Casey Handmer's blog
Part 6 Guns Under The Table
Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier...
a week ago
Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier chapters. Google Mars .kml. Literary commentary podcast. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the last update of this – in that time I read my children all of Green Mars...
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
Neurodivergent physicists face barriers in STEM, but there are also benefits to being who they are.
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Agglomeration benefits are here to stay
Building more homes in the most productive cities could massively boost productivity
over a year ago
Building more homes in the most productive cities could massively boost productivity
Blog - Practical...
Why Railroads Don't Need Expansion Joints
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
One of the most common...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
One of the most common attributes folks imagine when they think of trains is the clickety-clack sound they make as they roll down the tracks. The thing is, most trains don’t make that sound anymore. Or really,...
nanoscale views
New paper - plasmons, excitons, and steering energy
We have a new paper out in Nano Letters (arxiv version here), and I wanted to explain a bit about it...
a year ago
We have a new paper out in Nano Letters (arxiv version here), and I wanted to explain a bit about it and why I think it's a really cool result.
I've written before about the Purcell Effect. When we study quantum mechanics, we learn that the rates of processes, like the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Serial Dependence Bias
As I have discussed numerous times on this blog, our brains did not evolve to be optimal precise...
a year ago
As I have discussed numerous times on this blog, our brains did not evolve to be optimal precise perceivers and processors of information. Here is an infographic showing 188 documents cognitive biases. These biases are not all bad – they are tradeoffs. Evolutionary forces care...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
"Non"-Profit Hospitals | Out-Of-Pocket
"We're investing in ourselves"
a year ago
"We're investing in ourselves"
NeuroLogica Blog
Reconductoring our Electrical Grid
Over the weekend when I was in Dallas for the eclipse, I ran into a local businessman who works in...
8 months ago
Over the weekend when I was in Dallas for the eclipse, I ran into a local businessman who works in the energy sector, mainly involved in new solar projects. This is not surprising as Texas is second only to California in solar installation. I asked him if he is experiencing a...
Sean Carroll
Proposed Closure of the Dianoia Institute at Australian Catholic University
Just a few years ago, Australian Catholic University (ACU) established a new Dianoia Institute of...
a year ago
Just a few years ago, Australian Catholic University (ACU) established a new Dianoia Institute of Philosophy. They recruited a number of researchers and made something of a splash, leading to a noticeable leap in ACU’s rankings in philosophy — all the way to second among Catholic...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Physics of Flocks
Most people have watched large flocks of birds. They are fascinating, and have interested scientists...
8 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...
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 weeks 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...
nanoscale views
The difficult need for creativity on demand
Thoughts at the end of another busy year…. Good science is a creative enterprise. Some stereotypes...
a year ago
Thoughts at the end of another busy year…. Good science is a creative enterprise. Some stereotypes paint most scientists as toiling away, so deeply constrained by logic that they function more like automatons grinding out the next incremental advance in a steady if slow march of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Roleplaying Games May Help Autistic People
Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic...
3 months ago
Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic people“. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game where a small group of people each play characters adventuring in an imaginary world run by the dungeon master (DM)....
IEEE Spectrum
The Incredible Story Behind the First Transistor Radio
But that’s pretty much what Pat Haggerty, vice president of Texas Instruments, did in 1954. The...
2 months ago
But that’s pretty much what Pat Haggerty, vice president of Texas Instruments, did in 1954. The result was the
Regency TR-1, the world’s first commercial transistor radio, which debuted 70 years ago this month. The engineers delivered on Haggerty’s audacious goal, and I...
Stephen Wolfram...
Useful to the Point of Being Revolutionary: Introducing Wolfram Notebook Assistant
Note: As of today, copies of Wolfram Version 14.1 are being auto-updated to allow subscription...
a week ago
Note: As of today, copies of Wolfram Version 14.1 are being auto-updated to allow subscription access to the capabilities described here. [For additional installation information see here.] Just Say What You Want! Turning Words into Computation Nearly a year and a half ago—just a...
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
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...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Doing science backwards
Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
over a year ago
Preregistering research as a cure for scientific bias
The Works in...
Issue 13: Deep heat
Plus: the cocktail revolution, how war improved European states, and the mathematical basis of the...
a year ago
Plus: the cocktail revolution, how war improved European states, and the mathematical basis of the Industrial Revolution
Probably...
Should divorce be more difficult?
“The Christian right is coming for divorce next,” according to this recent Vox article, and “Some...
6 months ago
“The Christian right is coming for divorce next,” according to this recent Vox article, and “Some conservatives want to make it a lot harder to dissolve a marriage.” As always when I read an article like this, I want to see data — and the General Social Survey has just the data I...
The Works in...
How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars - 2022, Ukraine Maintains
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
Asterisk
The EA-Progress Studies War is Here, and It’s a Constructive Dialogue!
We’re hoping Marc Andreessen doesn’t read this and polarize everyone again.
6 months ago
We’re hoping Marc Andreessen doesn’t read this and polarize everyone again.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Patient Messaging Conundrum pt. 2 | Out-Of-Pocket
Some thoughts from an academic, a behavioral scientist, a patient, and more
a year ago
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?
over a year ago
What is civilian OSINT, and could it be used altruistically?
Eukaryote Writes...
I got dysentery so you don’t have to
On turning 30 in a human challenge trial ward.
2 months ago
On turning 30 in a human challenge trial ward.
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Companions – Good or Bad?
Often times the answer to a binary question is “yes”. Is artificial intelligence (AI) a powerful and...
5 months ago
Often times the answer to a binary question is “yes”. Is artificial intelligence (AI) a powerful and quickly advancing tool or is it overhyped? Yes. Are opiates useful medicines or dangerous drugs? Yes. Is Elon Musk a technological visionary or an eccentric opportunist? This is...
Asterisk
They May as Well Grow on Trees
The Future of Genetically Engineered Livestock
over a year ago
The Future of Genetically Engineered Livestock
Quantum Frontiers
The quantum gold rush
Even if you don’t recognize the name, you probably recognize the saguaro cactus. It’s the archetype...
9 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 →
nanoscale views
Strategic planning + departmental reviews
It's been a while since I've written a post about the ways of academia, so I thought it might be...
a year ago
It's been a while since I've written a post about the ways of academia, so I thought it might be time, though it's not exactly glamorous or exciting. There are certain cycles in research universities, and two interrelated ones are the cycle of departmental strategic planning and...
Wanderingspace
The Green Light of Day
Image of tire tracks on Mars with an unusual green tone. . Taken by Perseverance on February 4th.
over a year ago
Image of tire tracks on Mars with an unusual green tone. . Taken by Perseverance on February 4th.
Wanderingspace
Space-X Looking Like 2001 Space Odyssey
Amazing shot. Looks like a movie.
a year ago
Amazing shot. Looks like a movie.
Probably...
The Overton Paradox in Three Graphs
Older people are more likely to say they are conservative. And older people believe more...
a year ago
Older people are more likely to say they are conservative. And older people believe more conservative things. But if you group people by decade of birth, most groups get more liberal as they get older. So if people get more liberal, on average, why are they more likely to say...
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, September 2023
A quasi-monthly feature. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them...
a year ago
A quasi-monthly feature. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in my links digests. I’ve been busy helping to choose the first cohort of our blogging fellowship, so my reading has been relatively light. All emphasis in bold in the quotes...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare should NOT be local | Out-Of-Pocket
Let's think bigger
a year ago
Cremieux Recueil
The Ottoman Origins of Modernity
Would we have the modern world without Islamic incursion into Southeastern Europe?
3 months ago
Would we have the modern world without Islamic incursion into Southeastern Europe?
Uncharted...
100,000 Gifts
What happened in 2024 and what will happen in 2025
3 days ago
What happened in 2024 and what will happen in 2025
Drew Ex Machina
Epsilon Indi’s Super Jovian Exoplanet – Background & New Observations by JWST
On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max...
4 months ago
On July 24, 2024, an international team of scientists, headed by Dr. Elisabeth Matthews of the Max Plank Institute for Astronomy, announced that they had used […]
Out-of-Pocket Blog
All of the main problems with US healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket
let's get all of our problems out on the table
9 months ago
let's get all of our problems out on the table
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
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...
The Roots of...
Links digest, 2023-10-12
I’ve been traveling for a while, so this is a long one, covering the last ~month. I tried to cut it...
a year ago
I’ve been traveling for a while, so this is a long one, covering the last ~month. I tried to cut it down, but there have been so many amazing announcements, opportunities, etc.! Feel free to skim and jump around:
From the Roots of Progress fellows
Connor O’Brien and Adam Ozimek...
Math Is Still...
Number of Distances Separating Points Has a New Bound
Mathematicians have struggled to prove Falconer’s Conjecture, a simple, but far-reaching, hypothesis...
8 months ago
Mathematicians have struggled to prove Falconer’s Conjecture, a simple, but far-reaching, hypothesis about the distances between points. They’re finally getting close.
The post Number of Distances Separating Points Has a New Bound first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Viz.ai and why workflow > tech | Out-Of-Pocket
Also ?? about AI business models
a year ago
Also ?? about AI business models
Math Is Still...
How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles
In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler...
3 months ago
In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler explains that the origin of mass in the universe has a lot to do with music.
The post How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles first appeared on...
Math Is Still...
Microbes Gained Photosynthesis Superpowers From a ‘Proton Pump’
New research reveals how marine microbes use an extra membrane that once had digestive functions to...
a year ago
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
nanoscale views
Wind-up nanotechnology
When I was a kid, I used to take allowance money and occasionally buy rubber-band-powered balsa wood...
7 months ago
When I was a kid, I used to take allowance money and occasionally buy rubber-band-powered balsa wood airplanes at a local store. Maybe you've seen these. You wind up the rubber band, which stretches the elastomer and stores energy in the elastic strain of the polymer, as in...
NeuroLogica Blog
Confidently Wrong
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and...
2 months ago
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and do you have a process for determining what your confidence level should be or do you just follow your gut feelings? Thinking about confidence is a form of metacognition – thinking...
Asterisk
A Field Guide to AI Safety
AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a...
a year ago
AI safety is starting to go mainstream, but the researchers who’ve been immersed in it for over a decade still have strong disagreements.
IEEE Spectrum
How Vannevar Bush Engineered the 20th Century
In the summer of 1945, Robert J. Oppenheimer and other key members of the Manhattan Project gathered...
6 months ago
In the summer of 1945, Robert J. Oppenheimer and other key members of the Manhattan Project gathered in New Mexico to witness the first atomic bomb test. Among the observers was Vannevar Bush, who had overseen the Manhattan Project and served as the sole liaison to U.S. President...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Future of (Unpaid) Work
If we think of the top inventions that had a positive impact on human society and our quality of...
a year ago
If we think of the top inventions that had a positive impact on human society and our quality of life most lists would contain things like the printing press, the wheel, or the computer. One invention that should be on everyone’s list but is easy to overlook is – the washing...
Math Is Still...
The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community
Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on...
11 months ago
Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on their species but on the roles they play.
The post The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
The GOES-16 Weather Satellite
Satellites used to observe weather are so ubiquitous it is easy to take them for granted. GOES-16 is...
over a year ago
Satellites used to observe weather are so ubiquitous it is easy to take them for granted. GOES-16 is worthy of your attention.
The Works in...
Cheap ornament and status games
Was modernism originally a way to signal taste instead of wealth?
2 months ago
Was modernism originally a way to signal taste instead of wealth?
nanoscale views
Desirable properties for a superconductor
Given the present interest, let's talk about what kind of properties one wants in a superconductor,...
a year ago
Given the present interest, let's talk about what kind of properties one wants in a superconductor, as some people on social media seem ready to jump straight on the "what does superconductivity mean for bitcoin?" train.
First, the preliminaries. Superconductivity is a state of...
Uncharted...
Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps: Why Do People Live Where They Live in the...
Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps
2 days ago
Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps
Math Is Still...
A Tower of Conjectures That Rests Upon a Needle
On its surface, the Kakeya conjecture is a simple statement about rotating needles. But it underlies...
a year ago
On its surface, the Kakeya conjecture is a simple statement about rotating needles. But it underlies a wealth of mathematics.
The post A Tower of Conjectures That Rests Upon a Needle first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Lots to read, including fab for quantum and "Immaterial Science"
Sometimes there are upticks in the rate of fun reading material. In the last few days:
A...
3 months ago
Sometimes there are upticks in the rate of fun reading material. In the last few days:
A Nature paper has been published by a group of authors predominantly from IMEC in Belgium, in which they demonstrate CMOS-compatible manufacturing of superconducting qubit hardware...
Asterisk
The Misery Bomb
Children across the Western world are getting less happy. If we can’t find a way to reverse the...
5 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...
Issue 11: Nuclear sandboxes
Plus: Why Britain can’t seem to fix its housing market, gene-edited super-rice, and one weird trick...
a year ago
Plus: Why Britain can’t seem to fix its housing market, gene-edited super-rice, and one weird trick to reverse climate change.
NeuroLogica Blog
Collapsars and Gravitational Waves
The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that...
4 months ago
The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that people like to spread around. Gravitational waves have opened up an entirely new type of astronomy, a way to explore the universe through very subtle ripples in spacetime produce by...
NeuroLogica Blog
Indigenous Knowledge
I recently received the following question to the SGU e-mail: “I have had several conversations with...
8 months ago
I recently received the following question to the SGU e-mail: “I have had several conversations with friends/colleagues lately regarding indigenous beliefs/stories. They assert that not believing these based on oral histories alone is morally wrong and ignoring a different...
ToughSF
Advanced Solar Energy in Space: Part II
In this post, we continue looking at high power density options for solar energy.
Brayton...
over a year ago
In this post, we continue looking at high power density options for solar energy.
Brayton cycle
We commonly see the Brayton cycle used to convert heat into work in jet engines and the steam turbines of power plants. There are three main components: a compressor, a heat...
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
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...
ToughSF
Particle Beams in Space
Science fiction is missing a realistic and grounded
look at particle beams. We plan to do just that...
over a year ago
Science fiction is missing a realistic and grounded
look at particle beams. We plan to do just that now.
After reading this, you might decide to give
particle beams their rightful place alongside lasers as a means of transmitting
power, propelling spacecraft or dealing damage...
Math Is Still...
A Rosetta Stone for Mathematics
In 1940 André Weil wrote a letter to his sister, Simone, outlining his vision for translating...
7 months ago
In 1940 André Weil wrote a letter to his sister, Simone, outlining his vision for translating between three distinct areas of mathematics. Eighty years later, it still animates many of the most exciting developments in the field.
The post A Rosetta Stone for...
nanoscale views
The problems and opportunities of data
We live in a world of "big data", and this presents a number of challenges for how we handle this at...
a year ago
We live in a world of "big data", and this presents a number of challenges for how we handle this at research universities. Until relatively recently, the domain of huge volume/huge throughput scientific data was chiefly that of the nuclear/particle physics community and then...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
"AI sucks", Quantifying EMR burden, and Loneliness | Out-Of-Pocket
3 interesting papers I like
a year ago
3 interesting papers I like
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More weird rules in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket
3 liters of blood, sequential billing, COBRA, and more
6 months ago
3 liters of blood, sequential billing, COBRA, and more
Out-of-Pocket Blog
GPT-3 x Healthcare: Democratizing AI | Out-Of-Pocket
ICD-10 vs. GPT-3, who will win?
a year ago
ICD-10 vs. GPT-3, who will win?
Cremieux Recueil
Food Deserts Are Not Real
They're more like bad habit neighborhoods
3 months ago
They're more like bad habit neighborhoods
The Works in...
The asbestos times
How asbestos saved cities, before we realized its risks
11 months ago
How asbestos saved cities, before we realized its risks
Sean Carroll
George B. Field, 1929-2024
George Field, brilliant theoretical astrophysicist and truly great human being, passed away on the...
4 months ago
George Field, brilliant theoretical astrophysicist and truly great human being, passed away on the morning of July 31. He was my Ph.D. thesis advisor and one of my favorite people in the world. I often tell my own students that the two most important people in your life who you...
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
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...
Math Is Still...
A Triplet Tree Forms One of the Most Beautiful Structures in Math
The Markov numbers reveal the secrets of irrational numbers and the patterns of the Fibonacci...
a year ago
The Markov numbers reveal the secrets of irrational numbers and the patterns of the Fibonacci sequence. But there’s one question about them that has resisted proof for over a century.
The post A Triplet Tree Forms One of the Most Beautiful Structures in Math first...
Probably...
Zipf’s Law
Elements of Data Science is in print now, available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. To...
a month ago
Elements of Data Science is in print now, available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. To celebrate, I’ll post some excerpts here, starting with one of my favorite examples, Zipf’s Law. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab. In almost any...
Math Is Still...
Will Better Superconductors Transform the World?
Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient...
7 months ago
Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient conditions. In this episode, the physicist Siddharth Shanker Saxena tells co-host Janna Levin about what makes this hunt so difficult and consequential.
The post Will...
NeuroLogica Blog
Washington Post on Past Lives
Generally speaking the mainstream media does a terrible job of reporting anything in the realm of...
7 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...
Wanderingspace
Uranus is not as boring as we thought
“An animation of three near-infrared images of Uranus captured by the JWST Space Telescope with...
a month ago
“An animation of three near-infrared images of Uranus captured by the JWST Space Telescope with assigned representative colors. During processing, I aligned the rings separately to reduce the bubbling effect caused by different inclinations, making the planet appear to rotate on...
nanoscale views
Power and computing
The Wall Street Journal last week had an article (sorry about the paywall) titled "There’s Not...
7 months ago
The Wall Street Journal last week had an article (sorry about the paywall) titled "There’s Not Enough Power for America’s High-Tech Ambitions", about how there is enormous demand for more data centers (think Amazon Web Services and the like), and electricity production can't...
Probably...
Rip-off ETF?
An article in a recent issue of The Economist suggests, right in the title, “Investors should avoid...
3 months ago
An article in a recent issue of The Economist suggests, right in the title, “Investors should avoid a new generation of rip-off ETFs”. An ETF is an exchange-traded fund, which holds a collection of assets and trades on an exchange like a single stock. For example, the SPDR S&P...
Stephen Wolfram...
Five Most Productive Years: What Happened and What’s Next
So… What Happened? Today is my birthday—for the 65th time. Five years ago, on my 60th birthday, I...
3 months ago
So… What Happened? Today is my birthday—for the 65th time. Five years ago, on my 60th birthday, I did a livestream where I talked about some of my plans. So… what happened? Well, what happened was great. And in fact I’ve just had the most productive five years of my life. Nine...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Tikalon Blog Archive
Tikalon Blog is now in archive mode. Here's a directory of links to easily printed and saved...
3 months ago
Tikalon Blog is now in archive mode. Here's a directory of links to easily printed and saved articles. If you're willing to wait a while for the download, a zip file of all the blog articles can be found at the link below. Note, however, that these articles are copyrighted and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on Quantum Computers
There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still...
a year ago
There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still a technology that is slowly advancing in the background, while actual applications have been limited. There is a threshold effect at play – at some point, quantum computers will be...
Probably...
Is the Ideology Gap Growing?
This tweet from John Burn-Murdoch links to an article in the Financial Times (FT), “A new global...
10 months ago
This tweet from John Burn-Murdoch links to an article in the Financial Times (FT), “A new global gender divide is emerging”, which includes this figure: The article claims: In the US, Gallup data shows that after decades where the sexes were each spread roughly equally across...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Clinic Buildouts | Out-Of-Pocket
Has software changed what's necessary in the clinic?
a year ago
Has software changed what's necessary in the clinic?
Math Is Still...
What Happens in the Brain to Cause Depression?
Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now...
7 months ago
Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now the spotlight is turning to other aspects of brain chemistry. In this episode, the neuropharmacologist John Krystal shares findings that are overturning our understanding of...
IEEE Spectrum
100 Years Ago, IBM Was Born
Happy birthday, IBM! You’re 100 years old! Or are you?
It’s true that the businesses that formed IBM...
10 months ago
Happy birthday, IBM! You’re 100 years old! Or are you?
It’s true that the businesses that formed IBM began in the late 1800s. But it’s also true that a birth occurred in February 1924, with the renaming of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. as the International Business...
Apoorva Srinivasan
niceR code with functional programming
At the end of this blog post, you will be able to:
Describe functional programming concepts
Write...
over a year ago
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Robotic Muscles
By now we have all seen the impressive robot videos, such as the ones from Boston Dynamics, in which...
3 months ago
By now we have all seen the impressive robot videos, such as the ones from Boston Dynamics, in which robots show incredible flexibility and agility. These are amazing, but I understand they are a bit like trick-shot videos – we are being shown the ones that worked, which may not...
ToughSF
Space Tethers: Stringing up the Solar System
All the methods we have used to reach space so far have been subject to the Tsiolkovsky rocket...
over a year ago
All the methods we have used to reach space so far have been subject to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation - propellant must be ejected and more and more of it is needed to go further.
What if we could break that equation with rotating orbital tethers?
The tether
I have worked...
Blog - Practical...
Merrimack Valley Gas Explosions: What Really Happened?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On September 13, 2018, a...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On September 13, 2018, a pipeline crew in the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts was hard at work replacing an aging cast iron natural gas line with a new polyethylene pipe. Located just north of Boston, the...
Cremieux Recueil
Preregistration Is No Panacea
Stopping scientific cheaters requires setting up systems that can't be gamed
a month ago
Stopping scientific cheaters requires setting up systems that can't be gamed
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Patient Communities Should Change | Out-Of-Pocket
Evolving from ads to outcomes
a year ago
Evolving from ads to outcomes
Inverted Passion
You can’t jail an AI
Here’s why I worry about AI. We know that people can get away with anything to pursue their goals...
7 months ago
Here’s why I worry about AI. We know that people can get away with anything to pursue their goals (of profit, power, etc.) as long as they know they can get away with it, without negative consequences. We have had Hitlers, and insider traders. But the world keeps them in check...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Mental Health And The Weird Fixation With Employers | Out-Of-Pocket
an uncomfortable conversation about mental health access
a year ago
an uncomfortable conversation about mental health access
NeuroLogica Blog
The Moon Race is On
Back in the 1960 there was a race to land people on the Moon between the US and the Soviet Union....
6 months ago
Back in the 1960 there was a race to land people on the Moon between the US and the Soviet Union. This was very much a part of the cold war, with each country interested in showing off its technical prowess to the world with a technology closely related to that needed to deliver...
IEEE Spectrum
Tiny Exploding Houses Promoted 18th-Century Lightning Rods
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological...
a year ago
Imagine if engineers were required to build a working model to demonstrate every new technological concept to the general public. Done right, tech literacy might soar! A compelling visual example can really help people understand the applications and implications of new...
Math Is Still...
Can Math and Physics Save an Arrhythmic Heart?
Abnormal waves of electrical activity can cause a heart’s muscle cells to beat out of sync. In this...
a year ago
Abnormal waves of electrical activity can cause a heart’s muscle cells to beat out of sync. In this episode, Flavio Fenton, an expert in cardiac dynamics, talks with Steve Strogatz about ways to treat heart arrhythmias without resorting to painful defibrillators.
The...
Quantum Frontiers
Film noir and quantum thermo
In four months, I’ll embark on the adventure of a lifetime—fatherhood. To prepare, I’ve been honing...
7 months ago
In four months, I’ll embark on the adventure of a lifetime—fatherhood. To prepare, I’ve been honing a quintessential father skill—storytelling. If my son inherits even a fraction of my tastes, he’ll soon develop a passion for film noir detective stories. … Continue reading →
symmetry magazine
IceCube and NANOGrav open new windows onto the universe
New results from a neutrino telescope and a gravitational-wave observatory show how astronomers use...
a year ago
New results from a neutrino telescope and a gravitational-wave observatory show how astronomers use different forms of messengers to study the cosmos.
Math Is Still...
Maze Proof Establishes a ‘Backbone’ for Statistical Mechanics
Four mathematicians have estimated the chances that there’s a clear path through a random maze. ...
10 months ago
Four mathematicians have estimated the chances that there’s a clear path through a random maze.
The post Maze Proof Establishes a ‘Backbone’ for Statistical Mechanics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
Uruguay Part 1: Relaxed Birding In The Countryside
Uruguay is one of the smallest countries in South America and the only one that is entirely situated...
a year ago
Uruguay is one of the smallest countries in South America and the only one that is entirely situated south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Uruguay was first settled by hunter-gatherers around 13,000 years ago, while the predominate tribe when Europeans arrived was the Charrúa people....
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Discover Novel Way to Predict Structure in Graphs
In new work on graphs’ hidden structure, mathematicians probe the limits of randomness. ...
a year ago
In new work on graphs’ hidden structure, mathematicians probe the limits of randomness.
The post Mathematicians Discover Novel Way to Predict Structure in Graphs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
5 months ago
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...
symmetry magazine
Rap with an undercurrent of particle physics
UK musician Consensus spins the big ideas of physics into rap and hip-hop tracks.
a year ago
UK musician Consensus spins the big ideas of physics into rap and hip-hop tracks.
Math Is Still...
To Defend the Genome, These Cells Destroy Their Own DNA
Under a microscope, cells in a worm embryo deliberately eliminated one-third of their genome — an...
a year ago
Under a microscope, cells in a worm embryo deliberately eliminated one-third of their genome — an uncompromising tactic that may combat harmful genetic parasites.
The post To Defend the Genome, These Cells Destroy Their Own DNA 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...
10 months 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...
Explorations of an...
2023 Part 5: Late Summer To Early Winter In Ontario
August and September
In the middle of August, I traveled to Letchworth State Park in New York for a...
11 months ago
August and September
In the middle of August, I traveled to Letchworth State Park in New York for a weekend with some of my family. It was wonderful to spend time with everyone, as well as to get in some hiking and find some species that I haven't seen before in Ontario (mostly...
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...
a year ago
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) […]
nanoscale views
Michio Kaku and science popularization in the Age of Shamelessness
In some ways, we live in a golden age of science popularization. There are fantastic publications...
a year ago
In some ways, we live in a golden age of science popularization. There are fantastic publications like Quanta doing tremendous work; platforms like YouTube and podcasts have made it possible for both practicing scientists and science communicators to reach enormous audiences;...
Asterisk
Manufacturing Bliss
A growing community centered on the Bay Area is rediscovering the jhanas, a meditation technique...
8 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.
The Works in...
How America Made Machines Make Machines
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
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
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...
Probably...
Young Americans are Marrying Later or Never
I’ve written before about changes in marriage patterns in the U.S., and it’s one of the examples in...
a week ago
I’ve written before about changes in marriage patterns in the U.S., and it’s one of the examples in Chapter 13 of the new third edition of Think Stats. My analysis uses data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Today they released the most recent data, from surveys...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Scams, Frauds, and Audits | Out-Of-Pocket
Lots of money to be...not lost
a year ago
Lots of money to be...not lost
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Special Edition - WoW | Out-Of-Pocket
World Of Warcraft vs. COVID-19
a year ago
World Of Warcraft vs. COVID-19
The Works in...
How Israel turned homeowners into YIMBYs
A housing success story
8 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
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.
Asterisk
The Art of Asking Questions
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other...
3 weeks 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?
Math Is Still...
In Highly Connected Networks, There’s Always a Loop
Mathematicians show that graphs of a certain common type must contain a route that visits each point...
6 months ago
Mathematicians show that graphs of a certain common type must contain a route that visits each point exactly once.
The post In Highly Connected Networks, There’s Always a Loop first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Chris Grossack's...
Proving Another "Real Theorem" with Topos Theory
Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol.
Somebody asked whether...
9 months ago
Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol.
Somebody asked whether maximizing over a compact set is a continuous thing
to do. That is, given a continuous function $f : K \times X \to \mathbb{R}$ is the
function $x \mapsto \max_{k \in K} f(k,x)$...
NeuroLogica Blog
Oxygen As A Technosignature
This is one of the biggest thought experiments in science today – as we look for life elsewhere in...
11 months ago
This is one of the biggest thought experiments in science today – as we look for life elsewhere in the universe, what should we be looking for, exactly? Other stellar systems are too far away to examine directly, and even our most powerful telescopes can only resolve points of...
The Works in...
Fixing retail with land value capture
How to create beautiful shopping streets everywhere
6 months ago
How to create beautiful shopping streets everywhere
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...
12 months ago
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 […]
Math Is Still...
Computer Scientists Prove That Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement
While devising a new quantum algorithm, four researchers accidentally established a hard limit on...
3 months ago
While devising a new quantum algorithm, four researchers accidentally established a hard limit on entanglement.
The post Computer Scientists Prove That Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
The Two Faces of Space-Time
A mysterious phenomenon known as duality often leads to new discoveries in physics. This time,...
2 months ago
A mysterious phenomenon known as duality often leads to new discoveries in physics. This time, space-time itself can sometimes be two things at once.
The post The Two Faces of Space-Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
How Do Fish Ladders Work?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Building a dam imparts a...
8 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,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Podcast Pseudoscience
A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for...
a week 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...
Wanderingspace
Enter Prometheus
“Here's a view of Saturn's moon Prometheus, made from images captured with the narrow-angle camera...
2 weeks ago
“Here's a view of Saturn's moon Prometheus, made from images captured with the narrow-angle camera on Cassini on December 6, 2015. Cassini was about 37,400 km from Prometheus when the images were acquired. Part of the F ring is visible in the background at the top.” — Jason Major
NeuroLogica Blog
Dog Soundboards
I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have...
3 months ago
I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have been. They pick up on subtle body language and non-verbal cues, they seem to understand specific words, and they are capable of successfully communicating their wants and desires....
Math Is Still...
All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet LUCA.
The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively...
a month ago
The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively complex organism living 4.2 billion years ago, a time long considered too harsh for life to flourish.
The post All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet...
Blog - Practical...
Every Construction Machine Explained in 15 Minutes
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
We talk about a lot of big...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
We talk about a lot of big structures on this channel. But, it takes a lot of big tools to build the roads, dams, sewage lift stations, and every other part of the constructed environment. To me, there’s almost...
Uncharted...
Wind and Solar, a Perfect Match
Also, why solar will beat wind, why they are so complementary, the nuclear renaissance, the poor...
a month ago
Also, why solar will beat wind, why they are so complementary, the nuclear renaissance, the poor state of German energy, and more.
pcloadletter
My articles don't belong on certain social networks
I write this blog because I enjoy writing. Some people enjoy reading what I write, which makes me...
6 months ago
I write this blog because I enjoy writing. Some people enjoy reading what I write, which makes me feel really great!
Recently, I took down a post and stopped writing for a few months because I didn't love the reaction I was getting on social media sites like Reddit and Hacker...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Adornment
"Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by...
3 months ago
"Form follows function" is a maxim that an object's shape and appearance should be defined only by its purpose or function. A quick perusal of any antique shop will show that this maxim is generally ignored. Humans (Homo sapiens) have been called "naked apes," but we and our...
Math Is Still...
What Causes Giant Rogue Waves?
Once dismissed as myths, monstrous rogue waves that tower over ships and appear without warning are...
a year ago
Once dismissed as myths, monstrous rogue waves that tower over ships and appear without warning are real. Wave-science researcher Ton van den Bremer and Steven Strogatz discuss how rogue waves can form in relatively calm seas and whether their threat can be predicted. ...
Math Is Still...
How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold
Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently.
The post How...
5 months ago
Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently.
The post How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Should You Be Able to Experiment on Your Own Cancer?
A researcher in virology and immunotherapy got bad news: Her cancer was back with a vengeance; the...
2 months ago
A researcher in virology and immunotherapy got bad news: Her cancer was back with a vengeance; the treatments weren’t working. She decided to treat it herself.
nanoscale views
Brief items - LOC, GPT, etc.
This year was a busy one and my overall posting rate is down. Hopefully the coming year will be a...
over a year ago
This year was a busy one and my overall posting rate is down. Hopefully the coming year will be a bit less frenetic, but who knows. A few brief items:
First, in the odd self-promotion department, this blog is officially going to be indexed by the Library of Congress as part...
The Works in...
ARIA: Betting on science
An inside look at Britain's new DARPA
a year ago
An inside look at Britain's new DARPA
NeuroLogica Blog
What Policies Affect Climate Change?
What is the potential for climate change policy to affect climate change? I often discuss, here and...
a year ago
What is the potential for climate change policy to affect climate change? I often discuss, here and on the SGU, the science of climate change, and specifically focus on what we can do about it, mostly by reducing our CO2 emissions. Often I get push back explicitly promoting the...
brr
Doors of McMurdo
Doors, in a variety of shapes and styles.
over a year ago
Doors, in a variety of shapes and styles.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
“Mission-driven” should be more specific | Out-Of-Pocket
everything is a set of tradeoffs, let's be honest about that
8 months ago
everything is a set of tradeoffs, let's be honest about that
NeuroLogica Blog
The Potential of AI + CRISPR
In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors...
3 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...
Math Is Still...
How to Build an Origami Computer
Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible...
10 months ago
Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible computation.
The post How to Build an Origami Computer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Geometers Engineer New Tools to Wrangle Spacecraft Orbits
Mathematicians think abstract tools from a field called symplectic geometry might help with planning...
8 months ago
Mathematicians think abstract tools from a field called symplectic geometry might help with planning missions to far-off moons and planets.
The post Geometers Engineer New Tools to Wrangle Spacecraft Orbits first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
A Tour Of The Western Galápagos Archipelago
The Galápagos archipelago is one of those must-visit destinations for anyone with an interest in...
a year ago
The Galápagos archipelago is one of those must-visit destinations for anyone with an interest in ecology, evolution, or biogeography. The islands are located in the eastern Pacific where a “hotspot” deep within the earth has been spewing magma for millions of years. The oldest...
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...
3 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
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...
2 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 …
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Actually good 2024 healthcare predictions | Out-Of-Pocket
I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
a year ago
I know, enough predictions. But these are good!
ToughSF
The Lofstrom Loop: A Bridge to Space
Imagine you could take a train ride to space. Tracks that slope up into the sky, higher and higher,...
a year ago
Imagine you could take a train ride to space. Tracks that slope up into the sky, higher and higher, until you reach a plateau above the planet where it’s a straight line up to orbital velocity.
That’s what’s possible with a Lofstrom Loop. But sending you into orbit is just one...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some Thoughts On Startups Overpromising | Out-Of-Pocket
the role RFPs play, how it's difficult to define patient harm, and more
9 months ago
the role RFPs play, how it's difficult to define patient harm, and more
Asterisk
Read This, Not That: The Hidden Cost of Nutrition Misinformation
Our daily lives are inundated with misleading claims about nutrition. That’s not just distracting —...
a year ago
Our daily lives are inundated with misleading claims about nutrition. That’s not just distracting — it’s also harming our health.
Damn Interesting
Journey to the Invisible Planet
In the late 17th century, natural philosopher Isaac Newton was deeply uneasy with a new scientific...
a year ago
In the late 17th century, natural philosopher Isaac Newton was deeply uneasy with a new scientific theory that was gaining currency in Europe: universal gravitation. In correspondence with a scientific contemporary, Newton complained that it was “an absurdity” to suppose that...
The Roots of...
Levels of safety for AI and other technologies
What does it mean for AI to be “safe”?
Right now there is a lot of debate about AI safety. But...
a year ago
What does it mean for AI to be “safe”?
Right now there is a lot of debate about AI safety. But people often end up talking past each other because they’re not using the same definitions or standards.
For the sake of productive debates, let me propose some distinctions to add...
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
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
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
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
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
A.I., Wine, and Beer
There have been many studies using scientific instrumentation, mostly gas chromatography, in...
6 months ago
There have been many studies using scientific instrumentation, mostly gas chromatography, in attempts to find what distinguishes a superb wine from an inexpensive house wine. A typical wine can contain more than 800 different aroma compounds. One study examined two Australian...
Wanderingspace
China's Zhurong Mars Rover
How adorable is this. The Zhurong rover placed a camera on the ground, backed up and took a selfie...
over a year ago
How adorable is this. The Zhurong rover placed a camera on the ground, backed up and took a selfie next to the landing platform it emerged from last month.
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
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
Quantum Frontiers
The Noncommuting-Charges World Tour (Part 1 of 4)
Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many...
10 months ago
Introduction: “Once Upon a Time”…with a twist Thermodynamics problems have surprisingly many similarities with fairy tales. For example, most of them begin with a familiar opening. In thermodynamics, the phrase “Consider an isolated box of particles” serves a similar purpose …...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI As Legal Entities
Should an artificial intelligence (AI) be treated like a legal “subject” or agent? That is the...
a year ago
Should an artificial intelligence (AI) be treated like a legal “subject” or agent? That is the question discussed in a new paper by legal scholars. They recognize that this question is a bit ahead of the technology, but argue that we should work out the legal ramifications before...
Wanderingspace
New View of IO from JUNO!
From processor Ted Styrk, “The Juno Jupiter orbiter flew by Io, Jupiter's super-volcanic moon, on...
a year ago
From processor Ted Styrk, “The Juno Jupiter orbiter flew by Io, Jupiter's super-volcanic moon, on May 16, returning arguably the best imagery of the moon since the Galileo Orbiter around the beginning of this century. Definitely the best since New Horizons in 2006.”
Eukaryote Writes...
A point of clarification on infohazard terminology
“Infohazard” means any kind of information that could be harmful in some fashion. Let’s use “memetic...
over a year ago
“Infohazard” means any kind of information that could be harmful in some fashion. Let’s use “memetic hazard” to describe information that could specifically harm the person who knows it.
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: In pursuit of decent coffee
No great stagnation in home espresso
a year ago
No great stagnation in home espresso
Blog - Practical...
Philadelphia I-95 Bridge Collapse Explained
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On Jun 11, 2023, a fuel tanker...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On Jun 11, 2023, a fuel tanker truck caught fire on an exit underneath Interstate 95 in Northeast Philadelphia. The fire severely damaged the northbound bridge, eventually causing it to collapse. Sadly, the...
Math Is Still...
Andreas Wagner Pursues the Secrets to Evolutionary Success
Why did mammals, grasses and some other groups of organisms explode in diversity only after millions...
a year ago
Why did mammals, grasses and some other groups of organisms explode in diversity only after millions of years? The evolutionary biologist Andreas Wagner plumbs the secrets of those “sleeping beauties.”
The post Andreas Wagner Pursues the Secrets to Evolutionary...
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...
10 months 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
Damn Interesting
The Anticipated Future of the Moon
When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day...
over a year ago
When the Earth was young, shortly after the moon formed, our planet was spinning so fast that a day was approximately five hours long. During the intervening billions of years, the dragging effect of the moon’s gravity slowed the Earth’s spin to the 24-hour day we now observe....
Asterisk
The Highway to NIMBYism
San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up...
7 months ago
San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up by highways. Today, that same legacy prevents the city from building what it desperately needs: more housing.
Probably...
The World Population Singularity
One of the exercises in Modeling and Simulation in Python invites readers to download estimates of...
a year ago
One of the exercises in Modeling and Simulation in Python invites readers to download estimates of world population from 10,000 BCE to the present, and to see if they are well modeled by any simple mathematical function. Here’s what the estimates look like (aggregated on...
Math Is Still...
Math Is Still Catching Up to the Mysterious Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan
Born poor in colonial India and dead at 32, Ramanujan had fantastical, out-of-nowhere visions that...
2 months ago
Born poor in colonial India and dead at 32, Ramanujan had fantastical, out-of-nowhere visions that continue to shape the field today.
The post Math Is Still Catching Up to the Mysterious Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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 […]
Drew Ex Machina
Apollo A-002: Testing the Limits of the Launch Escape System
One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed...
2 weeks ago
One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed spacecraft have had launch abort options to cover […]
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 8: Pale-billed Antpittas In The Elfin Forest (February 10, 2024)
February 10, 2024
The Pale-billed Antpitta is a large, fancy-looking Grallaria antpitta only found...
6 months ago
February 10, 2024
The Pale-billed Antpitta is a large, fancy-looking Grallaria antpitta only found in the high Andes of northern Peru. Because of its proclivity towards dense forest with an abundance of bamboo, there are few places where this species can be easily found. These...
NeuroLogica Blog
Intuitive and Analytical Thinking
Here is a relatively simple math problem: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 combined. The bat costs $1...
a year ago
Here is a relatively simple math problem: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 combined. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? (I will provide the answer below the fold.) This problem is the basis of a large psychological literature on thinking systems in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunter-Gatherers and Childcare
What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused...
a year ago
What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused concept. Primarily this is because humans are adaptable – we adapt to our environment, our situation, and our culture. So it is “natural” for us not to have a natural state. But this...
Math Is Still...
Is Perpetual Motion Possible at the Quantum Level?
A new phase of matter called a “time crystal” plays with our expectations of thermodynamics. The...
a year ago
A new phase of matter called a “time crystal” plays with our expectations of thermodynamics. The physicist Vedika Khemani talks with Steven Strogatz about its surprising quantum behavior.
The post Is Perpetual Motion Possible at the Quantum Level? first appeared on...
nanoscale views
Condensed matter’s rough start
I’m teaching undergrad solid-state for the first time, and it has served as a reminder of how...
a year ago
I’m teaching undergrad solid-state for the first time, and it has served as a reminder of how condensed matter physics got off the ground. I suspect that one reason CM historically had not received a lot of respect in the early years (e.g. Pauli declaring that solid-state...
NeuroLogica Blog
Latest Gallup Creationism Poll
Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people...
5 months ago
Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people answer. But it is useful to ask the exact same question over a long period of time, because that can indicate how public attitudes are changing. This is one of the benefits of...
brr
Cape Crozier
A nearby field camp, and my first helicopter flight!
over a year ago
A nearby field camp, and my first helicopter flight!
Probably...
What are the odds?
Whenever something unlikely happens, it is tempting to ask, “What are the odds?” In some very...
a year ago
Whenever something unlikely happens, it is tempting to ask, “What are the odds?” In some very limited cases, we can answer that question. For example, if someone deals you five cards from a well-shuffled deck, and you want to know the odds of getting a royal flush, we can answer...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare, but funny | Out-Of-Pocket
US healthcare is a joke. Let's make it funny.
a year ago
US healthcare is a joke. Let's make it funny.
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2024, 1)
Free covid treatment for everyone in the US, a novel orthopox virus, a really big machine, cameras...
9 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.
Uncharted...
The Earth Is Better with More People
A world with 2 billion people would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless. With 100B, it...
3 weeks ago
A world with 2 billion people would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless. With 100B, it would be rich, beautiful, vibrant, peaceful, hopeful.
Quantum Frontiers
To thermalize, or not to thermalize, that is the question.
If Hamlet had been a system of noncommuting charges, his famous soliloquy may have gone like this…...
8 months ago
If Hamlet had been a system of noncommuting charges, his famous soliloquy may have gone like this… To thermalize, or not to thermalize, that is the question:Whether ’tis more natural for the system to sufferThe large entanglement of thermalizing dynamics,Or … Continue reading →
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
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...
Probably...
What does a confidence interval mean?
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. In general, I will...
8 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. In general, I will try to focus on practical problems, but this one is a little more philosophical. confidence What does a confidence interval mean?¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics...
Probably...
The Political Gender Gap is Not Growing
In a previous article, I used data from the General Social Survey (GSS) to see if there is a growing...
10 months ago
In a previous article, I used data from the General Social Survey (GSS) to see if there is a growing gender gap among young people in political alignment, party affiliation, or political attitudes. So far, the answer is no. Ryan Burge has done a similar analysis with data from...
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,...
a year ago
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...
Math Is Still...
The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time
These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental. ...
2 months ago
These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental.
The post The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Light from Space
The Path to the Pillars of Creation
Famously photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, here's my first look at the Pillars of Creation...
over a year ago
Famously photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, here's my first look at the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16).
Total exposure time: 16h 5m
Shot from my driveway near Tucson, AZ in April & May 2022
Telescope: William Optics RedCat 51 (250mm focal length ƒ
Quantum Frontiers
The Book of Mark
Mark Srednicki doesn’t look like a high priest. He’s a professor of physics at the University of...
a year ago
Mark Srednicki doesn’t look like a high priest. He’s a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB); and you’ll sooner find him in khakis than in sacred vestments. Humor suits his round face better than channeling … Continue reading →
nanoscale views
CHIP and Science, NSF support, and hypocrisy
Note: this post is a semi-rant about US funding for science education; if this isn't your cup of...
4 months ago
Note: this post is a semi-rant about US funding for science education; if this isn't your cup of tea, read no further.
Two years ago, the CHIPS and Science Act (link goes to the full text of the bill, via the excellent congress.gov service of the Library of Congress) was signed...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI and User Manuals
About half of Americans, when asked, report that they don’t read the user manual for new technical...
4 months ago
About half of Americans, when asked, report that they don’t read the user manual for new technical devices they acquire. Although I suspect that many people are like me – I read them sometimes, and then only partly. If there is a “quick user guide” I will often look at that....
The Works in...
Links in Progress: What are children for?
And how the UN’s birth rate forecasts keep getting it wrong
a month ago
And how the UN’s birth rate forecasts keep getting it wrong
Math Is Still...
‘Quantum Memory’ Proves Exponentially Powerful
Researchers are exploring new ways that quantum computers will be able to reveal the secrets of...
2 months ago
Researchers are exploring new ways that quantum computers will be able to reveal the secrets of complex quantum systems.
The post ‘Quantum Memory’ Proves Exponentially Powerful first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Random Uncontrolled Trials/Tweets | Out-Of-Pocket
I need to deactivate my Twitter smh
a year ago
I need to deactivate my Twitter smh
Math Is Still...
How the Brain Protects Itself From Blood-Borne Threats
To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is...
a year ago
To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is built into the brain’s blood vessels.
The post How the Brain Protects Itself From Blood-Borne Threats 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
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...
IEEE Spectrum
How Tech Automated the January 6 Investigations
Josh Coker’s Facebook page doesn’t show any MAGA memes or Trump quotes. He wasn’t live-streaming on...
11 months ago
Josh Coker’s Facebook page doesn’t show any MAGA memes or Trump quotes. He wasn’t live-streaming on 6 January 2021, and no one has ever stepped forward to identify him as one of the mob that stormed the US Capitol that day.
Oregon, Ohio, with five counts connected to the failed...
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 2)
Internet Harvest is a selection of the most succulent links on the internet that I’ve recently...
over a year ago
Internet Harvest is a selection of the most succulent links on the internet that I’ve recently plucked from its fruitful boughs. Feel free to discuss the links in the comments. Also, semi-intentionally, none of the links in this harvest are COVID-19-related. If you want some...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Humor
It’s been less than two years (November 2022) since ChatGPT launched. In some ways the new large...
4 months ago
It’s been less than two years (November 2022) since ChatGPT launched. In some ways the new large language model (LLM) type of artificial intelligence (AI) applications have been on the steep part of the improvement curve. And yet, they are still LLMs with the same limitations. In...
Blog - Practical...
How French Drains Work
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In February of 2017, one of...
4 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In February of 2017, one of the largest spillways in the world, the one at Oroville Dam in northern California, was severely damaged during releases from heavy rain. You might remember this. I made a video...
NeuroLogica Blog
Trust in New Technology
In an optimally rational person, what should govern their perception of risk? Of course, people are...
5 months ago
In an optimally rational person, what should govern their perception of risk? Of course, people are generally not “optimally rational”. It’s therefore an interesting thought experiment – what would be optimal, and how does that differ from how people actually assess risk? Risk is...
Math Is Still...
How Public Key Cryptography Really Works, Using Only Simple Math
The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part...
a month ago
The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part of your encryption to make your information much more secure.
The post How Public Key Cryptography Really Works, Using Only Simple Math first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Fight over Education
There is an ongoing culture war, and not just in the US, over the content of childhood education,...
a year ago
There is an ongoing culture war, and not just in the US, over the content of childhood education, both public and private. This seems to be flaring up recently, but is never truly gone. Republicans in the US have recently escalated this war by banning over 500 books in several...
Apoorva Srinivasan
getting started with bayesian inference
In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the...
over a year ago
In my previous post, we spoke about hypothesis testing from a frequentist perspective. This is the method that is commonly taught in STAT101 classes. But for many decades, some statisticians have argued for another approach to conduct statistical analysis based on bayes...
Math Is Still...
How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It
Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in...
5 months ago
Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in science to date, accelerating molecular research and kindling deep questions about why we do science.
The post How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It...
Math Is Still...
What Is Quantum Teleportation?
Teleporting people through space is still science fiction. But quantum teleportation is dramatically...
9 months ago
Teleporting people through space is still science fiction. But quantum teleportation is dramatically different and entirely real. In this episode, Janna Levin interviews the theoretical physicist John Preskill about teleporting bits and the promise of quantum technology. ...
nanoscale views
Nanopasta, no, really
Fig. 1 from the linked paper
Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun...
4 weeks ago
Fig. 1 from the linked paper
Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun physics. As you might readily imagine, there is a good deal of interdisciplinary and industrial interest in wanting to create fine fibers out of solution-based materials. One...
Math Is Still...
Researchers Approach New Speed Limit for Seminal Problem
Integer linear programming can help find the answer to a variety of real-world problems. Now...
10 months ago
Integer linear programming can help find the answer to a variety of real-world problems. Now researchers have found a much faster way to do it.
The post Researchers Approach New Speed Limit for Seminal Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Is AI Sentient Revisited
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s...
a year ago
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s LaMDA may be sentient, based on his interactions with it. This was a fascinating discussion, and even though I think we did a pretty deep dive in the time we had, it also felt...
Math Is Still...
A New Agenda for Low-Dimensional Topology
This past October, dozens of mathematicians gathered in Pasadena to create the third version of...
10 months ago
This past October, dozens of mathematicians gathered in Pasadena to create the third version of “Kirby’s list” — a compendium of the most important unsolved problems in the field.
The post A New Agenda for Low-Dimensional Topology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Cold Brew Coffee
While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory...
5 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...
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...
over a year ago
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.
Math Is Still...
The Year in Math
Landmark results in Ramsey theory and a remarkably simple aperiodic tile capped a year of...
a year ago
Landmark results in Ramsey theory and a remarkably simple aperiodic tile capped a year of mathematical delight and discovery.
The post The Year in Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Two Eclipses of the Sun Coming to North America 2023-24
Two eclipses of the Sun will be visible in North America during the 2023-24 school year.
The post...
a year ago
Two eclipses of the Sun will be visible in North America during the 2023-24 school year.
The post Two Eclipses of the Sun Coming to North America 2023-24 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Math Is Still...
Perplexing the Web, One Probability Puzzle at a Time
The mathematician Daniel Litt has driven social media users to distraction with a series of...
3 months ago
The mathematician Daniel Litt has driven social media users to distraction with a series of simple-seeming but counterintuitive probability puzzles.
The post Perplexing the Web, One Probability Puzzle at a Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction?
With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about...
a month ago
With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about all sorts of complex phenomena. Today, this practice is evolving to harness the power of machine learning and massive datasets. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with...
Asterisk
Pew Problems
A conversation about religion, fertility, and the American family.
a year ago
A conversation about religion, fertility, and the American family.
Math Is Still...
Why the Brain’s Connections to the Body Are Crisscrossed
In all bilaterally symmetrical animals, from humans down to simple worms, nerves cross from one side...
a year ago
In all bilaterally symmetrical animals, from humans down to simple worms, nerves cross from one side of the body to the opposite side of the brain. Geometry may explain why.
The post Why the Brain’s Connections to the Body Are Crisscrossed first appeared on Quanta...
The Works in...
Where inflation comes from
How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences...
a month ago
How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences in how well-off we think we are.
NeuroLogica Blog
DNA Nanorobot Kill Switch for Cancer
How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in...
5 months ago
How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in question is: “A DNA robotic switch with regulated autonomous display of cytotoxic ligand nanopatterns.” The study is a proof of concept in an animal model, so we are still years away...
Math Is Still...
Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack?
Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding...
5 months ago
Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding the worst shape for packing the plane.
The post Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
The Saga of AD-X2, the Battery Additive That Roiled the NBS
Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the director of the National Bureau of...
4 months ago
Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the director of the National Bureau of Standards, and his reinstatement after more than 400 scientists threatened to resign. Who knew a little box of salt could stir up such drama?
What was AD-X2?
It all started in 1947 when...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI for Neuroforecasting
I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies...
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Was Jesus a Con Artist?
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots...
4 months ago
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots of clarification. This was, however, the discussion here, while although poorly informed, does raise some interesting questions. This is a Tik Tok video of a popular podcast which...
Math Is Still...
How Math Achieved Transcendence
Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to...
a year ago
Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to understand them.
The post How Math Achieved Transcendence first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
What I Won’t Eat
A reflection on ethics, animal cognition, and chocolate cake.
a year ago
A reflection on ethics, animal cognition, and chocolate cake.
nanoscale views
Items of interest
For the first post of the new calendar year, here are a few items that I thought were...
11 months ago
For the first post of the new calendar year, here are a few items that I thought were interesting:
Here is a feature article in Science that talks about the experimental quest for detecting Majorana fermions in solid state systems, bookended by the story of Majorana's...
Probably...
Superbolts
Probably Overthinking It is available to predorder now. You can get a 30% discount if you order from...
a year ago
Probably Overthinking It is available to predorder now. 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. Recently I read a Scientific American...
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 2
This is the second episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
This is the second episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Neolithic Revolution
What was the greatest invention of human civilization? Arguably it was agriculture, which allowed...
5 months ago
What was the greatest invention of human civilization? Arguably it was agriculture, which allowed for civilization itself. Prior to agriculture humans were some combination of hunters, gatherers, scavengers, and fishers. We lived off the land, which was a full-time job. Many...
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
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...
Damn Interesting
Hunting For Kobyla
On a January day in 1964, something remarkable happened: Simon Wiesenthal took the afternoon off. He...
over a year ago
On a January day in 1964, something remarkable happened: Simon Wiesenthal took the afternoon off. He parked himself at a table on the terrace of Tel Aviv’s Café Roval, soaking up the sunshine as if he wished to bottle it. The friend he’d come to meet was late, but Wiesenthal had...
NeuroLogica Blog
Light and Distance in an Expanding Universe
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that...
6 months ago
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that distant galaxy for 13 and a half billion years, which I assume is true, but this neither represents the original nor the current distance to that galaxy in terms of light years. I...
Math Is Still...
Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light
In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain...
a year ago
In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain whole underground ecosystems.
The post Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Sean Carroll
Thanksgiving
This year we give thanks for one of the very few clues we have to the quantum nature of spacetime:...
over a year ago
This year we give thanks for one of the very few clues we have to the quantum nature of spacetime: black hole entropy. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory,...
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...
10 months ago
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
AC vs DC and other Power Questions
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9...
a month ago
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9 hour seminar on scientific skepticism for the Dubai Future Foundation. That sounds like a lot of time, but it isn’t. It was a good reminder of the vast body of knowledge that is...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: Representation and human history
Do shrunken heads belong in a museum?
over a year ago
Do shrunken heads belong in a museum?
Math Is Still...
Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge
How hard is it to prove that problems are hard to solve? Meta-complexity theorists have been asking...
a year ago
How hard is it to prove that problems are hard to solve? Meta-complexity theorists have been asking questions like this for decades. A string of recent results has started to deliver answers.
The post Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge...
Math Is Still...
Why Is It So Hard to Define a Species?
The idea of a species is fundamental to the way that many people understand the structure of life on...
a month ago
The idea of a species is fundamental to the way that many people understand the structure of life on Earth. But ask 10 specialists how they define the concept and you might get 10 answers. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with evolutionary biologist Kevin de Queiroz...
Math Is Still...
How Randomness Improves Algorithms
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.
The...
a year ago
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.
The post How Randomness Improves Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
brr
Snowdrifts
4 days of blown snow into a doorway.
a year ago
4 days of blown snow into a doorway.
NeuroLogica Blog
Deepfake Doctor Endorsements
This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a...
5 months ago
This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a recent BMJ study documents the scale of this fraud. The study focused on the UK, detailing instances of deepfakes of celebrity doctors endorsing dubious products. For example,...
Cremieux Recueil
High-Frequency Trading Is Good
Sichuan Mala has written a guest post on one of the most unfairly maligned parts of the financial...
3 months ago
Sichuan Mala has written a guest post on one of the most unfairly maligned parts of the financial industry
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...
8 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...
Quaking Giants Might Solve the Mysteries of Stellar Magnetism
In their jiggles and shakes, red giant stars encode a record of the magnetic fields near their...
a year ago
In their jiggles and shakes, red giant stars encode a record of the magnetic fields near their cores.
The post Quaking Giants Might Solve the Mysteries of Stellar Magnetism first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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...
Asterisk
What We Get Wrong About AI & China
Everyone’s afraid of what China can and will do with AI. On the ground, the picture looks a lot more...
a year ago
Everyone’s afraid of what China can and will do with AI. On the ground, the picture looks a lot more complicated.
Quantum Frontiers
Discoveries at the Dibner
This past summer, our quantum thermodynamics research group had the wonderful opportunity to visit...
10 months ago
This past summer, our quantum thermodynamics research group had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Dibner Rare Book Library in D.C. Located in a small corner of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, tucked away behind flashier exhibits, the Dibner is … Continue...
NeuroLogica Blog
Power-To-X and Climate Change Policy
What is Power-to-X (PtX)? It’s just a fancy marketing term for green hydrogen – using green energy,...
2 weeks ago
What is Power-to-X (PtX)? It’s just a fancy marketing term for green hydrogen – using green energy, like wind, solar, nuclear, or hydroelectric, to make hydrogen from water. This process does not release any CO2, just oxygen, and when the hydrogen is burned back with that oxygen...
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 4
This is the fourth episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
This is the fourth 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.
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour Of Jamaica
The Caribbean island of Jamaica is a naturalist’s paradise. Situated south of eastern Cuba, east of...
8 months ago
The Caribbean island of Jamaica is a naturalist’s paradise. Situated south of eastern Cuba, east of Honduras and north of Colombia, Jamaica has an interesting assemblage of species with different origins. Jamaica was never connected to the mainland throughout its long geological...
NeuroLogica Blog
UFOs and SGU on John Oliver
The most recent episode of John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, featured a discussion of the UFO...
8 months ago
The most recent episode of John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, featured a discussion of the UFO phenomenon. I’m always interested, and often disappointed, in how the mainstream media portrays skeptical topics. One interesting addition here is that Oliver actually referenced an SGU...
NeuroLogica Blog
GMOs and Butterflies
Are attitudes towards genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our agriculture softening? Back in...
a year ago
Are attitudes towards genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our agriculture softening? Back in 2015 a Pew survey found that the gap between public opinion and that of scientists was greatest on acceptance of GMOs (more than any other topic surveyed), with a 51% gap. But more...
Explorations of an...
2023 Part 2: Early March through April (Brazil)
March
On March 4, Laura and I landed in São Paulo. It was our first time in Brazil. Even though we...
12 months ago
March
On March 4, Laura and I landed in São Paulo. It was our first time in Brazil. Even though we had planned to spend much of the next two months exploring Brazil, the country is so large that we could only see a small portion of it. We restricted our route to only include...
nanoscale views
Experimental techniques: bridge measurements
When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss...
4 months ago
When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss over the fact that there are specialized techniques for this - it's more than just hooking up a battery and an ammeter. If you want to get high precision results, such as measuring...
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...
5 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 […]
Math Is Still...
Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too?
The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still...
2 weeks ago
The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well.
The post Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
How Bridge Engineers Design Against Ship Collisions
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On March 26, 2024 (just a few...
7 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On March 26, 2024 (just a few weeks ago, if you're watching this as it comes out), a large container ship struck one of the main support piers of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, collapsing...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder – July 4, 1997
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to...
over a year ago
During the morning hours of July 4, 1997, I experienced a strange sense of déjà vu as I sat glued to the television set watching live […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Odysseus Lands on the Moon
December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 soft landed on the lunar surface, carrying astronauts Gene Cernan and...
10 months ago
December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 soft landed on the lunar surface, carrying astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. This was the last time anything American soft landed on the moon, over 50 years ago. It seems amazing that it’s been that long. On February 22, 2024, the Odysseus...
IEEE Spectrum
The Invention That Let Fiber Optics Span the Globe
Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten:...
a year ago
Plenty of big stories from the year 1985 had their moment in the sun and are now all but forgotten: New Coke, “We Are the World,” the rise of desktop publishing. But one at-the-time obscure invention from that year has long eclipsed the frothy headlines of its time, because it...
The Works in...
Three Maintenance Philosophies Fought for Control of the Auto Industry
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
nanoscale views
Recent RT superconductivity claim - summary page
In the interests of saving people from lots of googling or scrolling through 170+ comments, here is...
a year ago
In the interests of saving people from lots of googling or scrolling through 170+ comments, here is a bulleted summary of links relevant to the recent claim of room temperature superconductivity in a nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride compound under pressure.
Dias's contributed...
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum computing vs. Grubhub
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my...
a year ago
pon receiving my speaking assignments for the Tucson Festival of Books, I mentally raised my eyebrows. I’d be participating in a panel discussion with Mike Evans, the founder of Grubhub? But I hadn’t created an app that’s a household name. I … Continue reading →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Ins-and-Outs of Cancer Care Navigators With Laura Stratte | Out-Of-Pocket
What are cancer care navigators and what issues do they face?
a year ago
What are cancer care navigators and what issues do they face?
brr
McMurdo Postal Mail
How to mail things to and from Antarctica!
over a year ago
How to mail things to and from Antarctica!
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...
over a year ago
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,...
ToughSF
Lasers, Mirrors and Star Pyramids
Lasers can hit targets at extreme ranges, at the fastest speed possible. They are ideal weapons for...
over a year ago
Lasers can hit targets at extreme ranges, at the fastest speed possible. They are ideal weapons for space warfare.
However, everyone knows that lasers bounce off mirrors... does this make lasers useless?
The post is inspired by the discussion that arose from the conclusions...
nanoscale views
Faculty positions at Rice - follow-up
I had mentioned about 6 weeks ago that my department at Rice is searching in the quantum/AMO space...
a year ago
I had mentioned about 6 weeks ago that my department at Rice is searching in the quantum/AMO space for experiment and theory. Now I want to put the larger context of this out there - Rice has four quantum-related searches going on right now:
Quantum theory (PHYA):...
Uncharted...
🪐 How Will We Ride to Mars?
Do we need a station on the Moon? How hard is it to get to Mars? What are the main challenges?
2 months ago
Do we need a station on the Moon? How hard is it to get to Mars? What are the main challenges?
symmetry magazine
Is dark matter the most powerful wave in the universe?
Dark matter could consist of particles so ultralight, they behave more like waves.
...
a year ago
Dark matter could consist of particles so ultralight, they behave more like waves.
Although the motions of galaxies provide evidence that dark matter exists, scientists have yet to directly detect the invisible stuff, or figure out what it could be made...
Math Is Still...
Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold
In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more...
a week ago
In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications.
The post Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold first appeared on Quanta...
Math Is Still...
How Many Microbes Does It Take to Make You Sick?
Exposure to a virus isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. The concept of “infectious dose” suggests...
a year ago
Exposure to a virus isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. The concept of “infectious dose” suggests ways to keep ourselves safer from harm.
The post How Many Microbes Does It Take to Make You Sick? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
India’s gem at CERN: Archana Sharma
The first Indian scientist to join CERN was recently recognized with the highest honor of India for...
a year ago
The first Indian scientist to join CERN was recently recognized with the highest honor of India for overseas citizens.
Math Is Still...
In the ‘Wild West’ of Geometry, Mathematicians Redefine the Sphere
High-dimensional spheres can have a much wider variety of structures than mathematicians thought...
a year ago
High-dimensional spheres can have a much wider variety of structures than mathematicians thought possible.
The post In the ‘Wild West’ of Geometry, Mathematicians Redefine the Sphere first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Game Theory Can Make AI More Correct and Efficient
Researchers are drawing on ideas from game theory to improve large language models and make them...
7 months ago
Researchers are drawing on ideas from game theory to improve large language models and make them more consistent.
The post Game Theory Can Make AI More Correct and Efficient first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
What's the Difference Between Paint and Coatings?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
There’s a popular myth that...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
There’s a popular myth that I’ve heard about several bridges (including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Forth Bridge in eastern Scotland) that they paint the structure continuously from end to...
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...
a month 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...
Damn Interesting
From Where the Sun Now Stands
An American Indian man on horseback stood outlined against a steely sky past midday on 05 October...
a year ago
An American Indian man on horseback stood outlined against a steely sky past midday on 05 October 1877. Winter was already settling into the prairies of what would soon become the state of Montana.
Five white men stood in the swaying grass on the other side of the field,...
Cremieux Recueil
China's Upside-Down Meritocracy
New evidence suggests China systematically misallocates its human capital
2 months ago
New evidence suggests China systematically misallocates its human capital
Asterisk
How to Prevent the Next Pandemic
Modern technology makes bioterrorism seem increasingly likely. If we can get our act together, there...
over a year ago
Modern technology makes bioterrorism seem increasingly likely. If we can get our act together, there are smart ways to prevent it.
ToughSF
Piracy in Space is Possible Part II: Armed Merchants and Pirate Patrols
There's more to piracy than just attacking a target and running away afterwards.
Put yourself in...
over a year ago
There's more to piracy than just attacking a target and running away afterwards.
Put yourself in the shoes of a pirate, a merchant or the authorities. What would you do?
Fighting back
Pirates intercepting, attacking and ransoming a merchant crew should be...
Math Is Still...
The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life
When seawater gets cold, it gets viscous. This fact could explain how single-celled ocean creatures...
5 months ago
When seawater gets cold, it gets viscous. This fact could explain how single-celled ocean creatures became multicellular when the planet was frozen during “Snowball Earth,” according to experiments.
The post The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life...
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: View of the Earth from NASA’s Explorer 6 – August 14, 1959
Today we take for granted that we can instantly access images of almost any part of the Earth taken...
4 months ago
Today we take for granted that we can instantly access images of almost any part of the Earth taken from space using an ever growing collection […]
brr
South Pole Water Infrastructure
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
6 months ago
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
NeuroLogica Blog
The Science of Gift Giving
There is a lot of social psychology out there providing information that can inform our everyday...
a year ago
There is a lot of social psychology out there providing information that can inform our everyday lives, and most people are completely unaware of the research. Richard Wiseman makes this point in his book, 59 Seconds – we actually have useful scientific information, and yet we...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Time Toxicity - A Real-World Example | Out-Of-Pocket
Being sick is already annoying, now I gotta spend time on the phone???
11 months ago
Being sick is already annoying, now I gotta spend time on the phone???
NeuroLogica Blog
Man Gets Pig Kidney Transplant
On March 16 surgeons transplanted a kidney taken from a pig into a human recipient, Rick Slayman. So...
9 months ago
On March 16 surgeons transplanted a kidney taken from a pig into a human recipient, Rick Slayman. So far the transplant is a success, but of course the real test will be how well the kidney functions and for how long. This is the first time such a transplant has been done into a...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Social Media Dilemma
Australia is planning a total ban on social media for children under 16 years old. Prime Minister...
a month ago
Australia is planning a total ban on social media for children under 16 years old. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese argues that it is the only way to protect vulnerable children from the demonstrable harm that social media can do. This has sparked another round of debates about...
Math Is Still...
The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent...
6 months ago
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent parts. A new framework has researchers hopeful that a solution is near.
The post The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
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?
Asterisk
AI Isn’t Coming for Tech Jobs—Yet
LLMs can make a developer’s job easier and faster. When might they make them obsolete?
a year ago
LLMs can make a developer’s job easier and faster. When might they make them obsolete?
Math Is Still...
How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better
Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new...
9 months ago
Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new languages faster and more easily.
The post How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
The Transistor Cliff
Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
a year ago
Moore’s law may be coming to an end. What happens to AI progress if it does?
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