Conservation...
3 things our experts loved in May
26th Jun 2024
ToughSF
The Expanse's Epstein Drive
We aim to take a fictional propulsion
technology from The Expanse, and apply the appropriate science...
5th Oct 2019
We aim to take a fictional propulsion
technology from The Expanse, and apply the appropriate science to explain its
features in a realistic manner.
This also applies to other SciFi
settings that want a similar engine for their own spacecraft.
The Epstein Drive
Title art...
Explorations of an...
Making The Most Of Winter
The winter of 2025-2026 is shaping up to be a proper one. Since basically the start of December we...
4th Feb 2026
The winter of 2025-2026 is shaping up to be a proper one. Since basically the start of December we have experienced below average temperatures and an abundance of snow. We haven't had much respite from the cold, other than a brief warm spell in January quickly followed by an...
wadertales
Learning from their elders
A 2026 paper in Animal Behaviour examines how quickly juvenile Black-tailed Godwits(right, with...
5th Feb 2026
A 2026 paper in Animal Behaviour examines how quickly juvenile Black-tailed Godwits(right, with juvenile Redshanks) acquire the feeding skills they will need to get them through their first winter. Josh Nightingale followed the same migration route taken by young birds, as they...
Conservation...
To save coffee's future, 100 million trees — and counting
1st Apr 2026
NeuroLogica Blog
Hydrogen Tech
I often get questions like the one below:
“I live part time in Japan. Everyone sees hydrogen powered...
3rd Jul 2026
I often get questions like the one below:
“I live part time in Japan. Everyone sees hydrogen powered generators, trains, trucks, etc regularly. High density population means it’s easy to get enough synergy to justify the infrastructure. So sad we aren’t doing more to utilize this...
Long Now
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his...
27th Jan 2007
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time...
Long Now
Anne Neuberger: Inside the NSA
## The NSA reaches out
Of her eight great-grandparents, seven were murdered at Auschwitz. “So my...
7th Aug 2014
## The NSA reaches out
Of her eight great-grandparents, seven were murdered at Auschwitz. “So my family’s history burned into me a fear of what occurs when the power of a state is turned against its people or other people.”
Seeking freedom from threats like that brought her...
Inverted Passion
Asking agents to make money to survive
Recently I read The Rogue Agent Explosion Will Be Mostly Invisible and the scenario in it seemed...
2 weeks ago
Recently I read The Rogue Agent Explosion Will Be Mostly Invisible and the scenario in it seemed intriguing. Essentially, the post painted a picture of how agents could go rogue if prompted with something like the following: Good morning agent 23,000. You have 10,000,000 tokens...
Quantum Frontiers
The Noncommuting-Charges World Tour (Part 1 of 4)
Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many...
1st Feb 2024
Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many similarities with fairy tales. For example, most of them begin with a familiar opening. In thermodynamics, the phrase “Consider an isolated box of particles” serves a similar purpose …...
Works in Progress...
Just bury your trash
What if everything we know about recycling is wrong?
2 weeks ago
What if everything we know about recycling is wrong?
Works in Progress...
The road from serfdom
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful...
16th Feb 2024
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful opposition took a remarkable approach that let peasants vote themselves into freedom.
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...
8th Nov 2023
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.
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 1: Introduction, Phoenix to Miller Canyon
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini...
22nd Sep 2024
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini vacations. Due to the variations in her work schedule, Laura had two blocks of time - a five-day chunk in early August, and six days in early September - and we wanted to make the...
Chris Grossack's...
$F_2 \times F_2$ is Incoherent -- A Polite Spectral Sequence Computation
Yesterday I watched my friend Jialin Wang defend her thesis,
and as part of her background section...
3rd Sep 2025
Yesterday I watched my friend Jialin Wang defend her thesis,
and as part of her background section she mentioned that the group
$F_2 \times F_2$ is incoherent in the sense that it has a subgroup
that’s finitely generated and not finitely presented. I was curious how
one might...
Works in Progress...
The beauty of concrete
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately...
17th May 2024
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.
Beautiful Public...
San Diego Photologs from the 1970s
A collection of beautiful, high-resolution photolog scans reveals a colorful world of pastel-colored...
23rd Jun 2026
A collection of beautiful, high-resolution photolog scans reveals a colorful world of pastel-colored cars and whimsical signage.
nanoscale views
OMB proposed rule changes - act now
For non-US folks, feel free to skip.
For US folks: The Office of Management and Budget, which for...
6th Jul 2026
For non-US folks, feel free to skip.
For US folks: The Office of Management and Budget, which for much of its history has been a comparatively uncontroversial element of the executive branch, has set rules and guidelines for how many executive-branch agencies conduct business...
Willem Pennings
Table tennis scoreboard
Last year, my uncles asked me to design an electronic table tennis scoreboard. Apparently, what they...
11th Nov 2025
Last year, my uncles asked me to design an electronic table tennis scoreboard. Apparently, what they wanted wasn’t for sale (at least not in New Zealand). Since they’re very enthusiastic about the game, I agreed and created a design. It features: I’m using an ESP32...
Long Now
Bjorn Lomborg: From Feel-Good to High-Yield Good: How to Improve Philanthropy and Aid
## Doing Good...
14th Mar 2017
## Doing Good Better
[](https://media.longnow.org/files/2/lomborghaiti.jpg)
**Lomborg opened with a photo from Haiti** , showing a young girl dressed for school wading through the muck and garbage of a slum, with pigs...
Peder M. Isager
Why experiments are considered gold standard for answering causal questions
In this blog post, I will briefly explain why experimental designs are considered so valuable by...
7th Aug 2025
In this blog post, I will briefly explain why experimental designs are considered so valuable by scientists and why we often insist that randomized experiments are necessary for answering causal questions. I will use a practical example to illustrate this point. If you’re new to...
Yale E360
Alaska Wolf Found With Record Amount of Mercury, a Sign of Growing Contamination
When Alaska’s wolves began eating sea otters, it looked like a story of adaptation. Then they...
2nd Jan 2026
When Alaska’s wolves began eating sea otters, it looked like a story of adaptation. Then they started getting sick.
Read more on E360 →
Interaction Magic -...
The last design you'll ever make
Designing from cradle to grave is no longer good enough. We need to postpone that grave as long as...
7th Dec 2021
Designing from cradle to grave is no longer good enough. We need to postpone that grave as long as possible. This is how to design for a right to repair.
The Works in...
Issue 12: Houston, we have a solution
Plus: How Mexico built its state, the causes of the Baby Boom, and the 141-year quest for a malaria...
7th Sep 2023
Plus: How Mexico built its state, the causes of the Baby Boom, and the 141-year quest for a malaria vaccine.
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3
The post Heads Up: Total...
25th Feb 2026
Information on the total eclipse of the Moon coming the morning of March 3
The post Heads Up: Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming March 3 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Quantum Frontiers
The quantum gold rush
Even if you don’t recognize the name, you probably recognize the saguaro cactus. It’s the archetype...
18th Mar 2024
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 →
The Quanta Podcast
Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because...
4th Jun 2020
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes.
The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Patient Messaging Conundrum pt. 2 | Out-Of-Pocket
Some thoughts from an academic, a behavioral scientist, a patient, and more
3rd Oct 2023
Some thoughts from an academic, a behavioral scientist, a patient, and more
Eukaryote Writes...
A love letter to civilian OSINT
What is civilian OSINT, and could it be used altruistically?
10th Jul 2020
What is civilian OSINT, and could it be used altruistically?
Casey Handmer's blog
Dittemore’s Law
A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror...
17th Jan 2025
A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center in Florida commemorates the 25 US astronauts who have died in flight. Ron Dittemore is the retired former Space Shuttle program manager who was...
Beautiful Public...
The United States Frequency Allocation Chart
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s...
6th Feb 2023
This crazy, beautiful chart illustrates the incredible complexity of managing one of our nation’s most crucial – and invisible – national assets: the radio spectrum.
Probably...
Confidence In the Press
This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com...
4th Jan 2025
This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s based on Chapter 16, which is part of the political alignment case study. You can read the complete example here, or run the Jupyter notebook 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...
8th Oct 2024
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...
Conservation...
New atlas charts a path for a landscape in crisis
6th May 2026
Drew Ex Machina
GOES Video of Solar Eclipse – October 14, 2023
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14,...
14th Oct 2023
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023 was no different. Unlike a total solar eclipse where the […]
Long Now
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought
### Dispatches from Extremistan
A "black swan," Taleb explained, is an event which is 1) Hard to...
5th Feb 2008
### Dispatches from Extremistan
A "black swan," Taleb explained, is an event which is 1) Hard to predict; 2) Highly consequential; 3) Wrongly retro-predicted. We pretend we know why the big event happened, and so entrench our inability to deal with the next world-changing...
Uncharted...
The Top 50 US Cities: Why Are They Where They Are?
The geographic and historical reasons that have made some spots in the country the most populated...
8th Jan 2025
The geographic and historical reasons that have made some spots in the country the most populated ones
Out-of-Pocket Blog
AI in healthcare - defensibility, capabilities, and cost reduction | Out-Of-Pocket
17th May 2024
Eukaryote Writes...
The rare, deadly virus lurking in the Southwest US, and the bigger picture
If you live in this one county in California, you might be more likely to die from Sin Nombre Virus...
14th Nov 2025
If you live in this one county in California, you might be more likely to die from Sin Nombre Virus than in a car crash.
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...
20th Jul 2024
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 […]
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...
2nd Jun 2024
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...
Long Now
Ray Kurzweil: Kurzweil's Law
### Escape velocity
Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of...
24th Sep 2005
### Escape velocity
Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of imagining that the pace of the future is like the pace of the past. Pondering the next ten years, we usually begin by studying the last ten years. He recommends studying the last...
Quantum Frontiers
What does it mean to create a topological qubit?
I’ve worked on topological quantum computation, one of Alexei Kitaev’s brilliant innovations, for...
6th Mar 2025
I’ve worked on topological quantum computation, one of Alexei Kitaev’s brilliant innovations, for around 15 years now. It’s hard to find a more beautiful physics problem, combining spectacular quantum phenomena (non-Abelian anyons) with the promise of transformative...
Asterisk
AI After Drug Development
Coming up with drug candidates isn’t the bottleneck on finding new treatments. Can AI help with the...
1st Jan 1970
Coming up with drug candidates isn’t the bottleneck on finding new treatments. Can AI help with the things that are?
The Roots of...
The Spirit We Lost, part 1
Previously: The Unlimited Horizon, part 1 and part 2.
On a fine day late in May, 1883, hundreds of...
30th Sep 2025
Previously: The Unlimited Horizon, part 1 and part 2.
On a fine day late in May, 1883, hundreds of thousands of people gathered along the East River in New York City for a grand celebration.1 Perhaps a hundred thousand came from outside the city: by train, by boat, by wagon from...
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...
16th Nov 2020
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...
The Quanta Podcast
Why Am I Left-Handed?
Why are only 10% of people left-handed? Geneticists, developmental biologists, neuroscientists, and...
4th Aug 2026
Why are only 10% of people left-handed? Geneticists, developmental biologists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists have all sought explanations, resulting in an astronomical amount of research into the mystery of handedness. No one has put all the pieces together yet,...
Probably...
Planning for your midlife crisis
Yesterday I presented a talk at ODSC East 2026, called “Counterfactual Analysis with Bayesian...
1st May 2026
Yesterday I presented a talk at ODSC East 2026, called “Counterfactual Analysis with Bayesian Models: What Drives the Life Expectancy Gap?” Here’s the abstract Across nearly every country in the world, women live longer than men—but the size of this gap varies from about two...
The Quanta Podcast
A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance...
1st Apr 2021
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes.
The post A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Stephen Wolfram...
Towards a Computational Formalization for Foundations of Medicine
A Theory of Medicine? As it’s practiced today, medicine is almost always about particulars: “this...
3rd Feb 2025
A Theory of Medicine? As it’s practiced today, medicine is almost always about particulars: “this has gone wrong; this is how to fix it”. But might it also be possible to talk about medicine in a more general, more abstract way—and perhaps to create a framework in which one can...
Long Now
Will Hearst & Chris Anderson: The Long Time Tail
### The power law is the shape of our age
You know something is up when an audience member is...
31st May 2006
### The power law is the shape of our age
You know something is up when an audience member is taking cell phone photos of the presenter's slides for instant transmittal to a business partner.
Chris Anderson does have killer slides, full of exuberant detail, defining the exact...
The Quanta Podcast
To Make Sense of the Present, Brains May Predict the Future
A controversial theory suggests that perception, motor control, memory and other brain functions all...
9th May 2019
A controversial theory suggests that perception, motor control, memory and other brain functions all depend on comparisons between ongoing actual experiences and the brain’s modeled expectations.
The post To Make Sense of the Present, Brains May Predict the Future...
Stephen Wolfram...
In Memory of My Wife, Elise Cawley (1961–2026), with Thanks for 36 Wonderful Years
4th Aug 2026
Wanderingspace
ISS Looks Like a Toy
These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are...
4th Jul 2021
These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are real. Each frame is taken with ground based amateur telescopes and then pieced together with common image software like Adobe Photoshop.
It is incredible to me that there are people...
Long Now
Sylvia Earle & Tierney Thys: Oceanic
### Oceans alive
Neither of them eats fish.
Both marine biologists applaud the improved regulation...
21st May 2014
### Oceans alive
Neither of them eats fish.
Both marine biologists applaud the improved regulation of American fishing and the resulting recovery of important fisheries, but they note that 90% of our seafood is imported, and one-third of that is caught illegally. Two-thirds of...
Casey Handmer's blog
Direct Current Data Centers
Casey Handmer, Matt Weickert Originally posted at the Terraform Blog. This post explains our current...
30th Jan 2026
Casey Handmer, Matt Weickert Originally posted at the Terraform Blog. This post explains our current views on how humanity will achieve Kardashev Level 1 status by exploiting the full energy resources of an entire planet. More specifically, how pure solar+batteries will power AI...
Yale E360
In an Already Broiling Summer, El Niño Is About to Turn Up the Heat
El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe,...
3rd Aug 2026
El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization. The forecast comes as blistering heat shatters temperature records from Europe to Asia.
Read more on E360 →
Quantum Frontiers
Nicole’s guide to handling failure and rejection
It’s happening. Your inbox registers an email from the chair of a faculty-hiring committee. With...
21st May 2026
It’s happening. Your inbox registers an email from the chair of a faculty-hiring committee. With trembling fingers, you click on the message. “We’ve been grateful for the opportunity to learn about your work…The decision was very difficult…many highly qualified candidates…” …...
NeuroLogica Blog
Brain As Receiver Is Still Wrong
I have a love-hate relationship with TikTok, as I do social media in general. It is a great...
2nd Apr 2026
I have a love-hate relationship with TikTok, as I do social media in general. It is a great communication tool and allows scientists and science communicators to get their content out to a larger audience cheaply and easily. If you know how to use the internet and social media as...
Long Now
Rip Anderson & Gwyneth Cravens: Power to Save the World
### Nuclear Footprint
In the early 1980s Gwyneth Cravens was one of the protesters against the...
15th Sep 2007
### Nuclear Footprint
In the early 1980s Gwyneth Cravens was one of the protesters against the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant on Long Island, and also participated in ban-the-bomb rallies. After 15 years of deepening familiarity with nuclear power, she says she still would ban the...
Probably...
Think Java, but interactive
The online version of Think Java now features interactive widgets that run the code examples in the...
3 weeks ago
The online version of Think Java now features interactive widgets that run the code examples in the browser. For readers, it means you can try out the examples, modify them, and test your code. And for us it means we can publish an interactive version of the book without...
Interaction Magic -...
Orientation
Using Mahony & Madgwick to calibrate and process Arduino orientation data.
1st Jul 2018
Using Mahony & Madgwick to calibrate and process Arduino orientation data.
Quanta Magazine
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...
1st Apr 2024
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
The Quanta Podcast
Ants Live 10 Times Longer by Altering Their Insulin Responses
Queen ants live far longer than genetically identical workers. Researchers are learning what their...
7th Jun 2023
Queen ants live far longer than genetically identical workers. Researchers are learning what their longevity secrets could mean for aging in other species. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Good Times” by Patrick Patrikios.
Long Now
David Eagleman: The Brain and The Now
### The Brain’s Now
Our perception of time raises all sorts of questions, Eagleman began. “Why does...
5th Oct 2016
### The Brain’s Now
Our perception of time raises all sorts of questions, Eagleman began. “Why does time seem to slow down when you’re scared? And why does it seem to speed up as you get older?”
With an onscreen demonstration, Eagleman showed that “Time is actively constructed...
The Quanta Podcast
The Fundamental Tension at the Heart of Math
We tend to think of math as all about logic and rigor. But what “rigor” actually means has been...
7th Apr 2026
We tend to think of math as all about logic and rigor. But what “rigor” actually means has been shaken up quite a few times over the past few centuries. The newest attempt to formalize math comes in the form of the computer program Lean. Mathematicians have mixed feelings. On...
Drew Ex Machina
Drew Ex Machina 10th Anniversary: Top Ten Posts
I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my...
27th Mar 2024
I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my then-new website, Drew Ex Machina. […]
Long Now
Rachel Sussman: The World's Oldest Living Organisms
### The Missing Science of Biological Longevity
Creative photographer Sussman showed beautiful...
16th Nov 2010
### The Missing Science of Biological Longevity
Creative photographer Sussman showed beautiful slides of very elderly organisms. The captions were as crucial as the images---naming the species, the place, and the approximate age. You can see many of them here:...
Long Now
Daniel Suarez: Daemon: Bot-mediated Reality
### Bot-dominated Reality
[Daniel Suarez, originally published as Leinad Zaurus, delivered a talk...
9th Aug 2008
### Bot-dominated Reality
[Daniel Suarez, originally published as Leinad Zaurus, delivered a talk on the themes developed in his (originally self published) book __Daemon__. The book is now scheduled to be released in hard cover in January 02009 by Dutton.]
Forget about...
The Quanta Podcast
A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a...
12th Apr 2018
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors.
The post A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Conservation...
‘Surf and turf’ can have carbon footprint of cross-country road trip: study
16th Jan 2024
Stephen Wolfram...
Nestedly Recursive Functions
Yet Another Ruliological Surprise Integers. Addition. Subtraction. Maybe multiplication. Surely...
27th Sep 2024
Yet Another Ruliological Surprise Integers. Addition. Subtraction. Maybe multiplication. Surely that’s not enough to be able to generate any serious complexity. In the early 1980s I had made the very surprising discovery that very simple programs based on cellular automata could...
Eukaryote Writes...
Book review: Air-borne by Carl Zimmer
Man, it’s embarrassing to be part of a field of study (biosecurity, in this case) that had such a...
15th Jun 2025
Man, it’s embarrassing to be part of a field of study (biosecurity, in this case) that had such a public moment of unambiguously whiffing it.
Interaction Magic -...
Interaction20 Round-up
Summary of all the amazing, curious and challenging ideas from last week's IXDA Interaction 20...
13th Feb 2020
Summary of all the amazing, curious and challenging ideas from last week's IXDA Interaction 20 conference.
NeuroLogica Blog
Clickbait and Misinformation
Which is worse – clickbaity headlines for news articles that are factually correct, but may be...
3rd Jun 2024
Which is worse – clickbaity headlines for news articles that are factually correct, but may be playing up a sensational angle, or straight-up misinformation? It depends on what you mean by “worse”. A new study tries to address this information, with some interesting findings....
Long Now
Paul Hawken: The Long Green
### The long green
The environmental movement has moved on. It has become so deep and wide that it...
16th Oct 2004
### The long green
The environmental movement has moved on. It has become so deep and wide that it adds up to something new entirely, still unnamed. Whatever it is, it is now the largest movement in the world and the least ideological. Driven by science and patience, it is...
Long Now
Kevin Kelly: The Next 100 Years of Science: Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method.
### Recursion drives science
The co-founding editor of “Wired” magazine and author of _Out of...
11th Mar 2006
### Recursion drives science
The co-founding editor of “Wired” magazine and author of _Out of Control_ is working on a new book on “what technology wants.” His research led to the first-ever history of scientific methodology. Starting from this long-term view of science’s past...
Long Now
Lynn Rothschild: Nature’s Hardware Store
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been...
5th Nov 2025
What if the solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges — on Earth and beyond — have already been invented by nature? In this forward-looking talk, evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist Dr. Lynn Rothschild explores how life’s patterns, materials, and mechanisms, refined over...
lcamtuf’s thing
How many dimensions is this?
A degree in mathematics might not save you from stacking boxes for a living.
3rd Sep 2025
A degree in mathematics might not save you from stacking boxes for a living.
Sean Carroll
331 | Solo: Fine-Tuning, God, and the Multiverse
Certain features of our universe seem unnatural to us. These include "constants of nature" such as...
6th Oct 2025
Certain features of our universe seem unnatural to us. These include "constants of nature" such as the cosmological constant and […]
Beautiful Public...
WWII Japanese Mass Incarceration collections
Haunting photos and documents document a shameful chapter of America’s history—the forced...
18th Mar 2025
Haunting photos and documents document a shameful chapter of America’s history—the forced displacement and incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII.
Long Now
Paul Hawken: The New Great Transformation
### Humanity's immune system
The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has...
9th Jun 2007
### Humanity's immune system
The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has two referents, he explained. Economist Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, _The Great Transformation_ , said that the "market society" and modern nation state emerged together in Europe after...
Quanta Magazine
Microbes Gained Photosynthesis Superpowers From a ‘Proton Pump’
New research reveals how marine microbes use an extra membrane that once had digestive functions to...
5th Jul 2023
New research reveals how marine microbes use an extra membrane that once had digestive functions to boost their yield from photosynthesis.
The post Microbes Gained Photosynthesis Superpowers From a ‘Proton Pump’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
NASA Ames Research Center Archives
In the heart of Silicon Valley, NASA Ames Research Center has the world's largest wind tunnel, and a...
22nd May 2025
In the heart of Silicon Valley, NASA Ames Research Center has the world's largest wind tunnel, and a rich history of space and aeronautics innovation captured in a fascinating visual archive.
The Quanta Podcast
A Good Memory or a Bad One? One Brain Molecule Decides.
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will...
4th Jan 2023
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will go. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Retro” by Wayne Jones.
Long Now
Michael Tubbs: Upsetting the Setup: Creating a California for All
Governance moves slow.
The work of the politician and the public servant ought to inherently be...
16th Aug 2022
Governance moves slow.
The work of the politician and the public servant ought to inherently be one of long-term thinking — of taking in concerns both urgent and longstanding and crafting solutions to them that will live on beyond any official’s term of office.
As Mayor of...
NeuroLogica Blog
City Planning and CO2 Emissions
In Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel he imagines a future in which most of humanity lives in...
1st Jun 2026
In Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel he imagines a future in which most of humanity lives in gigantic cities, extending many levels underground. This leaves the majority of the Earth’s surface for industrial farming, necessary to feed all those densely populated cities. If you...
ToughSF
NTER: Nuclear Thermal-Electric Rocket
There
is a type of nuclear propulsion that can have most of the acceleration of a nuclear thermal...
27th Sep 2019
There
is a type of nuclear propulsion that can have most of the acceleration of a nuclear thermal rocket but also the high Isp of an electric thruster.
Let’s have a look at nuclear ‘thermal-electric’ engines and
their advantages.
The title image is from 'dV: Rings of...
Quantum Frontiers
Building a Visceral Understanding of Quantum Phenomena
A great childhood memory that I have comes from first playing “The Incredible Machine” on PC in the...
6th Aug 2024
A great childhood memory that I have comes from first playing “The Incredible Machine” on PC in the early 90’s. For those not in the know, this is a physics-based puzzle game about building Rube Goldberg style contraptions to achieve … Continue reading →
lcamtuf’s thing
Weekend trivia: your process' memory is a file
The underappreciated gem of /proc/
/mem
1st Jun 2026
The underappreciated gem of /proc/
/mem
Long Now
Adrian Hon: A History of the Future in 100 Objects
### Future artifacts
Speaking from 02082, Hon described 5 (of 100) objects and events from this...
17th Jul 2014
### Future artifacts
Speaking from 02082, Hon described 5 (of 100) objects and events from this century’s history he felt most strongly evoked the astonishing trends that have transformed humanity in the past 8 decades.
Not all developments proved to be positive. One such was...
The Quanta Podcast
Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed
Some researchers are using a complexity framework thought to be purely theoretical to understand...
31st Oct 2019
Some researchers are using a complexity framework thought to be purely theoretical to understand evolutionary dynamics in biological and computational systems.
The post Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Unleashing the Advantage of Quantum AI
As experimental capabilities advance rapidly, the quantum computing community faces a critical...
10th Apr 2026
As experimental capabilities advance rapidly, the quantum computing community faces a critical elephant in the room: What will these quantum machines eventually be useful for? Will they deliver the promised broad societal impact, or will they remain highly specialized devices …...
Uncharted...
Iran: The Day After
What's going to happen in the coming days and weeks?
3rd Mar 2026
What's going to happen in the coming days and weeks?
Chris Grossack's...
Talk -- What is Algebraic Geometry and Why Should You Care?
So an embarrassing amount of time ago (Feburary 17?) I gave a talk for the
undergraduate math club...
1st May 2023
So an embarrassing amount of time ago (Feburary 17?) I gave a talk for the
undergraduate math club titled
“What is Algebraic Geometry, and Why Should You Care?”. I think it went quite
well, and the audience seemed like they had a good time. I really wanted to
have the talk...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Ridiculous Mothing At Trus Madi Entomology Camp
When doing research on the few possible "lifer" birds that I could find on this trip to Sabah, and...
14th Dec 2024
When doing research on the few possible "lifer" birds that I could find on this trip to Sabah, and in particular, looking for sites to find the Bornean Frogmouth, I read about the Trus Madi Entomology Camp. This piqued my interest, as there is almost nothing I like more than...
IEEE Spectrum
How the Designer of the First Hydrogen Bomb Got the Gig
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE...
2nd Sep 2024
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE Life Fellow has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, France’s La Grande Médaille de l’Académie des Sciences, and is one of just a handful of people...
Quantum Frontiers
Mo’ heights mo’ challenges – Climbing mount grad school
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride,...
4th Oct 2022
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride, Colorado. We spent ten days in Telluride, where I spoke at the Information Engines at the Frontiers of Nanoscale Thermodynamics workshop. Telluride is a gorgeous … Continue reading...
Quanta Magazine
Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in...
2nd Jul 2025
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan.
The post Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms first appeared on Quanta...
Peder M. Isager
Introducing Causion: A web app for playing with DAGs
Causion is a free web app for building causal diagrams (DAGs) and then watching them behave—by...
21st Jan 2026
Causion is a free web app for building causal diagrams (DAGs) and then watching them behave—by simulating data and switching from observation to intervention with do(). Try it now:
https://causion.pedermisager.org/ (it runs in your browser)
Wanderingspace
Dust Storm On Mars
A dust storm in Olympia Planum's north polar dune fields was triggered by a late Martian summer cold...
8th Apr 2024
A dust storm in Olympia Planum's north polar dune fields was triggered by a late Martian summer cold front. As the northern polar cap shrinks fast, it releases cold air that sometimes moves south, like on Earth. These cold fronts strengthen in late summer and early fall due to...
Works in Progress...
Advancing antivenom
Snakebites kill between 80,000 and 140,000 people every year. Better antivenom should be a high...
8th Dec 2022
Snakebites kill between 80,000 and 140,000 people every year. Better antivenom should be a high priority – thankfully new technology can help.
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printing With Metallic Gel
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive...
6th Jul 2023
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive manufacturing). 3D printing has already created a revolution in manufacturing, but I think the general public does not have a high awareness of this technology because it is not yet at the...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: The stats gap
Students understand just enough statistics to get by
4th Jan 2023
Students understand just enough statistics to get by
Light from Space
The Rosette Nebula
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring...
26th Feb 2023
Next to the Orion Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is definitely a must-do on the list of every aspiring astrophotographer. Located not too far from Orion in Monoceros, this large H II region has spectacular features, centered around a star cluster.
Click or tap to...
Long Now
Kevin Kelly: The Next 30 Digital Years
## Digital is just getting started
In Kevin Kelly’s view, a dozen “inevitable” trends will drive...
15th Jul 2016
## Digital is just getting started
In Kevin Kelly’s view, a dozen “inevitable” trends will drive the next 30 years of digital progress. Artificial smartnesses, for example, will be added to everything, all quite different from human intelligence and from each other. We will tap...
IEEE Spectrum
Sci-fi and Hi-fi
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire...
4th Mar 2024
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire companies around an idea introduced in a story they read, as the founders of Second Life and Meta did, working from the metaverse as imagined by Neal Stephenson in his seminal 1992...
Long Now
David Grinspoon: Earth in Human Hands
## Cognitive planet
**Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people...
20th Sep 2017
## Cognitive planet
**Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people say we are entering an Anthropocene Epoch, Grinspoon began, but what if the term “epoch” understates the consequence of what is going on? Astrobiologists recently learned that...
Yale E360
A Home Battery Revolution Is Reshaping the Power Grid
As residential batteries have become more energy dense, cheaper, and smaller, more households are...
1st Jul 2026
As residential batteries have become more energy dense, cheaper, and smaller, more households are storing their excess solar power. Now, utilities and energy companies in dozens of countries are buying up those electrons, bundling them together, and using them to balance the...
Stephen Wolfram...
Can AI Solve Science?
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for...
5th Mar 2024
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for training the neural nets used here is also available (requires GPU). Won’t AI Eventually Be Able to Do Everything? Particularly given its recent surprise successes, there’s a somewhat...
Apoorva Srinivasan
niceR code with functional programming
At the end of this blog post, you will be able to:
Describe functional programming concepts
Write...
15th Oct 2020
At the end of this blog post, you will be able to:
Describe functional programming concepts
Write functional programming code using purrr package in R
If you are anything like me, you probably focused primarily on learning statistics, machine learning and programming on a...
Long Now
Lawrence Lessig: How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It
### Public Funding for Public Elections
Larry Lessig gave a rousing performance for the 100th...
18th Jan 2012
### Public Funding for Public Elections
Larry Lessig gave a rousing performance for the 100th Seminar About Long-Term Thinking. In a lawyerly fashion he laid out evidence of a new type of corruption that is disrupting the American republic, and he offered a remedy for that...
The Quanta Podcast
A World Without Clouds
A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming...
2nd Jan 2020
A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century.
The post A World Without Clouds first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
A New Blast May Have Forged Cosmic Gold
For decades, researchers believed that violent supernovas forged gold and other heavy elements. But...
18th May 2017
For decades, researchers believed that violent supernovas forged gold and other heavy elements. But many now argue for a different cosmic quarry.
The post A New Blast May Have Forged Cosmic Gold first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Geoffrey B West: Why Cities Keep on Growing, Corporations Always Die, and Life Gets Faster
### Superlinear Cities
"It's hard to kill a city," West began, "but easy to kill a company." The...
26th Jul 2011
### Superlinear Cities
"It's hard to kill a city," West began, "but easy to kill a company." The mean life of companies is 10 years. Cities routinely survive even nuclear bombs. And "cities are the crucible of civilization." They are the major source of innovation and wealth...
Inverted Passion
Getting things done by not trying
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned....
20th Oct 2024
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned. It’s an unconventional self-help book disguised as a computer science research exposition (that’s why the publisher is Springer). I strongly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of...
Long Now
Rick Prelinger: Lost Landscapes of San Francisco, 5
### Lives of San Francisco
"You are the soundtrack," Prelinger told the capacity audience at the...
17th Dec 2010
### Lives of San Francisco
"You are the soundtrack," Prelinger told the capacity audience at the Herbst Theater, and they responded to his mostly silent archival films by calling out locations, questions, comments, and jokes.
They saw footage of a 1941 Market Street parade of...
Works in Progress...
How to write for Works in Progress
We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.
4th Apr 2025
We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: An environmentalist gets lunch
Why being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one
5th Sep 2022
Why being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one
Marine Madness
Culture Club: Time to let the cetaceans in?
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent...
29th Jul 2021
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent studies shine a light on the fact that non-human animals including Cetaceans (dolphins and whales), may also possess it. They live in tightly-knit social communities, exhibit...
Quanta Magazine
‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback
You’re carrying around in your head a model of how the world works. Will AI systems need to do the...
2nd Sep 2025
You’re carrying around in your head a model of how the world works. Will AI systems need to do the same?
The post ‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Congratulations, class of 2025! Words from a new graduate
Editor’s note (Nicole Yunger Halpern): Jade LeSchack, the Quantum Steampunk Laboratory’s first...
10th Jun 2025
Editor’s note (Nicole Yunger Halpern): Jade LeSchack, the Quantum Steampunk Laboratory’s first undergraduate, received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland this spring. Kermit the Frog presented the valedictory address, but Jade gave the following speech at the...
The Roots of...
Event, Feb 29: “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” in Boston and on Zoom
On Thursday, February 29, I’ll be giving my talk “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” to the New...
21st Feb 2024
On Thursday, February 29, I’ll be giving my talk “Towards a New Philosophy of Progress” to the New England Legal Foundation, for their Economic Liberty Speaker Series. The talk will be held over breakfast at NELF’s offices in Boston, and will also be livestreamed over Zoom. See...
Long Now
Robert Fuller: Patient Revolution: Human Rights Past and Future
### The culminating human right
What does it take to change human habits of cruelty (such as...
13th Aug 2005
### The culminating human right
What does it take to change human habits of cruelty (such as slavery, genocide) and humiliation (racism, sexism)?
What do past and present efforts for human rights tell about their future?…
Robert Fuller is author of the ground-breaking...
Asterisk
Scam Cities
Criminal networks throughout Southeast Asia are demonstrating the dangers of making “the ultimate...
6th Oct 2025
Criminal networks throughout Southeast Asia are demonstrating the dangers of making “the ultimate exit.”
Conservation...
Bolivia brings an Incan legend to life with new protected park
3rd Nov 2025
Works in Progress...
Reclaiming the roads
Until recently, roads were shared between a messy mix of cyclists, stagecoaches, carts, horses, and...
21st Jul 2022
Until recently, roads were shared between a messy mix of cyclists, stagecoaches, carts, horses, and pedestrians, with no dominant user.
Asterisk
You’re Invited to a Colonoscopy!
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost...
1st Oct 2023
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost nowhere else. But do they work? We finally have a comprehensive trial, but it’s left gastroenterologists with more questions than answers.
The Quanta Podcast
The Incredible Shrinking Sex Chromosome
Nature offers species a panoply of ways to determine an organism’s sex. That flexibility suggests we...
10th Dec 2015
Nature offers species a panoply of ways to determine an organism’s sex. That flexibility suggests we need not be concerned about losing sex chromosomes, but it raises the question of why such a fundamental property is so variable.
The post The Incredible Shrinking Sex...
The Quanta Podcast
Why Earth’s Cracked Crust May Be Essential for Life
Life needs more than water alone. Recent discoveries suggest that plate tectonics has played a...
11th Apr 2019
Life needs more than water alone. Recent discoveries suggest that plate tectonics has played a critical role in nourishing life on Earth. The findings carry major consequences for the search for life elsewhere in the universe.
The post Why Earth’s Cracked Crust May Be...
Long Now
Joline Blais & Jon Ippolito: At the Edge of Art
### Artibodies
Art, like the antibodies in our immune system, creates alien forces in service of...
15th Dec 2007
### Artibodies
Art, like the antibodies in our immune system, creates alien forces in service of the whole. It anticipates threats and models them. It is a diversity agent.
Two forms of that process were explained and shown by Ippolito and Blais: perversion, and execution.
One...
SubAnima
Have We Already Found Life On Mars?
Definitions are a funny thing..
4th May 2022
Definitions are a funny thing..
NeuroLogica Blog
Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet...
2nd May 2024
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet we know comparatively little about them. But in recent years phage research has taken off with renewed interest. This is partly driven by the availability of CRISPR-based tools for...
wadertales
How do wader chicks respond to being handled?
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they...
5th Oct 2024
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they are studying. Given that most shorebird species are in trouble or causing concern, conservation science is a tricky balancing act between ‘need to understand’ and ‘disturbance’. In...
Long Now
Julia Galef: Soldiers and Scouts: Why our minds weren't built for truth, and how we can change that
An expert on rationality, judgement, and strategy, Julia Galef notes that "our capacity for reason...
19th Sep 2018
An expert on rationality, judgement, and strategy, Julia Galef notes that "our capacity for reason evolved to serve two very different purposes that are often at odds with each other. On the one hand, reason helps us figure out what’s true; on the other hand, it also helps us...
Quantum Frontiers
Sculpting quantum steampunk
In 2020, many of us logged experiences that we’d never anticipated. I wrote a nonfiction book and...
28th Oct 2024
In 2020, many of us logged experiences that we’d never anticipated. I wrote a nonfiction book and got married outside the Harvard Faculty Club (because nobody was around to shoo us away). Equally unexpectedly, I received an invitation to collaborate … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
6th Nov 2023
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional wisdom, but I’m not so sure. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted that AI would “make paid work redundant.” I encountered the same opinion watching the latest season of...
Long Now
Jesse Ausubel: Nature is Rebounding
### Why nature is rebounding
Over the last 40 years, in nearly every field, human productivity has...
14th Jan 2015
### Why nature is rebounding
Over the last 40 years, in nearly every field, human productivity has _decoupled_ from resource use, Ausubel began. Even though our prosperity and population continue to increase, the trends show _decreasing_ use of energy, water, land, material...
Cremieux Recueil
Bad Drugs Get Pulled Fast
Safety issues usually get identified and acted on quickly
3rd Aug 2025
Safety issues usually get identified and acted on quickly
Uncharted...
What Asian Development Can Teach the World
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US...
7th Mar 2025
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US Tariffs, China’s Future, EU Protectionism, Japan’s Zombie Debt, Argentina’s Arrested Development, and more
The Works in...
The San Diego infinite housing glitch
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
2nd Oct 2024
How a bonus ADU program allows 'granny towers' in gardens
IEEE Spectrum
Chuck E. Cheese’s Animatronics Band Bows Out
That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that...
2nd Dec 2024
That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that the company was phasing out the animatronic bands from all but five locations by the end of this year, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. Much to my surprise, I was truly sad that the...
Melting Asphalt
Minimum Viable Superorganism
Originally published at Ribbonfarm. Of all the remarkable things about our species — and there are...
11th Feb 2016
Originally published at Ribbonfarm. Of all the remarkable things about our species — and there are many — perhaps the most striking of all is our ability to band together and act as a united, coherent superorganism. E pluribus unum.…
Read more ›
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Earthrise from Apollo 8 – December 24, 1968
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by...
24th Dec 2023
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the US with many political and cultural changes punctuated by the assassination of prominent public figures, violent protests […]
Wanderingspace
OSIRIS-REX Leaves Bennu
The OSIRIS-REX mission in on a two year trajectory back to Earth after capturing fragments of the...
12th May 2021
The OSIRIS-REX mission in on a two year trajectory back to Earth after capturing fragments of the near Earth asteroid Bennu after successfully executing a sample touchdown last fall. [LINK]
The sampling of of the asteroid’s surface is shown above.
Long Now
Niall Ferguson: Networks and Power
“This time is different.”
Historians: “Ha.”
“The Net is net beneficial.”
Historian Niall...
13th Dec 2018
“This time is different.”
Historians: “Ha.”
“The Net is net beneficial.”
Historian Niall Ferguson: “Globalization is in crisis. Populism is on the march. Authoritarian states are ascendant. Technology meanwhile marches inexorably ahead, threatening to render most human beings...
Asterisk
Saving Academics from Themselves
The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
1st Jul 2026
The university will survive AI. That doesn’t mean we’ll like what it turns into.
Long Now
Jane Langdale: Radical Ag: C4 Rice and Beyond
## Revolutionary rice
Feeding the world (and saving nature) in this populous century, Jane Langdale...
15th Mar 2016
## Revolutionary rice
Feeding the world (and saving nature) in this populous century, Jane Langdale began, depends entirely on agricultural efficiency—the ability to turn a given amount of land and sunlight into ever more food. And that depends on three forms of efficiency in...
Marine Madness
Book club: ‘Being Salmon Being Human’ by Martin Lee Mueller
Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild Norwegian and Pacific Northwest salmon industries...
1st Jun 2021
Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild Norwegian and Pacific Northwest salmon industries remain largely overlooked and Martin Lee Mueller cleverly weaves the stories of artificially inseminated and reared salmon to highlight the long-standing notion of human...
Works in Progress...
Liberté, égalité, radioactivité
France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow...
4th Sep 2025
France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow their lead today.
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...
1st Jun 2023
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the same mistakes with AI?
Damn Interesting
Pushing the Envelope
As is often the case with people in dangerous professions, the Apollo astronauts found that life...
15th Apr 2021
As is often the case with people in dangerous professions, the Apollo astronauts found that life insurance policies were prohibitively expensive. Rather than pay the exorbitant insurance fees, the astronauts devised a system to ensure their wives and children would be financially...
Chris Grossack's...
Estimating a Difference of Products
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last
quick analysis trick....
28th Aug 2023
Wow, it’s been a long time! Both since my last blog post, and since my last
quick analysis trick. But I’ve been itching to
write more blog posts lately, and I thought that something quick and easy like
this would be a good way to get back into it without the kind of effort...
Eukaryote Writes...
23 lessons you will learn living in a very snowy place
6. Snow is heavier than you think.
You might think physical strength is useful for lots of things,...
22nd Jan 2026
6. Snow is heavier than you think.
You might think physical strength is useful for lots of things, like overall health or familiar household tasks or picking up dudes (literally or metaphorically.) But actually, the main thing physical strength is useful for is letting you...
The Works in...
The end of lead
How a single taxi ride saved millions of lives
3rd Jul 2025
How a single taxi ride saved millions of lives
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,...
3rd Aug 2023
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,...
Long Now
Brian Fagan: We Are Not the First to Suffer Through Climate Change
### Catastrophic drought is coming back
There are two kinds of historians, Brian Fagan says,...
10th Mar 2007
### Catastrophic drought is coming back
There are two kinds of historians, Brian Fagan says, parachutists and truffle hunters. Parachutists command an overview of the landscape, while truffle hunters dig deeply to uncover marvelous treasures. Fagan is a parachutist. In his talk...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th
A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th.
The post An Eclipse...
23rd Mar 2024
A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th.
The post An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
IEEE Spectrum
This 1945 TV Console Showed Two Programs at Once
As I try to write this article, my friend and I have six different screens attached to three types...
3rd Jul 2025
As I try to write this article, my friend and I have six different screens attached to three types of devices. We’re working in the same room but on our own projects—separate yet together, a comfortable companionship.
I had never really thought of the proliferation of screens as...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Future Tech Possibilities
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see...
1st Feb 2024
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see what happens when you try out a new technology in the real world with actual people. Many technologies that look good on paper run into logistical problems, difficulty scaling, fall...
Stephen Wolfram...
New Features Everywhere: Launching Version 14.3 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica
#blog a.bottomstripe { max-width: 100%; }
#blog .post_content .inline-table-of-contents {...
5th Aug 2025
#blog a.bottomstripe { max-width: 100%; }
#blog .post_content .inline-table-of-contents { background-color: #f6fcff; border: solid 1px #bbdbe8; padding: 24px 20px 10px 20px; }
#blog .post_content .inline-table-of-contents div a { color: #19749a; font-size: 14px; line-height:...
Works in Progress...
Escaping science’s paradox
Scientific research today is afflicted by poor reliability and low utility, despite the best efforts...
19th Oct 2020
Scientific research today is afflicted by poor reliability and low utility, despite the best efforts of individual researchers.
Long Now
Peter Calthorpe: Urban Planet
Throughout Peter Calthorpe's decade-spanning career in urban design, planning, and architecture, he...
6th Aug 2020
Throughout Peter Calthorpe's decade-spanning career in urban design, planning, and architecture, he has developed and practiced the key principles of [New Urbanism](https://www.cnu.org/resources/what-new-urbanism): that the most successful places are diverse in uses and users,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Silly little rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket
The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
3rd Jun 2024
The industry is chock full of ‘em, here's 3
Long Now
Stephen Lansing: Perfect Order: A Thousand Years in Bali
### Hidden order in the Balinese "religion of water"
With lucid exposition and gorgeous graphics,...
14th Feb 2006
### Hidden order in the Balinese "religion of water"
With lucid exposition and gorgeous graphics, anthropologist Stephen Lansing exposed the hidden structure and profound health of the traditional Balinese rice growing practices. The intensely productive terraced rice paddies of...
Long Now
Eric Debrah Otchere: Sonic Spaces
Eric Debrah Otchere's research revolves around the power of music in the context of work; covering...
10th Feb 2023
Eric Debrah Otchere's research revolves around the power of music in the context of work; covering an ambitious range from ethnographic research on Ghanaian indigenous fishing culture to personalized musical preferences via modern technology.
Throughout history, the power of...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Coming Up: Einstein without Tears; Religion and Extraterrestrial Life
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The...
29th Sep 2024
Two upcoming events that may be of interest to you (please pass on to others who may like them): The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State Presents: A non-technical, 6-week class with Professor Andrew Fraknoi Einstein without Tears Tuesdays from 12:30 to 2:30...
Eukaryote Writes...
Fiber arts, mysterious dodecahedrons, and waiting on “Eureka!”
Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
4th Aug 2022
Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
Long Now
Larry Brilliant, Richard Rockefeller, & Katherine Fulton: The Deeper News About the New...
### Philanthropic stamina
10,000 families in the US, Katherine Fulton reported, have assets of $100...
4th Nov 2006
### Philanthropic stamina
10,000 families in the US, Katherine Fulton reported, have assets of $100 million or more. That's up from 7,000 just a couple years ago. Most of that money is "on the sidelines." The poor and the middle class are far more generous in their philanthropy,...
Stephen Wolfram...
What’s Special about Life? Bulk Orchestration and the Rulial Ensemble in Biology and Beyond
Towards a Theory of Bulk Orchestration
It’s a key feature of living systems, perhaps even in some...
11th Nov 2025
Towards a Theory of Bulk Orchestration
It’s a key feature of living systems, perhaps even in some ways the key feature: that even right down to a molecular scale, things are orchestrated. Molecules (or at least large ones) don’t just move around randomly, like in a liquid or a...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Real Risk of AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unavoidable. It’s now a part of our daily lives as it has been...
7th Jul 2025
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unavoidable. It’s now a part of our daily lives as it has been steadily infiltrating the technology we use every day, whether you realize it or not. I remain somewhat in the middle in terms of the hype-to-technological-miracle spectrum. I don’t...
wadertales
Making full use of tracking data
This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are...
6th May 2025
This blog has two aims – to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are being revealed through shorebird tracking work and to encourage scientists to make their data available via the Global Wader platform. If small numbers of waders are going to be...
IEEE Spectrum
Edith Clarke: Architect of Modern Power Distribution
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career...
10th Jul 2024
Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career at General Electric in 1922, she was determined to develop stable, more reliable power grids.
During her first years at GE she invented what came to be known as the Clarke...
Interaction Magic -...
Light Engineering
Exploring the physics and engineering of light pipes, where optics and mechanical design meet.
4th Jun 2020
Exploring the physics and engineering of light pipes, where optics and mechanical design meet.
Chris Grossack's...
A truly incredible fact about the number 37
So I was on math stackexchange the other day, and I saw a cute post
looking for a book which lists,...
8th Nov 2023
So I was on math stackexchange the other day, and I saw a cute post
looking for a book which lists, for many many integers, facts that Ramanujan
could have told Hardy if he’d taken a cab other than 1729. A few days ago
OP answered their own question, saying that the book in...
Long Now
George Dyson: There's Plenty of Room at the Top: Long-term Thinking About Large-scale Computing
### Long-term thinking about large-scale computing
Ever since his 1997 breakthrough book, _Darwin...
10th Jan 2004
### Long-term thinking about large-scale computing
Ever since his 1997 breakthrough book, _Darwin Among the Machines_ , Dyson has become regarded as a leading historian and interpreter of computer science, bringing a rigorous and unconventional perspective. Thus his willingness...
Long Now
Wayne Clough: Smithsonian Forever
### The Smithsonian's long now
[Note for those who mentally enunciate words while reading: the last...
18th Aug 2009
### The Smithsonian's long now
[Note for those who mentally enunciate words while reading: the last name is pronounced "Cluff."]
Secretary Clough reminded the audience that we own the Smithsonian, and what that amounts to is 19 museums and galleries containing 137 million...
Inverted Passion
Why frontier labs are scaling-pilled
Investors underwrite scaling laws because the alternative (having an Einstein discover better...
14th Jul 2026
Investors underwrite scaling laws because the alternative (having an Einstein discover better algorithms) is high variance What would it take to make progress towards general intelligence, where general stands for any problem that might arise in our world? Since our world is big...
Marine Madness
Book Club: ‘How To Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea’
In this absolute must-have for all walkers, sailors, swimmers, divers, photographers, and nature...
1st Mar 2022
In this absolute must-have for all walkers, sailors, swimmers, divers, photographers, and nature lovers, Natural Navigator Tristan Gooley shares his knowledge and skills to help you navigate and interpret the water around you. Combining elements of natural navigation history,...
The Quanta Podcast
A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine
Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly...
14th Mar 2019
Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly discovered rocky body has added evidence to the circumstantial case for it.
The post A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine first appeared on Quanta...
The Quanta Podcast
A Bird’s-Eye View of Nature’s Hidden Order
Scientists are exploring a mysterious pattern, found in birds’ eyes, boxes of marbles and other...
5th Aug 2016
Scientists are exploring a mysterious pattern, found in birds’ eyes, boxes of marbles and other surprising places, that is neither regular nor random.
The post A Bird’s-Eye View of Nature’s Hidden Order first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
5th Dec 2024
Plus: animals as chemical factories, how progress lost its glamour, and how Madrid built 120 miles of metro in twelve years.
Drew Ex Machina
Memories of Project RAMOS (Russian American Observation Satellites) 1991 – 2004
During the course of my professional career, one of the more important projects I had the pleasure...
29th Sep 2023
During the course of my professional career, one of the more important projects I had the pleasure to work on was the joint US/Russian Federation (RF) […]
Cremieux Recueil
The Making of an Elite: Japanese Christians
Why are Japanese elites so likely to be Christian when Japan is a 99% non-Christian country?
7th Nov 2025
Why are Japanese elites so likely to be Christian when Japan is a 99% non-Christian country?
Eukaryote Writes...
Did photos of the 1917 Miracle of the Sun at Fatima prove the sun was at an impossible place in the...
I do agree that if these photos showed that the sun was at an odd angle, that would be evidence for...
1st Oct 2025
I do agree that if these photos showed that the sun was at an odd angle, that would be evidence for a miracle. But I read Dalleur (2021) and I’m really not sold that the photos indicate anything celestially weird going on.
NeuroLogica Blog
A Fully Renewable Grid?
My long-stated position (although certainly modifiable in the face of any new evidence,...
2nd Feb 2026
My long-stated position (although certainly modifiable in the face of any new evidence, technological advance, or good arguments) is that the optimal pathway to most rapidly decarbonize our electrical infrastructure is to pursue all low-carbon options. I have not heard anything...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Transition to Agriculture
It is generally accepted that the transition from hunter-gatherer communities to agriculture was the...
3rd Apr 2025
It is generally accepted that the transition from hunter-gatherer communities to agriculture was the single most important event in human history, ultimately giving rise to all of civilization. The transition started to take place around 12,000 years ago in the Middle East,...
Works in Progress...
Libraries of matter
Libraries contain books, yes. But they also contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, and graphene...
29th Aug 2024
Libraries contain books, yes. But they also contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, and graphene aerogel. And in some materials libraries you can cut, cast, drill, sand, scrape, and sculpt too.
Long Now
Brian Christian: Algorithms to Live By
### Solving hard decisions
Deciding when to stop your quest for the ideal apartment, or ideal...
21st Jun 2016
### Solving hard decisions
Deciding when to stop your quest for the ideal apartment, or ideal spouse, depends entirely on how long you expect to be looking, says Brian Christian. The first one you check will be the best you’ve seen, but it’s unlikely to be the best you’ll ever...
Long Now
Danny Hillis & Brian Eno: The Long Now, now
### Make the next legal U-turn
"Bitching Betty," they call the robotic voice of the car’s GPS...
22nd Jan 2014
### Make the next legal U-turn
"Bitching Betty," they call the robotic voice of the car’s GPS guidance system. Eno and Hillis, on their road trips, always become so engrossed in conversation that they get lost—one time, driving to Monterey they wound up in Sacramento, 200 miles...
The Quanta Podcast
To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics
The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love....
2nd Mar 2017
The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them.
The post To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
lcamtuf’s thing
It's all a blur
If you follow information security discussions on the internet, you might have heard that blurring...
6th Feb 2026
If you follow information security discussions on the internet, you might have heard that blurring an image is not a good way of redacting its contents.
Beautiful Public...
Visualizing Rivers and Floodplains with USGS Data
Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and...
7th Nov 2022
Using USGS elevation data to visualize stunning views of the flow of water through rivers and floodplains.
Long Now
John Rendon: Long-term Policy to Make the War on Terror Short
### Only connect
John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to...
15th Jul 2006
### Only connect
John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to the White Houses and Departments of Defense. His subject in this talk is how to replace tactical, reactive response to terror with long-term strategic initative.
I think that people...
Chris Grossack's...
Analytic Combinatorics Redux
Earlier today I gave a talk in the graduate student seminar titled
“Counting is Hard. Complex...
9th May 2025
Earlier today I gave a talk in the graduate student seminar titled
“Counting is Hard. Complex Analysis is Easy.” based in part on my
recent blog post about analytic combinatorics and based in part
on Varilly’s notes on Dirichlet’s Theorem, showing how to count
the number of...
wadertales
Juvenile settlement in Black-tailed Godwits
Adult waders tend to be exceptionally consistent in their use of time and space, with marked...
12th Sep 2024
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...
The Quanta Podcast
The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information. ...
4th Feb 2021
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information.
The post The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start
A series of fossil finds suggests that life on Earth started earlier than anyone thought, calling...
5th Jul 2018
A series of fossil finds suggests that life on Earth started earlier than anyone thought, calling into question a widely held theory of the solar system’s beginnings.
The post Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Interaction Magic -...
Modelling my brain
A 22 hour medical experiment breathing 12% oxygen, and the 7000 images of my brain that came out of...
29th Mar 2021
A 22 hour medical experiment breathing 12% oxygen, and the 7000 images of my brain that came out of it.
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