollo 11 Mission Like a lot of kids who grew up during the ‘60s and ‘70s, I had a fascination with spaceflight. This...
7 months ago
65
7 months ago
Like a lot of kids who grew up during the ‘60s and ‘70s, I had a fascination with spaceflight. This interest started honestly enough back around […]
Drew Ex Machina
Top Ten Posts of 2023 Now that we are at the end of 2023, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on...
a year ago
47
a year ago
Now that we are at the end of 2023, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see […]
NeuroLogica Blog
A Greener Li-Ion Battery It is increasingly obvious that battery technology is one of the keys to transitioning our...
9 months ago
84
9 months ago
It is increasingly obvious that battery technology is one of the keys to transitioning our civilization away from burning fossil fuels. Batteries facilitate the use of cheap, green, but intermittent energy sources. They also allow for the electrification of technology sectors...
Math Is Still...
The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about...
5 months ago
37
5 months ago
A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about the threads of the space-time fabric. The post The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Ripples in Spacetime It’s always exciting when a scientific institution announces that they are going to make an...
a year ago
43
a year ago
It’s always exciting when a scientific institution announces that they are going to make an announcement. Earlier this week we were told that there was going to be a major announcement today (June 29th) regarding a gravitational wave discovery. The goal of the pre-announcement is...
Math Is Still...
After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally...
2 weeks ago
18
2 weeks ago
Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally succeeded, alongside her partner, Marc Cabanes. The post After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Chris Grossack's...
Talk -- 2-Categorical Descent and (Essentially) Algebraic Theories A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the CT Octoberfest 2023 about some work I did over the summer that...
a year ago
13
a year ago
A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the CT Octoberfest 2023 about some work I did over the summer that I’m really proud of. Unfortunately, while writing up the result I found a 1999 paper by Pedicchio and Wood that proves the same theorem (with roughly the same proof), so I...
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
Math Is Still...
‘Species Repulsion’ Enables High Biodiversity in Tropical Trees Because tree seedlings don’t grow as well when close to their parents, more tree species can be...
a year ago
25
a year ago
Because tree seedlings don’t grow as well when close to their parents, more tree species can be packed into tropical forests. The post ‘Species Repulsion’ Enables High Biodiversity in Tropical Trees first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
symmetry magazine
Muon g-2 doubles down with latest measurement, explores uncharted territory Fermilab's Muon g-2 experiment brings particle physics closer to a showdown between theory and...
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Science News in 2023 This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are...
a year ago
17
a year ago
This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are what I consider to be the most impactful science news stories of 2023 (or at least the ones that caught by biased attention). This was a big year for medical breakthroughs. We are...
Casey Handmer's blog
Powering the Mars base This post is part of the series on space topics. This post is not the last word on this topic. The...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
This post is part of the series on space topics. This post is not the last word on this topic. The usual caveats apply. I’m curious if you have strong opinions on different fuel mixes. A growing Mars base has a prodigious need for power. I’ve previously written two posts on...
Stephen Wolfram...
On the Nature of Time The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is...
5 months ago
85
5 months ago
The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is it? In traditional scientific accounts it’s often represented as some kind of coordinate much like space (though a coordinate that for some reason is always systematically...
Math Is Still...
Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and...
4 months ago
57
4 months ago
A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and multiplication — and raises hopes for progress on the famous abc conjecture. The post Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making first appeared on...
Probably...
Why are you so slow? Recently a shoe store in France ran a promotion called “Rob It to Get It”, which invited customers...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Recently a shoe store in France ran a promotion called “Rob It to Get It”, which invited customers to try to steal something by grabbing it and running out of the store. But there was a catch — the “security guard” was a professional sprinter, Méba Mickael Zeze. As you would...
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
10
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.
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Diophantine Equations Piebald is an unusual word that appears in the Archimedes' cattle problem, a Diophantine problem...
7 months ago
11
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...
Quantum Frontiers
Caltech’s Ginsburg Center Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement, which will open in 2025. At a lunch following the ceremony, John Preskill made these remarks. Hello everyone. … Continue...
Math Is Still...
How Failure Has Made Mathematics Stronger The topologist Danny Calegari discusses the inevitability of disappointment in math, and how to...
9 months ago
62
9 months ago
The topologist Danny Calegari discusses the inevitability of disappointment in math, and how to learn from it. The post How Failure Has Made Mathematics Stronger first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Cold Brew Coffee While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory...
7 months ago
9
7 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...
Uncharted...
10 Other Places Where Geniuses Hide Groups, networks, the Internet, IQ, state sponsorship, and many more
2 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Radiology, Residency, and Physician Tools with Henry Li | Out-Of-Pocket What's actually happening in the hospital?
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part III Part 3 Hi Steve, and thank you for your timely response, and for even considering hosting this...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
Part 3 Hi Steve, and thank you for your timely response, and for even considering hosting this debate. There has been, and continues to be a “blackout” on almost all discussion regarding the science behind climate change. If “The science” is truly “settled”, it is a pretty shaky...
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
Math Is Still...
What Are Sheaves? These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics. The post...
7 months ago
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Euclid Space Telescope Delivers Great Images The first images are coming in from the new Euclid Space Telescope and they are spectacular. The...
a year ago
15
a year ago
The first images are coming in from the new Euclid Space Telescope and they are spectacular. The post Euclid Space Telescope Delivers Great Images appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Math Is Still...
‘Embryo Models’ Challenge Legal, Ethical and Biological Concepts With embryolike constructs built entirely from stem cells, researchers can revolutionize our...
a year ago
29
a year ago
With embryolike constructs built entirely from stem cells, researchers can revolutionize our understanding of development. But how close to an embryo is too close? The post ‘Embryo Models’ Challenge Legal, Ethical and Biological Concepts first appeared on Quanta...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Match Day and the Unmatched | Out-Of-Pocket an underutilized workforce?
a year ago
The Works in...
Anemia and Malaria In malaria endemic regions, being anemic could be keeping children safe
4 months ago
Math Is Still...
Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash...
4 weeks ago
19
4 weeks ago
A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash tables can be much faster than previously deemed possible. The post Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Hopes of Big Bang Discoveries Ride on a Future Spacecraft Physicists and cosmologists will have a new probe of primordial processes when Europe launches the...
10 months ago
86
10 months ago
Physicists and cosmologists will have a new probe of primordial processes when Europe launches the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) next decade. The post Hopes of Big Bang Discoveries Ride on a Future Spacecraft first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Happy Launch Day! Today is the official publication date of Probably Overthinking It! You can get a 30% discount if...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Today is the official publication date of Probably Overthinking It! 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. I celebrated launch day by...
Chris Grossack's...
Life in Johnstone's Topological Topos 2 -- Topological Algebras In the first post, we introduced Johnstone’s topological topos $\mathcal{T}$ and talked about what...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
In the first post, we introduced Johnstone’s topological topos $\mathcal{T}$ and talked about what its objects look like. We showed how the interpretation of type theory in $\mathcal{T}$ gives us an “intrinsic topology” on any type we construct. We also alluded to the fact...
Math Is Still...
A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Highly repetitive regions of junk DNA may be the key to a newly discovered mechanism for gene regulation. The post A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
WaderTales blogs in 2022 Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped...
over a year ago
33
over a year ago
Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped the blogs into sections; problems with trees, more research from Iceland, Curlews, news from the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, tracking and updates. As ever, I am grateful to...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Manukan Island And The Tempasuk Plain October 18, 2024 Following our adventure at Trus Madi, our remaining time in Borneo had dwindled to...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
October 18, 2024 Following our adventure at Trus Madi, our remaining time in Borneo had dwindled to just three days. On October 19 we planned to visit a hide often attended by the Bornean Peacock-Pheasant.  This gave us October 18th as a free day.  After mulling over a few other...
NeuroLogica Blog
Have We Achieved General AI As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for...
3 months ago
55
3 months ago
As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for a long time before there is a consensus that we have. The latest round of this controversy comes from Vahid Kazemi from OpenAI. He posted on X: “In my opinion we have already...
Beautiful Public...
The Army and Navy Style Guides These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed...
a year ago
Casey Handmer's blog
SLS is still a national disgrace Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the...
5 months ago
25
5 months ago
Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the NASA SLS (Space Launch System), I wrote one. If you’re unfamiliar with the topic, you should read it first.  It is hard to …
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.
Math Is Still...
Some Neural Networks Learn Language Like Humans Researchers uncover striking parallels in the ways that humans and machine learning models acquire...
a year ago
68
a year ago
Researchers uncover striking parallels in the ways that humans and machine learning models acquire language skills. The post Some Neural Networks Learn Language Like Humans first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Why Mathematicians Re-Prove What They Already Know It’s been known for thousands of years that the primes go on forever, but new proofs give fresh...
a year ago
44
a year ago
It’s been known for thousands of years that the primes go on forever, but new proofs give fresh insights into how theorems depend on one another. The post Why Mathematicians Re-Prove What They Already Know first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It New research finds that the memories useful for future generalizations are held in the brain...
a year ago
36
a year ago
New research finds that the memories useful for future generalizations are held in the brain separately from those recording unusual events. The post The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
Saving the Big Bang (Antenna) The antenna that discovered a cosmic microwave background coming from all directions in...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
The antenna that discovered a cosmic microwave background coming from all directions in space—cementing the theory that the universe was created in a big bang—now stares down its own topsy-turvy future. Its owner says the hardware will be preserved, but the fate of the historical...
IEEE Spectrum
Granville T. Woods: Smartest Guy in the Room Any home baker will confirm that, even if you have all the right ingredients and follow the recipe,...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Any home baker will confirm that, even if you have all the right ingredients and follow the recipe, things don’t always turn out the way you envisioned. Such was the life of inventor extraordinaire Granville T. Woods. Who was Granville T. Woods? Woods was endowed with...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 2: The Huachucas September 1, 2024 For the first and only time in the trip I managed a much-needed seven hours of...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
September 1, 2024 For the first and only time in the trip I managed a much-needed seven hours of sleep. Unfortunately, some of the others were woken up earlier than they would have liked. The owner of Beatty's Guest Ranch (he lives in a different building on the property) owns a...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Quest For The Bulwer's Pheasant The Bulwer's Pheasant was one of the first birds to grab hold of my attention when I first flipped...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
The Bulwer's Pheasant was one of the first birds to grab hold of my attention when I first flipped through the pages of my Borneo field guide many years ago. This pheasant of Bornean hill forest is nearly unbelievable-looking (the male, that is). He has a deep maroon chest and a...
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
93
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.
NeuroLogica Blog
Science Communication About Controversial Issues The world of science communication has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and it’s...
3 months ago
50
3 months ago
The world of science communication has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and it’s useful to think about those changes, both for people who generate and consume science communication. The big change, of course, is social media, which has disrupted journalism and...
The Roots of...
Highlights from The Industrial Revolution, by T. S. Ashton The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830, by Thomas S. Ashton, is classic in the field, published in...
a year ago
31
a year ago
The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830, by Thomas S. Ashton, is classic in the field, published in 1948. Here are some of my highlights from it. (Emphasis in bold added by me.) The role of chance What was the role of chance in the inventions of the Industrial Revolution? It is true...
Math Is Still...
An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe Researchers prove that navigating certain systems of vectors is among the most complex computational...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Researchers prove that navigating certain systems of vectors is among the most complex computational problems. The post An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic...
10 months ago
79
10 months ago
A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness. The post Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness,...
Math Is Still...
The Physicist Who Glues Together Universes Renate Loll has helped pioneer a radically new approach to quantum gravity. She assumes that the...
a year ago
48
a year ago
Renate Loll has helped pioneer a radically new approach to quantum gravity. She assumes that the fabric of space-time is a blend of all possible fabrics, and she has developed the computational tools needed to calculate the far-reaching implications of that assumption. ...
NeuroLogica Blog
World Events and the Conspiracy Instinct By now most people have heard that on Saturday there was a failed assassination attempt on candidate...
7 months ago
64
7 months ago
By now most people have heard that on Saturday there was a failed assassination attempt on candidate Trump at a rally. While it has only been a few days, preliminary investigation has found that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, using a AR style rifle purchased legally by his...
Inverted Passion
How to be a messy thinker I love thinking about thinking. Give me a research paper on rationality, cognitive biases or mental...
10 months ago
100
10 months ago
I love thinking about thinking. Give me a research paper on rationality, cognitive biases or mental models, and I’ll gobble it up. Given the amount of knowledge I’ve ingested on these topics, I had always assumed that I’m a clear thinker. Recently, though, it hit me like a...
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
37
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...
Math Is Still...
Physicists Create Elusive Particles That Remember Their Pasts In two landmark experiments, researchers used quantum processors to engineer exotic particles that...
a year ago
76
a year ago
In two landmark experiments, researchers used quantum processors to engineer exotic particles that have captivated physicists for decades. The work is a step toward crash-proof quantum computers. The post Physicists Create Elusive Particles That Remember Their Pasts...
Asterisk
China’s Silicon Future China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
China dreams of competing with global superpowers in the semiconductor industry. Whether its efforts will succeed is far from clear.
Interaction Magic -...
Interaction20 Round-up Summary of all the amazing, curious and challenging ideas from last week's IXDA Interaction 20...
over a year ago
nanoscale views
What is "static electricity"/"contact electrification"/triboelectricity? An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static...
2 weeks ago
4
2 weeks ago
An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static electricity:  an electrical insulator like a wool cloth or animal fur is rubbed on a glass or plastic rod, and suddenly the rod can pick up pieces of styrofoam or little bits of paper. ...
Casey Handmer's blog
Potentially undervalued companies I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies...
6 months ago
15
6 months ago
I am routinely solicited for my technical opinion on new and interesting technologies and companies developing them. 90% of the time, my answer is “I don’t know” but it continues to concern me that aspects of technical feasibility are evidently not legible to financial types (and...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Caves on Mars Recently, in social media posts, Dr. Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute discussed the intriguing caves...
3 months ago
48
3 months ago
Recently, in social media posts, Dr. Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute discussed the intriguing caves on the side of the giant martian volcano called Arsia Mons as interesting places for future exploration and even human residences. As it happens, my very first published...
Math Is Still...
Doubts Grow About the Biosignature Approach to Alien-Hunting Recent controversies bode ill for the effort to detect life on other planets by analyzing the gases...
11 months ago
33
11 months ago
Recent controversies bode ill for the effort to detect life on other planets by analyzing the gases in their atmospheres. The post Doubts Grow About the Biosignature Approach to Alien-Hunting first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Think Python third edition! I am happy to announce the third edition of Think Python, which will be published by O’Reilly Media...
a year ago
35
a year ago
I am happy to announce the third edition of Think Python, which will be published by O’Reilly Media later this year. You can read the online version of the book here. I’ve posted the Preface and the first four chapters — more on the way soon! You can read the Early Release and...
Math Is Still...
How Randomness Improves Algorithms Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems. The...
a year ago
55
a year ago
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems. The post How Randomness Improves Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour To Borneo: Tabin Wildlife Reserve And Danum Valley We left the Kinabatangan River behind and transferred to our next destination, the Tabin Wildlife...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
We left the Kinabatangan River behind and transferred to our next destination, the Tabin Wildlife Reserve. This is the largest swath of protected forest; an area of lowland primary and logged forest that is home to iconic species like the Bornean Pygmy Elephant, the Sun Bear and...
Math Is Still...
Merging Fields, Mathematicians Go the Distance On Old Problem Mathematicians have illuminated what sets of points can look like if the distances between them are...
11 months ago
75
11 months ago
Mathematicians have illuminated what sets of points can look like if the distances between them are all whole numbers. The post Merging Fields, Mathematicians Go the Distance On Old Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
wadertales
How successful are headstarted waders We know that headstarting (hatching eggs in captivity and rearing chicks through to fledging) can...
5 months ago
59
5 months ago
We know that headstarting (hatching eggs in captivity and rearing chicks through to fledging) can boost the number of young waders in a population. However, the sustainability of this intervention is dependent upon several factors that apply after the point of release. A paper in...
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Cross the Line to Get to the Point A new paper establishes a long-conjectured bound about the size of the overlap between sets of lines...
a year ago
16
a year ago
A new paper establishes a long-conjectured bound about the size of the overlap between sets of lines and points. The post Mathematicians Cross the Line to Get to the Point first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: How Much Info Should A Patient Get? | Out-Of-Pocket do we need our physicians to be interpreters?
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
How Humans Can Adapt to Space My recent article on settling Mars has generated a lot of discussion, some of it around the basic...
a year ago
50
a year ago
My recent article on settling Mars has generated a lot of discussion, some of it around the basic concept of how difficult it is for humans to live anywhere but a thin envelope of air hugging the surface of the Earth. This is undoubtedly true, as I have discussed before – we...
Math Is Still...
The Webb Telescope Further Deepens the Biggest Controversy in Cosmology A long-awaited study of the cosmic expansion rate suggests that when it comes to the Hubble tension,...
7 months ago
48
7 months ago
A long-awaited study of the cosmic expansion rate suggests that when it comes to the Hubble tension, cosmologists are still missing something. The post The Webb Telescope Further Deepens the Biggest Controversy in Cosmology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Confessions of a...
Cottesloe Fish Habitat Protection Area Today I am teaching my first tutorial in the second year unit ‘Marine Systems‘, which will introduce...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
Today I am teaching my first tutorial in the second year unit ‘Marine Systems‘, which will introduce students to their major project, which is centred around a field trip to the Cottelsoe Fish Habitat Protection Area (CFHPA).  I’m pretty excited to introduce a few of my new ideas...
Light from Space
The Fossil Footprint Nebula A rarely imaged target as it is very dim. This image took me over 50h of total exposure time. Total...
a year ago
41
a year ago
A rarely imaged target as it is very dim. This image took me over 50h of total exposure time. Total exposure time: 52h 40' Image resolution: 4,490 × 4,552px (0.96″/px) Shot from my driveway near Tucson, AZ in late 2023 Telescope: William Optics RedCat
pcloadletter
Write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am The older I get, the more I dislike clever code. This is not a controversial take; it is pretty-well...
9 months ago
81
9 months ago
The older I get, the more I dislike clever code. This is not a controversial take; it is pretty-well agreed upon that clever code is bad. But I particularly like the on-call responsiblity framing: write code that you can understand when you get paged at 2am. If you have never...
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...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: All the single people And how China will lose 51 million people in 10 years
2 months ago
Math Is Still...
Neural Networks Need Data to Learn. Even If It’s Fake. Real data can be hard to get, so researchers are turning to synthetic data to train their artificial...
a year ago
42
a year ago
Real data can be hard to get, so researchers are turning to synthetic data to train their artificial intelligence systems. The post Neural Networks Need Data to Learn. Even If It’s Fake. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
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
25
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...
Asterisk
Can You Trust An AI Press Release? Of course not. Here’s how leading AI labs mislead consumers, journalists, and each other.
8 months ago
Math Is Still...
A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal Stability. Now the Idea May Be Falling Apart. A series of advances seemed to promise the impossible: the existence of quantum states that would...
a year ago
41
a year ago
A series of advances seemed to promise the impossible: the existence of quantum states that would never, ever fall into disarray. But physicists are now discovering that the pull of disorder may not be so easily overcome. The post A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal...
NeuroLogica Blog
Nuclear Microreactors The first nuclear powered vessel was completed in 1959. Since then there have been nuclear powered...
a year ago
52
a year ago
The first nuclear powered vessel was completed in 1959. Since then there have been nuclear powered vessels in the oceans, including many nuclear submarines. The obvious advantage is that is such vessels can stay at see for long periods of time without refueling. These ships use...
NeuroLogica Blog
2023 Hottest Year on Record What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we...
a year ago
31
a year ago
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we can also say that the last 10 years are the hottest decade on record. 2023 dethrones 2016 as the previous warmest year and bumps 2010 out of the top 10. Further, in the last half of...
Casey Handmer's blog
Part 7 Senzeni Na Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier...
2 months ago
45
2 months ago
Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier chapters. Google Mars .kml. Literary commentary podcast. [Edit: If you enjoy this kind of thing, you may find a career at my company, Terraform Industries, rewarding. We’re hiring...
Cremieux Recueil
Woke Madness Why do more left-wing individuals tend to be more mentally ill?
6 months ago
Math Is Still...
In the Gut’s ‘Second Brain,’ Key Agents of Health Emerge Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand. The post In the Gut’s ‘Second Brain,’ Key Agents of Health Emerge first...
Math Is Still...
Tiny Language Models Come of Age To better understand how neural networks learn to simulate writing, researchers trained simpler...
a year ago
17
a year ago
To better understand how neural networks learn to simulate writing, researchers trained simpler versions on synthetic children’s stories. The post Tiny Language Models Come of Age first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
35 Years Ago, Researchers Used Brain Waves to Control a Robot Using the brain to directly control an object was long the stuff of science fiction, and in 1988 the...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Using the brain to directly control an object was long the stuff of science fiction, and in 1988 the vision became a reality. IEEE Life Senior Member Stevo Bozinovski and Members Mihail Sestakov and Dr. Liljana Bozinovska used a student volunteer’s electroencephalogram (EEG)...
Math Is Still...
Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t...
a year ago
13
a year ago
The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t persist in adults. The post Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Reject Math Supremacy The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool...
2 months ago
57
2 months ago
The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool for teaching and learning — and many ideas that are commonly presented in math notation can be more clearly presented in code. In the draft third edition of Think Stats there is...
Quantum Frontiers
Can Thermodynamics Resolve the Measurement Problem? At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of...
a year ago
45
a year ago
At the recent Quantum Thermodynamics conference in Vienna (coming next year to the University of Maryland!), during an expert panel Q&A session, one member of the audience asked “can quantum thermodynamics address foundational problems in quantum theory?” That stuck with …...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: A winter's tale Melting snow can make the season easier
a year ago
Chris Grossack's...
$\mathsf{B}\text{Diff}(\Sigma)$ Classifies $\Sigma$-bundles I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the cobordism hypothesis,...
2 months ago
53
2 months ago
I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the cobordism hypothesis, and how to use $(\infty,n)$-categories. This is all in service of some stuff I’m doing with skein algebras (which are part of a “$3+1$ TQFT” often named after Crane–Yetter, but...
Beautiful Public...
Aerial Glacier Photographs A collection of 100,000 striking high-resolution aerial photos of glaciers, photographed over 40...
8 months ago
99
8 months ago
A collection of 100,000 striking high-resolution aerial photos of glaciers, photographed over 40 years with a 63-pound WW II surveillance camera.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Eclipse of the Sun Coming in One Week Saturday Oct. 14 North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun. The post Eclipse of the Sun...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Saturday Oct. 14 North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun. The post Eclipse of the Sun Coming in One Week appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Celebrating the Centennial of Galaxies January 1 2025 On January 1, 1925, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, DC, astronomer...
2 months ago
49
2 months ago
On January 1, 1925, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, DC, astronomer Henry N. Russell read a paper contributed by a young astronomer named Edwin Hubble (who was too junior to earn a trip across the country from the California observatory where he...
Math Is Still...
Do We Need a New Theory of Gravity? Since Newton had his initial revelation about gravity, our understanding of this fundamental concept...
6 months ago
40
6 months ago
Since Newton had his initial revelation about gravity, our understanding of this fundamental concept has evolved in unexpected ways. In this week’s episode, theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham and co-host Janna Levin discuss the ways our current understanding of gravity needs...
The Works in...
Issue 17: No great stagnation in cruise ships Plus: animals as chemical factories, how progress lost its glamour, and how Madrid built 120 miles...
3 months ago
Drew Ex Machina
Tropical Weather Analytics and Phantom Space Partner on Hurricane Hunter Satellite Constellation Tropical Weather Analytics, Inc. (TWA), with a revolutionary 3D measurement capability for improved...
a year ago
41
a year ago
Tropical Weather Analytics, Inc. (TWA), with a revolutionary 3D measurement capability for improved hurricane forecasting and weather intelligence, is announcing a strategic partnership with Phantom Space […]
Math Is Still...
A Century Later, New Math Smooths Out General Relativity Mathematicians prove a theorem that illuminates the geometry of universes with tiny amounts of mass....
a year ago
27
a year ago
Mathematicians prove a theorem that illuminates the geometry of universes with tiny amounts of mass. The post A Century Later, New Math Smooths Out General Relativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
59
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...
Drew Ex Machina
NASA’s Viking Mission & The Search for Life on Mars: The Experiments For young space enthusiasts like myself growing up in the 1970s, NASA’s Viking mission to Mars was...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
For young space enthusiasts like myself growing up in the 1970s, NASA’s Viking mission to Mars was one of the more exciting and memorable. The Viking […]
Beautiful Public...
Visualizing Ship Movements with AIS Data Explore the beautiful, intricate paths of ships over a year—tracked from America's busiest ports to...
5 months ago
76
5 months ago
Explore the beautiful, intricate paths of ships over a year—tracked from America's busiest ports to the open ocean via AIS marine tracking data.
Math Is Still...
Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s...
6 months ago
81
6 months ago
The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s expansion may be weakening. One community of theoretical physicists expected as much. The post Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes...
The Works in...
Issue 15: To change a norm Plus: bland buildings can't be blamed on labor costs, reasons to be sceptical about prediction...
9 months ago
90
9 months ago
Plus: bland buildings can't be blamed on labor costs, reasons to be sceptical about prediction markets, and gentrification policies that actually help.
Math Is Still...
Why Computer Scientists Consult Oracles Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in...
2 months ago
38
2 months ago
Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in computational complexity theory. The post Why Computer Scientists Consult Oracles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
England Allows Gene-Edited Crops This has been somewhat of a quiet revolution, but a new law in England may bring it to the...
a year ago
59
a year ago
This has been somewhat of a quiet revolution, but a new law in England may bring it to the foreground. The Precision Breeding Act will now allow gene-edited plants to be developed and marketed in England (not Northern Ireland, Wales, or Scotland). The innovation is that the law...
nanoscale views
Items of interest The start of the semester has been very busy, but here are some items that seem interesting: As...
6 months ago
2
6 months ago
The start of the semester has been very busy, but here are some items that seem interesting: As many know, there has been a lot of controversy in recent years about high pressure measurements of superconductivity.  Here is a first-hand take by one of the people who helped bring...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Canvas: A Bet On New EMRs | Out-Of-Pocket what if EMRs didn't totally suck?
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Viz.ai and why workflow > tech | Out-Of-Pocket Also ?? about AI business models
a year ago
The Works in...
What did Henry George think about cities? Solving the terrible urban conditions of the 1800s by abolishing cities
10 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Living Under the Sea One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely...
a year ago
46
a year ago
One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely under a vast alien ocean. You have the advantage of advanced technology, but even then you are under constant threat of running out of oxygen, or having your habitat implode because...
brr
The Last Egg Five more months until freshies...
a year ago
Beautiful Public...
The Pillbox Database The National Library of Medicine's Pillbox dataset contained 8,693 photographs of pills, with an...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
The National Library of Medicine's Pillbox dataset contained 8,693 photographs of pills, with an accompanying database of drug information. It was built to help with the identification of unknown pills.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More 2023 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket should just start 2024 predictions I guess
11 months ago
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...
The Works in...
A writing fellowship on scientific progress Works in Progress and Asimov Press are launching a paid six-month fellowship.
4 weeks ago
brr
Redeployment Part Two Station opening, and my flight out of Pole!
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
50
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...
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
DNA Directed Assembly of Nanomaterials Arguably the type of advance that has the greatest impact on technology is material science....
a year ago
28
a year ago
Arguably the type of advance that has the greatest impact on technology is material science. Technology can advance by doing more with the materials we have, but new materials can change the game entirely. It is no coincidence that we mark different technological ages by the...
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Need Sensors (and other structures too) [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Almost immediately after I...
a year ago
77
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Almost immediately after I started making videos about engineering, people started asking me to play video games on the channel. Apparently there’s roughly a billion people who watch online gaming these days,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Musings on CVS, two-way negotiation, and venture studios | Out-Of-Pocket + we're hosting another dinner! and courses ending!
10 months ago
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 4: The Chiricahuas September 3, 2024 It was another beautiful day in paradise, and all of us were up early to watch the...
5 months ago
2
5 months ago
September 3, 2024 It was another beautiful day in paradise, and all of us were up early to watch the sun rise over the desert. The active bird feeders gave us something to study while we drank our coffee and ate our egg sandwiches that Nikki had crafted for us.  Black-throated...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Why don’t healthcare companies say what they do? | Out-Of-Pocket And some tips to figure out what a company does
a year ago
Wanderingspace
Eclipse 2024 from Space https://twitter.com/ThePlanetaryGuy
10 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Potential of AI + CRISPR In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors...
5 months ago
67
5 months ago
In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I discuss the incredible potential of information-based technologies. As we increasingly transition to digital technology, we can leverage the increasing power of computer...
symmetry magazine
The magnet detectives During a routine test, two HL-LHC magnets unexpectedly flatlined. Was it just a coincidence, or did...
a year ago
26
a year ago
During a routine test, two HL-LHC magnets unexpectedly flatlined. Was it just a coincidence, or did they have a common foe?
Quantum Frontiers
Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem! In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a...
3 months ago
45
3 months ago
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a River. The Rat explains how the River permeates his life: “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
The Superconductor Flap of 2023 If you are at all interested in science and technology news, you have probably heard that a team...
a year ago
11
a year ago
If you are at all interested in science and technology news, you have probably heard that a team from South Korea claims to have developed a material that is a superconductor at room temperature and ambient pressure. Interestingly, if you are someone who does not follow such...
IEEE Spectrum
The Meeting of the Minds That Launched AI The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, held from 18 June through 17...
a year ago
18
a year ago
The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, held from 18 June through 17 August of 1956, is widely considered the event that kicked off AI as a research discipline. Organized by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon, and Nathaniel Rochester, it...
NeuroLogica Blog
Flow Batteries – Now With Nanofluids Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable...
a year ago
41
a year ago
Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable incremental increase in energy density, charging time, stability, and lifecycle. We now have lithium-ion batteries with a specific energy of 296 Wh/kg – these are in use in existing...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
ARISE ERISA | Out-Of-Pocket Levity in the time of Coronavirus
a year ago
SubAnima
Have We Already Found Life On Mars? Definitions are a funny thing..
over a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Things I’m watching in healthcare 2023 | Out-Of-Pocket it's been a weird year
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
AI-Fueled Scams Digital life is getting more dangerous.  Literally every day I have to fend off attempts at scamming...
10 months ago
44
10 months ago
Digital life is getting more dangerous.  Literally every day I have to fend off attempts at scamming me in one way or another. I get texts trying to lure me into responding. I get e-mails hoping I will click a malicious link on a reflex. I get phone calls from people warning me...
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
31
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.
Drew Ex Machina
The Promise of MIDAS: The First Experimental Early Warning Satellites Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Today in the United States we almost take for granted the military’s ability to detect missile launches anywhere on the planet and quickly determine whether it […]
Asterisk
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart AIs Are? Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the same mistakes with AI?
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
64
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...
Math Is Still...
What Is the Nature of Time? Time is all around us: in the language we use, in the memories we revisit and in our predictions of...
a year ago
69
a year ago
Time is all around us: in the language we use, in the memories we revisit and in our predictions of the future. But what exactly is it? The physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek joins Steve Strogatz to discuss the fundamental hallmarks of time. The post What Is...
nanoscale views
Brief items A few tidbits that I encountered recently: The saga of Ranga Dias at Rochester draws to a close,...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
A few tidbits that I encountered recently: The saga of Ranga Dias at Rochester draws to a close, as described by the Wall Street Journal.  It took quite some time for this to propagate through their system.  This is after multiple internal investigations that somehow were...
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
38
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...
Eukaryote Writes...
Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the...
11 months ago
84
11 months ago
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the moon.” The truth is that given a lot of power, a nuclear weapon, and a lot of extremely specific circumstances, we too might find ourselves thinking “I should nuke the moon.”
Drew Ex Machina
Habitable Planet Reality Check: TOI-700e Discovered by NASA’s TESS Mission During a press conference held on January 6, 2020 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
During a press conference held on January 6, 2020 at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Honolulu, Emily Gilbert (then a graduate […]
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...
Uncharted...
Why Japan Succeeds Despite Stagnation Demographics & lending vs housing, culture & immigration
3 weeks ago
Math Is Still...
How Base 3 Computing Beats Binary Long explored but infrequently embraced, base 3 computing may yet find a home in cybersecurity. ...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
Long explored but infrequently embraced, base 3 computing may yet find a home in cybersecurity. The post How Base 3 Computing Beats Binary first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
Mathematicians Solve Long-Standing Coloring Problem A new result shows how much of the plane can be colored by points that are never exactly one unit...
a year ago
14
a year ago
A new result shows how much of the plane can be colored by points that are never exactly one unit apart. The post Mathematicians Solve Long-Standing Coloring Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The Alzheimer’s Revolution Decades of complex research and persevering through repeated disappointment appears to be finally...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Decades of complex research and persevering through repeated disappointment appears to be finally paying off for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s  disease (AD). In 2021 Aduhelm was the first drug approved by the FDA (granted contingent accelerated approval) that is...
Math Is Still...
Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining...
a year ago
65
a year ago
Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining many online security protocols. Now a researcher has shown how to do it even faster. The post Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring first appeared on...
Math Is Still...
Are There Reasons to Believe in a Multiverse? Several areas of physics suggest reasons to think that unobservable universes with different natural...
a year ago
102
a year ago
Several areas of physics suggest reasons to think that unobservable universes with different natural laws could lie beyond ours. The theoretical physicist David Kaplan talks with Steven Strogatz about the mysteries that a multiverse would solve. The post Are There...
Math Is Still...
Primitive Asgard Cells Show Life on the Brink of Complexity As researchers race to cultivate more of the intriguing cells from the deep seafloor, the few cells...
a year ago
73
a year ago
As researchers race to cultivate more of the intriguing cells from the deep seafloor, the few cells now growing in labs are giving us our best glimpses of the forerunners of all complex life. The post Primitive Asgard Cells Show Life on the Brink of Complexity first...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fossil Fuels – Reduce Demand or Supply? This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a...
a year ago
11
a year ago
This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a somewhat of a dilemma. Is the optimal path to reductions and eventual elimination of fossil fuel burning through reduced demand or supply? There are some interesting tradeoffs...
Probably...
Think Stats 3rd Edition I am excited to announce that I have started work on a third edition of Think Stats, to be published...
4 months ago
58
4 months ago
I am excited to announce that I have started work on a third edition of Think Stats, to be published by O’Reilly Media in 2025. At this point the content is mostly settled, and I am revising chapters to get them ready for technical review. If you want to start reading now, the...
IEEE Spectrum
Franklin’s Franklins Were Freakishly Un-Fakeable To make something hard to fake, you can use exotic materials or clever tricks. Benjamin Franklin, a...
a year ago
16
a year ago
To make something hard to fake, you can use exotic materials or clever tricks. Benjamin Franklin, a printer by vocation, a scientist by avocation, leaned on cleverness, developing measures that are still in use. Those black arts have now yielded to the latest analytical...
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
wadertales
Inland feeding by coastal godwits Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect estuaries but the same is not necessarily true for Black-tailed Godwits. In a 2022 paper in the journal Wader Study, Clément Jourdan and colleagues describe the movements of ten tagged...
Quantum Frontiers
The quantum gold rush Even if you don’t recognize the name, you probably recognize the saguaro cactus. It’s the archetype...
11 months ago
111
11 months ago
Even if you don’t recognize the name, you probably recognize the saguaro cactus. It’s the archetype of the cactus, a column from which protrude arms bent at right angles like elbows. As my husband pointed out, the cactus emoji is … Continue reading →
Cremieux Recueil
"You Couldn't Replicate Our Study Because You're Ugly" Attractiveness rating studies shouldn't be taken too seriously
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Regret After Transitioning In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was...
a year ago
34
a year ago
In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was enough to trigger very specific feedback, often making erroneous scientific claims. Each claim requires a deep dive and article-length discussion. Even though the discussion that...
Interaction Magic -...
The UX of LEGO Interface Panels LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I bought 52 of them from BrickLink to explore the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How do hospitals spend money? | Out-Of-Pocket it's time to look at a financial statement
8 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
A Bit of Energy Pseudoscience Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age...
a year ago
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...