Conservation...
'My son's son will see this elephant'
6th Jul 2026
lcamtuf’s thing
A nicer voltmeter clock
Sometimes, electronic circuit design is mostly about wood
16th May 2026
Sometimes, electronic circuit design is mostly about wood
Beautiful Public...
The USGS Cooperative National Geologic Map
A new, colorful map from the USGS synthesizes decades of state and federal geologic surveys to...
1st Dec 2025
A new, colorful map from the USGS synthesizes decades of state and federal geologic surveys to create the most detailed visualization of the geology of the contiguous United States to date.
Long Now
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his...
27th Jan 2007
### Ignore confident forecasters
"What is it about politics that makes people so dumb?"
From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time...
Long Now
Will Hearst & Chris Anderson: The Long Time Tail
### The power law is the shape of our age
You know something is up when an audience member is...
31st May 2006
### The power law is the shape of our age
You know something is up when an audience member is taking cell phone photos of the presenter's slides for instant transmittal to a business partner.
Chris Anderson does have killer slides, full of exuberant detail, defining the exact...
The Quanta Podcast
The Hidden Magnetic Universe Begins to Come Into View
Astronomers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date...
3rd Dec 2020
Astronomers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a major cosmological mystery.
The post The Hidden Magnetic Universe Begins to Come Into View 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...
25th Mar 2024
Another day, another post that starts with “So I was on mse…”, lol.
Somebody asked whether maximizing over a compact set is a continuous thing
to do. That is, given a continuous function $f : K \times X \to \mathbb{R}$ is the
function $x \mapsto \max_{k \in K} f(k,x)$...
Quantum Frontiers
My favorite rocket scientist
Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is...
8th Jul 2024
Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is a researcher at Princeton University, and she showed me her lab this June. When I first met Jamie, she was testing instruments to … Continue reading →
The Works in...
Escape to the country
What makes a successful New Town?
1st Aug 2024
What makes a successful New Town?
The Quanta Podcast
Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals
An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more...
3rd Jan 2019
An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more complex during the Cambrian explosion.
The post Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance...
1st Apr 2021
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes.
The post A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Peder M. Isager
Quantifying the corroboration of a finding
A summary of the pros and cons of multiple candidate statistics.
12th Apr 2019
A summary of the pros and cons of multiple candidate statistics.
Conservation...
How an extraordinary new effort is giving sharks ‘a fighting chance’
1st Nov 2024
Long Now
George P. Shultz: Perspective
Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than...
2nd Aug 2018
Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than George Shultz, now 97. (Henry Kissinger is only 95.)
Secretary Shultz was a US Marine Captain in World War II. After becoming an economics professor at MIT and the University of...
Asterisk
When RAND Made Magic in Santa Monica
RAND’s halcyon days lasted two decades, during which the corporation produced some of the most...
1st Jun 2024
RAND’s halcyon days lasted two decades, during which the corporation produced some of the most influential developments in science and American foreign policy. So how did it become just another think tank?
Inverted Passion
Why AI agents aren’t adopted widely
Hint: managing someone is actually hard, and most times not worth it. Most people don’t use AI...
5th Aug 2026
Hint: managing someone is actually hard, and most times not worth it. Most people don’t use AI agents daily because delegation (to another human) is a learned skill. Using AI agents is actually a lot like doing natural language programming: specifying requirements, verifying...
Long Now
Peter Schwartz: The Art Of The Really Long View
### The art of the really long view
For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going...
13th Dec 2003
### The art of the really long view
For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going on in the Seminar Thursday night.
The topic was "The Art of the Really Long View." Peter Schwartz chatted through his slides for tonight's lecture, then the discussion waded in....
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Copper and Green Energy
The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The...
1st Jul 2024
The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The current list of 54 materials includes elements that are presently critical to a transition to green energy, such as the rare earth elements important to turbine generators, and...
nanoscale views
OMB proposed rule changes - act now
For non-US folks, feel free to skip.
For US folks: The Office of Management and Budget, which for...
6th Jul 2026
For non-US folks, feel free to skip.
For US folks: The Office of Management and Budget, which for much of its history has been a comparatively uncontroversial element of the executive branch, has set rules and guidelines for how many executive-branch agencies conduct business...
Eukaryote Writes...
Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at...
7th Jan 2024
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at great effort and expense during the 1969 Apollo landing.
Chris Grossack's...
Talk -- Factorization Homology and Quantum Character Stacks
Today Yesterday in the Representation Theory Seminar at UCR I gave a talk about
Factorization...
20th Feb 2026
Today Yesterday in the Representation Theory Seminar at UCR I gave a talk about
Factorization Homology and how it lets us compute a “Quantum Character Stack”.
This is all based on a great paper,
Integrating Quantum Groups Over Surfaces by Ben-Zvi, Brochier, and
Jordan, which...
Long Now
Roman Krznaric: Becoming a Better Ancestor
Human beings have an astonishing evolutionary gift: agile imaginations that can shift in an instant...
18th Nov 2020
Human beings have an astonishing evolutionary gift: agile imaginations that can shift in an instant from thinking on a scale of seconds to a scale of years or even centuries. The need to draw on our capacity to think long-term has never been more urgent, whether in areas such as...
Long Now
Kara Platoni: Transforming Perception, One Sense at a Time
Kara Platoni, author and journalism professor at UC-Berkeley, set out to find the sensory pioneers...
3rd Jul 2017
Kara Platoni, author and journalism professor at UC-Berkeley, set out to find the sensory pioneers who are changing the way we experience the world. Her boot-strapped and crowd-sourced quest led her to laboratories and workshops around the world. In her book _[We Have The...
Long Now
Steven Johnson: Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World
## Inventing toward delight
Humanity has been inventing toward delight for a long time. Johnson...
5th Jan 2017
## Inventing toward delight
Humanity has been inventing toward delight for a long time. Johnson began with a slide of shell beads found in Morocco that indicate human interest in personal adornment going back 80,000 years. He showed 50,000-year-old bone flutes found in modern...
The Roots of...
What is progress?
In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another...
9th Mar 2024
In one sense, the concept of progress is simple, straightforward, and uncontroversial. In another sense, it contains an entire worldview.
The most basic meaning of “progress” is simply advancement along a path, or more generally from one state to another that is considered more...
Confessions of a...
Shark Bay: a pristine template for marine ecosystems worldwide
Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity. As such,...
13th Aug 2013
Here in Western Australia, we are lucky to be in the global centre of seagrass diversity. As such, we have a coastline dominated by many different species of seagrasses – from large, temperate seagrasses like Posidonia australis to small, tropical species like Halodule...
Cremieux Recueil
Why America’s Racial Poverty Statistics Are a Lesson for Researchers
What if a single government employee could tell you an entire literature was wrong?
26th Aug 2024
What if a single government employee could tell you an entire literature was wrong?
wadertales
Learning from their elders
A 2026 paper in Animal Behaviour examines how quickly juvenile Black-tailed Godwits(right, with...
5th Feb 2026
A 2026 paper in Animal Behaviour examines how quickly juvenile Black-tailed Godwits(right, with juvenile Redshanks) acquire the feeding skills they will need to get them through their first winter. Josh Nightingale followed the same migration route taken by young birds, as they...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 1: Introduction, Phoenix to Miller Canyon
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini...
22nd Sep 2024
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini vacations. Due to the variations in her work schedule, Laura had two blocks of time - a five-day chunk in early August, and six days in early September - and we wanted to make the...
Works in Progress...
The beauty of concrete
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately...
17th May 2024
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.
Eukaryote Writes...
Who invented knitting? The plot thickens
Last time on Eukaryote Writes Blog: You learned about knitting history. You thought you were done...
4th Feb 2023
Last time on Eukaryote Writes Blog: You learned about knitting history. You thought you were done learning about knitting history? You fool. You buffoon. I wanted to double check some things in the last post and found out that the origins of knitting are even weirder than I...
brr
Showering at the South Pole
Potable water, and not much of it.
4th Feb 2023
Potable water, and not much of it.
Long Now
Alexander Rose, Brian Eno, & Stewart Brand: Long Finance: The Enduring Value Conference
### Enduring Value
In February 02010, [Brian Eno](../../../../people/board/prospect4/), [Stewart...
1st Feb 2010
### Enduring Value
In February 02010, [Brian Eno](../../../../people/board/prospect4/), [Stewart Brand](../../../../people/board/sb1/), and [Alexander Rose](../../../../people/staff/zander/) spoke at the [Long Finance...
wadertales
Four eggs or five?
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their...
6th Mar 2026
There is something pleasing about four wader eggs in a nest. They seem to fit so neatly, with their pointed ends in the middle, as illiustrated in the Ringed Plover nest alongside. There has been an assumption that this is an optimum arrangement for incubation, with strong...
Long Now
Mary Catherine Bateson: Live Longer, Think Longer
### Parenting Earth
The birth of a first child is the most intense disruption that most adults...
10th Feb 2011
### Parenting Earth
The birth of a first child is the most intense disruption that most adults experience. Suddenly the new parents have no sleep, no social life, no sex, and they have to keep up with a child that changes from week to week. "Two ignorant adults learn from the...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What does Innovaccer actually do? A look under the hood | Out-Of-Pocket
A conversation about EHRs, who their customers actually are, and building apps
3rd Jun 2025
A conversation about EHRs, who their customers actually are, and building apps
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote Skips Town – why I’m leaving DC
I’m hesitant to write this piece because it’s directly about my EA ambitions, and I’ve talked to a...
26th Mar 2025
I’m hesitant to write this piece because it’s directly about my EA ambitions, and I’ve talked to a lot of EAs trying to get into biosecurity who want advice, and I have no idea what they should take away from my story or if any of this should be taken as any kind of advice.
Long Now
Kim Carson: Inspired by Intelligence
What if AI is not here actually to replace us, but to remind us who we actually are?
That was the...
13th Jun 2025
What if AI is not here actually to replace us, but to remind us who we actually are?
That was the question at the heart of Kim Carson’s Long Now Talk. In _Inspired by Intelligence: Purpose and Creativity in the AI Era_, Carson challenged us to avoid the easy narratives of...
Long Now
Ed Lu: Anthropocene Astronomy: Thwarting Dangerous Asteroids Begins with Finding Them
### The last killer asteroid
Kevin Kelly wrote the following about Ed Lu’s Seminar About Long-term...
19th Jun 2013
### The last killer asteroid
Kevin Kelly wrote the following about Ed Lu’s Seminar About Long-term Thinking (SALT) titled “Anthropocene Astronomy: Thwarting Dangerous Asteroids Begins with Finding Them”...
Last night's SALT talk was one of the most important ones we ever...
Casey Handmer's blog
California’s path to redemption
California is by far the richest and most powerful polity led by Progressive ideals, and it has...
2nd Mar 2025
California is by far the richest and most powerful polity led by Progressive ideals, and it has taken a beating of late. In this post, I discuss a practical roadmap by which California must reclaim its mantle as the shining city on the hill, an embodiment of the positive...
Long Now
Seth Lloyd: Quantum Computer Reality
### Quantum Computer Reality
The 15th-century Renaissance was triggered, Lloyd began, by a flood of...
10th Aug 2016
### Quantum Computer Reality
The 15th-century Renaissance was triggered, Lloyd began, by a flood of new information which changed how people thought about everything, and the same thing is happening now. All of us have had to shift, just in the last couple decades, from hungry...
Cremieux Recueil
Will Making Your Kids Tall Shorten Their Lives?
Bonus: How to get human growth hormone (HGH) for cheap
1st Jul 2026
Bonus: How to get human growth hormone (HGH) for cheap
Conservation...
Countries agreed to protect 30% of the planet. Now what?
6th Sep 2024
Stephen Wolfram...
Instant Supercompute: Launching Wolfram Compute Services
To immediately enable Wolfram Compute Services in Version 14.3 Wolfram Desktop systems,...
2nd Dec 2025
To immediately enable Wolfram Compute Services in Version 14.3 Wolfram Desktop systems, run
RemoteBatchSubmissionEnvironment["WolframBatch"].
(The functionality is automatically available in the Wolfram Cloud.)
Scaling Up Your Computations
Let’s say you’ve done a computation in...
The Quanta Podcast
How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently...
10th Sep 2020
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life.
The post How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
The Army and Navy Style Guides
These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed...
4th Oct 2023
These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed forces.
Long Now
Richard Kurin: American History in 101 Objects
### American objects
Figuratively holding up one museum item after another, Kurin spun tales from...
19th Nov 2013
### American objects
Figuratively holding up one museum item after another, Kurin spun tales from them. (The Smithsonian has 137 million objects; he displayed just thirty or so.)
The Burgess Shale shows fossilized soft-tissue creatures ("very early North Americans") from 500...
nanoscale views
NAS "State of Science" 2026 address
I watched the webcast of the NAS State of Science address by outgoing NAS president Dr. Marcia...
2nd Jun 2026
I watched the webcast of the NAS State of Science address by outgoing NAS president Dr. Marcia McNutt. (I did not watch the panel discussion afterward, so sorry if I missed critical pieces.) A few thoughts on this:
The intro music was a very classy baroque string quartet. ...
IEEE Spectrum
Lord Kelvin and His Analog Computer
William Thomson, mourning the death of his wife and flush with cash from various patents related to...
2nd Jun 2024
William Thomson, mourning the death of his wife and flush with cash from various patents related to the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, decided to buy a yacht. His schooner, the Lalla Rookh, became Thomson’s summer home and his base for hosting scientific...
Long Now
Frank Gavin: Five Ways to Use History Well
### History-savvy Policy
Why do policy makers and historians shun each other? Gavin observed that...
13th Jul 2010
### History-savvy Policy
Why do policy makers and historians shun each other? Gavin observed that policy people want actionable information, certainty, and simple explanations. Meanwhile historians revel in nuance, distrust simple explanations and also distrust power and those...
brr
South Pole Topography
The relentless accumulation (and management) of snow.
27th Jan 2023
The relentless accumulation (and management) of snow.
Works in Progress...
The perks of being a mole rat
The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for...
4th Feb 2026
The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for centuries.
Drew Ex Machina
Memories of Project RAMOS (Russian American Observation Satellites) 1991 – 2004
During the course of my professional career, one of the more important projects I had the pleasure...
29th Sep 2023
During the course of my professional career, one of the more important projects I had the pleasure to work on was the joint US/Russian Federation (RF) […]
Works in Progress...
The first non-opioid painkiller
For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally...
6th Oct 2025
For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally made something better.
Uncharted...
What Asian Development Can Teach the World
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US...
7th Mar 2025
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US Tariffs, China’s Future, EU Protectionism, Japan’s Zombie Debt, Argentina’s Arrested Development, and more
Long Now
Becky Chambers & Annalee Newitz: Resisting Dystopia
One of our guiding principles at Long Now is that in order to get to a future that we want to live...
15th Jun 2023
One of our guiding principles at Long Now is that in order to get to a future that we want to live in, we must first be able to imagine it.
For many, it is much easier to imagine a dystopia than a thriving civilization. Our cultural visions of the future are increasingly...
Conservation...
Landmark debt swap to protect Indonesia’s coral reefs
15th Jan 2025
Confessions of a...
Marine science, the environment, and the 2013 Australian election
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write about the upcoming election in this blog; after all the point of...
10th Sep 2013
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write about the upcoming election in this blog; after all the point of this blog has never been about anything political! However, for better or worse the state of our environment (including our oceans) are inextricably linked to politics, so here...
Stephen Wolfram...
Ruliology of the “Forgotten” Code 10
My All-Time Favorite Science Discovery June 1, 1984—forty years ago today—is when it would be fair...
1st Jun 2024
My All-Time Favorite Science Discovery June 1, 1984—forty years ago today—is when it would be fair to say I made my all-time favorite science discovery. Like with basically all significant science discoveries (despite the way histories often present them) it didn’t happen without...
The Quanta Podcast
Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because...
4th Jun 2020
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes.
The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Eukaryote Writes...
Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the...
13th Apr 2024
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the moon.” The truth is that given a lot of power, a nuclear weapon, and a lot of extremely specific circumstances, we too might find ourselves thinking “I should nuke the moon.”
Works in Progress...
Liberté, égalité, radioactivité
France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow...
4th Sep 2025
France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow their lead today.
Quantum Frontiers
What does it mean to create a topological qubit?
I’ve worked on topological quantum computation, one of Alexei Kitaev’s brilliant innovations, for...
6th Mar 2025
I’ve worked on topological quantum computation, one of Alexei Kitaev’s brilliant innovations, for around 15 years now. It’s hard to find a more beautiful physics problem, combining spectacular quantum phenomena (non-Abelian anyons) with the promise of transformative...
Beautiful Public...
Special Database 18: 3,248 Mugshots Used for Training Image Recognition Systems
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos...
18th Mar 2023
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos of 1,573 people for decades, including 175 minors, until we asked about them.
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...
26th Sep 2024
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.
The Quanta Podcast
New Map of Meaning in the Brain Changes Ideas About Memory
Researchers have mapped hundreds of semantic categories to the tiny bits of the cortex that...
11th May 2022
Researchers have mapped hundreds of semantic categories to the tiny bits of the cortex that represent them in our thoughts and perceptions. What they discovered might change our view of memory.
The post New Map of Meaning in the Brain Changes Ideas About Memory first...
Casey Handmer's blog
Australian Economic Stagnation
It’s not news, at least in my circles, that much of the developed world is seeing economic...
4th Sep 2025
It’s not news, at least in my circles, that much of the developed world is seeing economic stagnation. Last month Australia convened a Productivity Summit/Economic Reform Roundtable to try to better address the sluggish growth of the economy relative, in particular, to ever...
Quantum Frontiers
How can objects interact without touching?
Rethinking the electric field Have you ever wondered what an electric field actually is? The...
a week ago
Rethinking the electric field Have you ever wondered what an electric field actually is? The electric field is the foundation of most technologies that we rely on every day. From power grids and electronic devices to radio communication and the … Continue reading →
Long Now
Ray Kurzweil: Kurzweil's Law
### Escape velocity
Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of...
24th Sep 2005
### Escape velocity
Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of imagining that the pace of the future is like the pace of the past. Pondering the next ten years, we usually begin by studying the last ten years. He recommends studying the last...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming Mar. 13-14
There will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible in the Americas the night of March 13-14
The post...
13th Feb 2025
There will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible in the Americas the night of March 13-14
The post Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming Mar. 13-14 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
Long Now
Alex Wright: Glut: Mastering Information Though the Ages
### A Series of Information Explosions
As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have swarmed in...
18th Aug 2007
### A Series of Information Explosions
As usual, microbes led the way. Bacteria have swarmed in intense networks for 3.5 billion years. Then a hierarchical form emerged with the first nucleated cells that were made up of an enclosed society of formerly independent...
IEEE Spectrum
Ethernet is Still Going Strong After 50 Years
The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California has spawned many pioneering computer technologies...
16th Nov 2023
The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California has spawned many pioneering computer technologies including the Alto—the first personal computer to use a graphical user interface—and the first laser printer.
The PARC facility also is known for the invention of Ethernet, a...
Many Worlds
Many Worlds Archive is Available
I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column — sponsored by NASA’s NExSS...
14th Nov 2023
I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column — sponsored by NASA’s NExSS initiative and the Lunar & Planetary Institute — for almost eight years. But the run came to an end in October. Now an archive of the more than 400 columns is easily available at...
Yale E360
In Mexico’s ‘Avocado Belt,’ Villagers Stand Up to Protect Their Lands
A boom in avocado production in Mexico has led to illegal deforestation and an influx of drug...
2nd May 2025
A boom in avocado production in Mexico has led to illegal deforestation and an influx of drug cartels dominating the lucrative trade. But Indigenous communities have fought back against the gangs and turned to traditional practices to grow avocados and save their forests.
Read...
Works in Progress...
Just bury your trash
What if everything we know about recycling is wrong?
2 weeks ago
What if everything we know about recycling is wrong?
The Quanta Podcast
A Secret Flexibility Found in Life’s Blueprints
A new study reveals that individual genes can create many different versions of the molecular...
5th May 2016
A new study reveals that individual genes can create many different versions of the molecular machinery that powers the cell.
The post A Secret Flexibility Found in Life’s Blueprints first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Chris Grossack's...
Analytic Combinatorics Redux
Earlier today I gave a talk in the graduate student seminar titled
“Counting is Hard. Complex...
9th May 2025
Earlier today I gave a talk in the graduate student seminar titled
“Counting is Hard. Complex Analysis is Easy.” based in part on my
recent blog post about analytic combinatorics and based in part
on Varilly’s notes on Dirichlet’s Theorem, showing how to count
the number of...
Quanta Magazine
How Randomness Improves Algorithms
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.
The...
3rd Apr 2023
Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.
The post How Randomness Improves Algorithms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Long Now
Brian Christian: Algorithms to Live By
### Solving hard decisions
Deciding when to stop your quest for the ideal apartment, or ideal...
21st Jun 2016
### Solving hard decisions
Deciding when to stop your quest for the ideal apartment, or ideal spouse, depends entirely on how long you expect to be looking, says Brian Christian. The first one you check will be the best you’ve seen, but it’s unlikely to be the best you’ll ever...
Beautiful Public...
NASA Ames Research Center Archives
In the heart of Silicon Valley, NASA Ames Research Center has the world's largest wind tunnel, and a...
22nd May 2025
In the heart of Silicon Valley, NASA Ames Research Center has the world's largest wind tunnel, and a rich history of space and aeronautics innovation captured in a fascinating visual archive.
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...
8th Dec 2024
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 […]
wadertales
Moult, captured on camera
Autumn moult is an important part of the annual cycle of migratory shorebirds, typically squeezed in...
9th Oct 2025
Autumn moult is an important part of the annual cycle of migratory shorebirds, typically squeezed in between chick-rearing and the onset of winter. The process of changing an individual’s feathers lasts as long as the whole of the breeding season but is far well less well...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Eclipse of the Sun Coming in One Week
Saturday Oct. 14 North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun.
The post Eclipse of the Sun...
8th Oct 2023
Saturday Oct. 14 North America will be treated to an eclipse of the Sun.
The post Eclipse of the Sun Coming in One Week appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
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...
14th Aug 2024
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 […]
Asterisk
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart AIs Are?
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the...
1st Jun 2023
Scientists have repeatedly failed to recognize the complexity of animal cognition. Will we make the same mistakes with AI?
IEEE Spectrum
Taking the Measure of the Earthquake That Destroyed Tokyo
At 11:58 am on Saturday, 1 September 1923, the Kanto region of Japan started to shake. The...
1st Sep 2023
At 11:58 am on Saturday, 1 September 1923, the Kanto region of Japan started to shake. The earthquake began with a violent horizontal back-and-forth motion, followed by two vertical jolts, and then another horizontal shock even stronger than the first. The intensity of the tremor...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Common healthcare questions I get | Out-Of-Pocket
Some of your FAQs finally answered
4th Dec 2024
Some of your FAQs finally answered
Quanta Magazine
Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine...
2nd Oct 2023
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to mRNA vaccines, such as those that protect against COVID-19.
The post Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023 first appeared on...
Inverted Passion
Getting things done by not trying
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned....
20th Oct 2024
I recently finished a very short book with an intriguing title: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned. It’s an unconventional self-help book disguised as a computer science research exposition (that’s why the publisher is Springer). I strongly recommend reading it. Here is a taste of...
Damn Interesting
A Taste of Italy
In the mid-1800s, Italy was consumed by two parallel fights: one to rid itself of Austrian...
14th May 2021
In the mid-1800s, Italy was consumed by two parallel fights: one to rid itself of Austrian domination (a holdover from the Holy Roman Empire) and the other for unification. At the time, Europe’s boot was a curious conglomeration of separate states, not all of which got along....
Long Now
Sara Seager: Other Earths. Other Life.
## To find living exoplanets
Thanks to recent exoplanet research, Seager began, we now know that...
11th Aug 2015
## To find living exoplanets
Thanks to recent exoplanet research, Seager began, we now know that nearly all of our galaxy’s 300 billion stars are accompanied by planets, and a unexpectedly high number of them are rocky like Earth, and many of those orbit in a “habitable”...
Long Now
Mariana Mazzucato: The Entrepreneurial State
### Government as radical, patient VC
The iPhone, Mazzucato pointed out, is held up as a classic...
25th Mar 2014
### Government as radical, patient VC
The iPhone, Mazzucato pointed out, is held up as a classic example of world-changing innovation coming from business.
Yet every feature of the iPhone was created, originally, by multi-decade government-funded research. From DARPA came the...
The Works in...
What did Henry George think about cities?
Solving the terrible urban conditions of the 1800s by abolishing cities
9th May 2024
Solving the terrible urban conditions of the 1800s by abolishing cities
Quanta Magazine
The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory
Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists...
1st Nov 2023
Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists reimagined their whole field.
The post The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Stephen Wolfram...
Yet More New Ideas and New Functions: Launching Version 14.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector...
31st Jul 2024
For the 36th Time… the Latest from Our R&D Pipeline There’s Now a Unified Wolfram App Vector Databases and Semantic Search RAGs and Dynamic Prompting for LLMs Connect to Your Favorite LLM Symbolic Arrays and Their Calculus Binomials and Pitchforks: Navigating Mathematical...
Long Now
Sander van der Leeuw: The Archaeology of Innovation
### History of Innovation
The development of human mental ability can be tracked through the...
19th Nov 2009
### History of Innovation
The development of human mental ability can be tracked through the progressive crafting of stone tools, Van der Leeuw explained. First we learned to shape an edge---a line---then the surface, then the whole volume of the tool, then the sophisticated...
Conservation...
News spotlight: Study buoys hope for rare axolotls
1st May 2025
Damn Interesting
Lofty Ambitions
One summer day in 1933, in a brief pocket of time between the two World Wars, a British man named...
14th Dec 2022
One summer day in 1933, in a brief pocket of time between the two World Wars, a British man named Maurice Wilson clutched the stick of his tiny, open air biplane and watched his fuel gauge dwindle. He had only learned to fly two months earlier, but inexperience was not his...
Long Now
David Grinspoon: Earth in Human Hands
## Cognitive planet
**Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people...
20th Sep 2017
## Cognitive planet
**Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people say we are entering an Anthropocene Epoch, Grinspoon began, but what if the term “epoch” understates the consequence of what is going on? Astrobiologists recently learned that...
Quantum Frontiers
Winners of the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest
During the past seven months, I’ve steamed across the Atlantic, sailed in a flying castle,...
1st May 2023
During the past seven months, I’ve steamed across the Atlantic, sailed in a flying castle, teleported across the globe, and shuttled forward and backward in time. Literarily, not literally—the Quantum-Steampunk Short-Story Contest began welcoming submissions in October 2022. We...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Emergent, Fringe Behaviors in Healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket
tweeting out your labs, induced mental states, and more
2nd May 2025
tweeting out your labs, induced mental states, and more
Stephen Wolfram...
On the Nature of Time
The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is...
8th Oct 2024
The Computational View of Time Time is a central feature of human experience. But what actually is it? In traditional scientific accounts it’s often represented as some kind of coordinate much like space (though a coordinate that for some reason is always systematically...
The Quanta Podcast
Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’
Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for...
7th May 2020
Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for insights into how complex cells evolved.
The post Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Quanta Podcast
The Infinite Heist - Part 1
In 1874, Georg Cantor published one of the most important papers in math’s 4,000-year history. Some...
3rd Mar 2026
In 1874, Georg Cantor published one of the most important papers in math’s 4,000-year history. Some ideas in it were stolen. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, the first of a two-parter, host Samir Patel speaks with math editor Jordana Cepelewicz about the hard-fought journey...
Stephen Wolfram...
Games between Programs: The Ruliology of Competition
The Basic Setup
Whether one’s dealing with biology, economics, politics or a host of other fields,...
4th Jun 2026
The Basic Setup
Whether one’s dealing with biology, economics, politics or a host of other fields, it’s common to encounter situations that can be modeled as involving two agents that repeatedly compete with each other. One imagines that at each step each agent can take one of a...
Long Now
Roger Kennedy: The Political History of North America from 25,000 BC to 12,000 AD
### Ancient American politics
Roger Kennedy, the former head of the Smithsonian National Museum of...
26th Feb 2005
### Ancient American politics
Roger Kennedy, the former head of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and former Director of the US National Park Service, is so eloquent that Walt Kelly based a "Pogo" character on him (the bear P.T. Bridgeport, whose speech...
Asterisk
AI After Drug Development
Coming up with drug candidates isn’t the bottleneck on finding new treatments. Can AI help with the...
1st Jan 1970
Coming up with drug candidates isn’t the bottleneck on finding new treatments. Can AI help with the things that are?
The Quanta Podcast
Mongrel Microbe Tests Story of Complex Life
A newly discovered class of microbe could help to resolve one of the biggest and most controversial...
12th Nov 2015
A newly discovered class of microbe could help to resolve one of the biggest and most controversial mysteries in evolution — how simple microbes transformed into the complex cells that produced animals, plants and fungi.
The post Mongrel Microbe Tests Story of Complex...
Works in Progress...
How Amsterdam invented the fire department
In the seventeenth century, Amsterdam was likely the wealthiest city in the world. Global trade and...
1st Jul 2026
In the seventeenth century, Amsterdam was likely the wealthiest city in the world. Global trade and local industry financed its artistic masterpieces and furnished the abundant foods and household goods that Dutch painters immortalized in still lifes and domestic scenes. But...
IEEE Spectrum
Fakes: Not an Internet Thing, a Human Thing
Every day, as the Internet becomes more indispensable to modern life, the drawbacks of deep...
15th Dec 2023
Every day, as the Internet becomes more indispensable to modern life, the drawbacks of deep engagement with the virtual realm capture as much attention as the wide-ranging benefits. On the Internet, of course, anyone can in all too many forums pretty much say anything—regardless...
Long Now
Cory Doctorow: The Coming Century of War Against Your Computer
### Who governs digital trust?
Doctorow framed the question this way: "Computers are everywhere....
1st Aug 2012
### Who governs digital trust?
Doctorow framed the question this way: "Computers are everywhere. They are now something we put our whole bodies into---airplanes, cars---and something we put into our bodies---pacemakers, cochlear implants. They HAVE to be trustworthy."
Sometimes...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Bicycle
There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling...
28th Mar 2023
There is something delightful about riding a bicycle. Once mastered, the simple action of pedaling to move forward and turning the handlebars to steer makes bike riding an effortless activity. In the demonstration below, you can guide the rider with the slider, and you can also...
The Quanta Podcast
Interspecies Hybrids Play a Vital Role in Evolution
Hybrids, once treated as biological misfits, play a vital role in the evolution of many animal...
18th Jan 2018
Hybrids, once treated as biological misfits, play a vital role in the evolution of many animal species. Now conservationists are trying to reconcile that truth with policies.
The post Interspecies Hybrids Play a Vital Role in Evolution first appeared on Quanta...
Works in Progress...
The beauty of concrete
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately...
17th May 2024
Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.
SubAnima
Could There Be Laws Of Biology?
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles...
10th Mar 2023
Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles or axioms for biology?
Probably...
Announcing Think Stats 3e
The third edition of Think Stats is on its way to the printer! You can preorder now from...
6th Apr 2025
The third edition of Think Stats is on its way to the printer! You can preorder now from Bookshop.org and Amazon (those are affiliate links), or if you can’t wait to get a paper copy, you can read the free, online version here. Here’s the new cover, still featuring a...
Drew Ex Machina
You Can’t Fail Unless You Try: NASA’s Pioneer P-3 Lunar Orbiter
Space enthusiasts of a certain age, like myself, grew up learning about the trio of NASA’s unmanned...
26th Nov 2024
Space enthusiasts of a certain age, like myself, grew up learning about the trio of NASA’s unmanned programs which provided scientists and engineers with vital information […]
lcamtuf’s thing
Sierpiński triangle? In my bitwise AND?
Exploring a peculiar bit-twiddling hack at the intersection of 1980s geek sensibilities.
10th May 2025
Exploring a peculiar bit-twiddling hack at the intersection of 1980s geek sensibilities.
NeuroLogica Blog
BBC Gets Into UFOs
Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become...
1st Jul 2024
Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become fascinated with a topic, but eventually the novelty will wear thin and interest will fade. But the flame will be kept alive by the hardcore believers. Wait long enough, and...
The Works in...
Heat waves
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
12th Jul 2024
Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Sound to Modulate the Brain
The technique is called holographic transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation – which sounds like a...
6th Oct 2025
The technique is called holographic transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation – which sounds like a mouthful but just means using multiple sound waves in the ultrasonic frequency to affect brain function. Most people know about ultrasound as an imaging technique, used, for example,...
Works in Progress...
The golden age of vaccine development
The first vaccine was a lucky accident. Now we can design new vaccines in weeks, atom by atom.
7th Jan 2026
The first vaccine was a lucky accident. Now we can design new vaccines in weeks, atom by atom.
The Quanta Podcast
A World Without Clouds
A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming...
2nd Jan 2020
A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century.
The post A World Without Clouds first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
How Can Europe Improve Its Immigration
Through getting better immigrants, rejecting coutnerproductive ones, and managing the existing ones...
2nd Jun 2026
Through getting better immigrants, rejecting coutnerproductive ones, and managing the existing ones better.
Works in Progress...
The failure of the land value tax
Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But...
13th Mar 2025
Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But implementing them in early 1900s Britain destroyed the then-dominant Liberal Party.
lcamtuf’s thing
0.9999... ≊ 1
What is infinity, and why it's not trivial to show that 0.9999... is equal to 1.
1st Jun 2025
What is infinity, and why it's not trivial to show that 0.9999... is equal to 1.
The Quanta Podcast
The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds
Scientists thought that the brain’s hearing centers might just process speech along with other...
6th Jan 2022
Scientists thought that the brain’s hearing centers might just process speech along with other sounds. But new work suggests that speech gets some special treatment very early on.
The post The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds first appeared on...
Damn Interesting
The Kingpin of Shanghai
Respectable heads of state rarely admit to keeping company with gangsters. But in April 1927, about...
26th Aug 2021
Respectable heads of state rarely admit to keeping company with gangsters. But in April 1927, about 15 years after the collapse of the last imperial dynasty, Chiang Kai-shek and China were at a crossroads. Chiang had followed a murky path to leadership of the Chinese Nationalist...
IEEE Spectrum
Sci-fi and Hi-fi
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire...
4th Mar 2024
Many a technologist has been inspired by science fiction. Some have even built, or rebuilt, entire companies around an idea introduced in a story they read, as the founders of Second Life and Meta did, working from the metaverse as imagined by Neal Stephenson in his seminal 1992...
Conservation...
A rare eagle returns to Colombia’s coffee country
2nd Dec 2025
The Quanta Podcast
The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks
Investigations of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well...
11th Nov 2021
Investigations of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well as insights into the nature of time itself.
The post The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Works in Progress...
Why Japan has such good railways
Japan’s railways are the finest in the world. Other countries can copy its formula.
7th Apr 2026
Japan’s railways are the finest in the world. Other countries can copy its formula.
Chris Grossack's...
Free Things Are Complicated (Especially the Sphere Spectrum!)
I’ve spent the last week at CT2025, which has just come to a close.
It was great getting to see so...
20th Jul 2025
I’ve spent the last week at CT2025, which has just come to a close.
It was great getting to see so many old friends and meet so many new ones,
and every time I go to a CT I’m reminded of just how much category theory
there is in the world, as well as just how much I enjoy all...
The Quanta Podcast
Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate
New algorithms show how swarms of very simple robots can be made to work together as a group. ...
27th Sep 2018
New algorithms show how swarms of very simple robots can be made to work together as a group.
The post Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Conservation...
Our work in the news, February 2026
3rd Mar 2026
Long Now
Maya Tudor: Can Nationalism be a Resource for Democracy?
A political scientist examines how foundational nationalisms affect democracy globally, using...
6th May 2019
A political scientist examines how foundational nationalisms affect democracy globally, using countries like India and Myanmar to illustrate that some kinds of nationalism can be an essential resource for protecting democracy.
Maya Tudor is a comparative political scientist...
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
6th Nov 2023
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional wisdom, but I’m not so sure. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted that AI would “make paid work redundant.” I encountered the same opinion watching the latest season of...
Marine Madness
Culture Club: Time to let the cetaceans in?
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent...
29th Jul 2021
Up until recently, culture has been thought of as a primarily human characteristic. However, recent studies shine a light on the fact that non-human animals including Cetaceans (dolphins and whales), may also possess it. They live in tightly-knit social communities, exhibit...
The Quanta Podcast
Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome 'Tectonics'
Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the...
14th Apr 2022
Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be.
The post Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome ‘Tectonics’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Works in Progress...
The road from serfdom
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful...
16th Feb 2024
Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful opposition took a remarkable approach that let peasants vote themselves into freedom.
Casey Handmer's blog
Sierras Projects
A short post where I collate some info related to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, various...
15th Aug 2025
A short post where I collate some info related to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, various aspirational objectives and questions. Table Mountain Traverse Table Mountain is at the north west edge of the Kern River basin. It has numerous third and fourth class routes. I...
Beautiful Public...
How LiDAR measures the toll of climate disasters
Comparing LiDAR data from before and after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles reveals the scale...
25th Aug 2025
Comparing LiDAR data from before and after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles reveals the scale of devastation in ways satellite imagery can’t match.
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Future Tech Possibilities
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see...
1st Feb 2024
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see what happens when you try out a new technology in the real world with actual people. Many technologies that look good on paper run into logistical problems, difficulty scaling, fall...
nanoscale views
New updates + tetrahedra, tunneling times, and more
Here are a number of items from the past week or so that I think readers of this blog might find...
9th Jul 2025
Here are a number of items from the past week or so that I think readers of this blog might find interesting:
Essentially all the news pertaining to the US federal funding of science continues to be awful. This article from Science summarizes the situation well, as does this...
Stephen Wolfram...
The Ruliology of Lambdas
Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it.
What Are Lambdas?
It’s a story of...
15th Sep 2025
Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it.
What Are Lambdas?
It’s a story of pure, abstract computation. In fact, historically, one of the very first. But even though it’s something I for one have used in practice for nearly half a century, it’s not something...
Interaction Magic -...
The UX of LEGO Interface Panels
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I...
2nd Aug 2020
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I bought 52 of them from BrickLink to explore the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.
Casey Handmer's blog
Career Development Guide for Job Seekers
Context October 2025: With the government shut down and NASA JPL business in apparent terminal...
3rd Oct 2025
Context October 2025: With the government shut down and NASA JPL business in apparent terminal decline, I have received numerous inbounds from former colleagues and friends asking for advice in post-NASA career development. At the same time, in my day job running Terraform...
brr
South Pole Water Infrastructure
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
8th Jun 2024
Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!
Asterisk
We Can, Must, and Will Simulate Nematode Brains
Scientists have spent over 25 years trying — and failing — to build computer simulations of the...
5th Mar 2025
Scientists have spent over 25 years trying — and failing — to build computer simulations of the smallest brain we know. Today, we finally have the tools to pull it off.
The Quanta Podcast
A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate
Psychedelic drugs can trigger characteristic hallucinations, which have long been thought to hold...
5th Jul 2019
Psychedelic drugs can trigger characteristic hallucinations, which have long been thought to hold clues about the brain’s circuitry. After nearly a century of study, a possible explanation is crystallizing.
The post A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate first...
Articles - Chris...
Moved to tears
20 years ago, on January 15 2004, a little before 2 AM Pacific time, was
the payoff.
It was...
3rd Feb 2024
20 years ago, on January 15 2004, a little before 2 AM Pacific time, was
the payoff.
It was cause for celebration. But first, I wept.
NeuroLogica Blog
The Real Risk of AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unavoidable. It’s now a part of our daily lives as it has been...
7th Jul 2025
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unavoidable. It’s now a part of our daily lives as it has been steadily infiltrating the technology we use every day, whether you realize it or not. I remain somewhat in the middle in terms of the hype-to-technological-miracle spectrum. I don’t...
Apoorva Srinivasan
on edward jenner and creativity
One common question that’s on everyone’s minds as we fiercely scrub our hands, pool our resources,...
20th May 2020
One common question that’s on everyone’s minds as we fiercely scrub our hands, pool our resources, conserve our consumption, stock up (but not hoard), invent calculus or write King Lear is: when will this end? Nobody knows what the answer to that question is but we
Quantum Frontiers
My friend Mark Wise
Mark Wise, the John A. McCone Professor of High Energy Physics at Caltech, passed away on July 10 at...
18th Jul 2026
Mark Wise, the John A. McCone Professor of High Energy Physics at Caltech, passed away on July 10 at age 72. At a recent memorial service, John Preskill made these remarks. I’m John Preskill, Mark’s colleague on the Caltech physics … Continue reading →
Peder M. Isager
Bakeoff
Formspree makes it easy to receive submissions from HTML forms on your static website. Functional...
1st Jul 2019
Formspree makes it easy to receive submissions from HTML forms on your static website. Functional Form This theme has a form-to-email feature built in, thanks to the simple Formspree integration. All you need to activate the form is a valid recipient email address saved in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
It’s Just A Correlation
Did you know that the number of Google searches for cat memes correlates tightly (P-value < 0.01)...
5th Aug 2025
Did you know that the number of Google searches for cat memes correlates tightly (P-value < 0.01) with England’s performance in cricket World Cups? What’s going on here? Is interest in funny cat videos driven by the excitement created by cricket victories. Perhaps cat memes are...
Drew Ex Machina
Failure to Launch: The First Moon Race 1958-60
While it has been a few months since I have published a new post on the Drew Ex Machina website,...
2nd Jun 2023
While it has been a few months since I have published a new post on the Drew Ex Machina website, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t […]
Works in Progress...
How Covid brought the future back
Crises upend plans, force people to re-evaluate their priorities, and bring into focus new goals....
8th Feb 2021
Crises upend plans, force people to re-evaluate their priorities, and bring into focus new goals. Financial markets give us hints of what we can expect from the aftermath of Covid-19.
Long Now
John Rendon: Long-term Policy to Make the War on Terror Short
### Only connect
John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to...
15th Jul 2006
### Only connect
John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to the White Houses and Departments of Defense. His subject in this talk is how to replace tactical, reactive response to terror with long-term strategic initative.
I think that people...
Conservation...
In the news: Climate change is scrambling food production
3rd Mar 2025
Beautiful Public...
Visualizing Ship Movements with AIS Data
Explore the beautiful, intricate paths of ships over a year—tracked from America's busiest ports to...
17th Sep 2024
Explore the beautiful, intricate paths of ships over a year—tracked from America's busiest ports to the open ocean via AIS marine tracking data.
Quantum Frontiers
John Preskill receives 2025 Quantum Leadership Award
The 2025 Quantum Leadership Awards were announced at the Quantum World Congress on 18 September...
18th Sep 2025
The 2025 Quantum Leadership Awards were announced at the Quantum World Congress on 18 September 2025. Upon receiving the Academic Pioneer of the Year Award, John Preskill made these remarks. I’m enormously excited and honored to receive this Quantum Leadership … Continue reading...
The Quanta Podcast
The Incredible Shrinking Sex Chromosome
Nature offers species a panoply of ways to determine an organism’s sex. That flexibility suggests we...
10th Dec 2015
Nature offers species a panoply of ways to determine an organism’s sex. That flexibility suggests we need not be concerned about losing sex chromosomes, but it raises the question of why such a fundamental property is so variable.
The post The Incredible Shrinking Sex...
The Quanta Podcast
Scant Evidence of Power Laws Found in Real-World Networks
A new study challenges one of the most celebrated and controversial ideas in network science. ...
11th Oct 2018
A new study challenges one of the most celebrated and controversial ideas in network science.
The post Scant Evidence of Power Laws Found in Real-World Networks first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: An environmentalist gets lunch
Why being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one
5th Sep 2022
Why being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one
Quantum Frontiers
Nicole’s guide to handling failure and rejection
It’s happening. Your inbox registers an email from the chair of a faculty-hiring committee. With...
21st May 2026
It’s happening. Your inbox registers an email from the chair of a faculty-hiring committee. With trembling fingers, you click on the message. “We’ve been grateful for the opportunity to learn about your work…The decision was very difficult…many highly qualified candidates…” …...
Probably...
Multiple Regression with StatsModels
This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
4th Dec 2024
This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 10, which is about multiple regression. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab. In the previous...
Cremieux Recueil
National IQs Are Valid
National IQ estimates are robust, reliable, and realistic
16th Jan 2025
National IQ estimates are robust, reliable, and realistic
Inverted Passion
Why aren’t things changing faster?
Been wondering lately that given everyone has a consultant with all the world’s knowledge in their...
4th May 2026
Been wondering lately that given everyone has a consultant with all the world’s knowledge in their pockets, we should be seeing efficiency rise across the board everywhere. Literally everyone can now get personalised advise on how to serve their customers better, improve quality...
Quantum Frontiers
How I didn’t become a philosopher (but wound up presenting a named philosophy lecture anyway)
Many people ask why I became a theoretical physicist. The answer runs through philosophy—which I...
15th Apr 2024
Many people ask why I became a theoretical physicist. The answer runs through philosophy—which I thought, for years, I’d left behind in college. My formal relationship with philosophy originated with Mr. Bohrer. My high school classified him as a religion … Continue reading →
Light from Space
The Soul of the Heart Nebula
A spectacular emission Nebula, the Heart Nebula is one of the classics of Northern Hemisphere...
5th Nov 2022
A spectacular emission Nebula, the Heart Nebula is one of the classics of Northern Hemisphere amateury astronomy.
In the gallery below, I've highlighted 3 very different areas of the image:
Left: Planetary Nebula WeBo-1
Middle: Melotte 15 in the... heart of the Heart...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Google x Out-Of-Pocket!! | Out-Of-Pocket
Plus other fun updates
3rd Oct 2025
Eukaryote Writes...
Fiber arts, mysterious dodecahedrons, and waiting on “Eureka!”
Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
4th Aug 2022
Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
Casey Handmer's blog
I guess we’re doing Moon factories now
A quick note collating a list of blogs I’ve written on the topic. I’ll update it with good third...
10th Feb 2026
A quick note collating a list of blogs I’ve written on the topic. I’ll update it with good third party write ups as I become aware of them. Context: SpaceX announced a refocus on lunar development. My best explanation for this is that SpaceX wants to accelerate human occupation...
IEEE Spectrum
How the Designer of the First Hydrogen Bomb Got the Gig
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE...
2nd Sep 2024
Richard Garwin is one of the most decorated and successful engineers of the 20th century. The IEEE Life Fellow has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, France’s La Grande Médaille de l’Académie des Sciences, and is one of just a handful of people...
ToughSF
The Expanse's Epstein Drive
We aim to take a fictional propulsion
technology from The Expanse, and apply the appropriate science...
5th Oct 2019
We aim to take a fictional propulsion
technology from The Expanse, and apply the appropriate science to explain its
features in a realistic manner.
This also applies to other SciFi
settings that want a similar engine for their own spacecraft.
The Epstein Drive
Title art...
The Quanta Podcast
Mathematicians Set Numbers in Motion to Unlock Their Secrets
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines...
10th Jun 2021
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines insights from number theory and dynamical systems.
The post Mathematicians Set Numbers in Motion to Unlock Their Secrets first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Stephen Wolfram...
Nestedly Recursive Functions
Yet Another Ruliological Surprise Integers. Addition. Subtraction. Maybe multiplication. Surely...
27th Sep 2024
Yet Another Ruliological Surprise Integers. Addition. Subtraction. Maybe multiplication. Surely that’s not enough to be able to generate any serious complexity. In the early 1980s I had made the very surprising discovery that very simple programs based on cellular automata could...
NeuroLogica Blog
How Much Do Couples Share Traits?
Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms,...
5th Sep 2023
Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms, which means that they are commonly offered as generally accepted truths, but also that they may by wrong. People like pithy phrases, so they spread prolifically, but that does not mean...
Long Now
Niall Ferguson: Networks and Power
“This time is different.”
Historians: “Ha.”
“The Net is net beneficial.”
Historian Niall...
13th Dec 2018
“This time is different.”
Historians: “Ha.”
“The Net is net beneficial.”
Historian Niall Ferguson: “Globalization is in crisis. Populism is on the march. Authoritarian states are ascendant. Technology meanwhile marches inexorably ahead, threatening to render most human beings...
Cremieux Recueil
Your Allergies Are Probably Fake
You might be avoiding medications that don't do anything to you
4th Feb 2026
You might be avoiding medications that don't do anything to you
Long Now
George Dyson: There's Plenty of Room at the Top: Long-term Thinking About Large-scale Computing
### Long-term thinking about large-scale computing
Ever since his 1997 breakthrough book, _Darwin...
10th Jan 2004
### Long-term thinking about large-scale computing
Ever since his 1997 breakthrough book, _Darwin Among the Machines_ , Dyson has become regarded as a leading historian and interpreter of computer science, bringing a rigorous and unconventional perspective. Thus his willingness...
Drew Ex Machina
GOES Video of Solar Eclipse – October 14, 2023
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14,...
14th Oct 2023
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023 was no different. Unlike a total solar eclipse where the […]
Stephen Wolfram...
Can AI Solve Science?
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for...
5th Mar 2024
Note: Click any diagram to get Wolfram Language code to reproduce it. Wolfram Language code for training the neural nets used here is also available (requires GPU). Won’t AI Eventually Be Able to Do Everything? Particularly given its recent surprise successes, there’s a somewhat...
NeuroLogica Blog
Flexible School Start Time
A recent study shows pretty clearly that highschoolers benefit from a little extra sleep. We will...
2nd Mar 2026
A recent study shows pretty clearly that highschoolers benefit from a little extra sleep. We will get to the study in a bit, but first I want to note that this information is not new. Teenagers tend to stay up late, and yet we make them get up super early to be at class, often by...
Long Now
Jane Langdale: Radical Ag: C4 Rice and Beyond
## Revolutionary rice
Feeding the world (and saving nature) in this populous century, Jane Langdale...
15th Mar 2016
## Revolutionary rice
Feeding the world (and saving nature) in this populous century, Jane Langdale began, depends entirely on agricultural efficiency—the ability to turn a given amount of land and sunlight into ever more food. And that depends on three forms of efficiency in...
Quanta Magazine
Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in...
2nd Jul 2025
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan.
The post Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms first appeared on Quanta...
Long Now
Paul Saffo: The Creator Economy
### The Creator Economy
Media innovations drive economic shifts, Saffo began. “We invent new...
1st Apr 2015
### The Creator Economy
Media innovations drive economic shifts, Saffo began. “We invent new technology and then use it to reinvent ourselves.”
1\. The Industrial/producer Economy. At the beginning of the 20th century the leading scarcity was _stuff_ , and so manufacture was...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th
A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th.
The post An Eclipse...
23rd Mar 2024
A rare eclipse of the Sun will be visible all over North America on April 8th.
The post An Eclipse of the Sun Coming to N. America April 8th appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
lcamtuf’s thing
Approximation game
The number 22/7 and the pigeon flock of Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet.
28th Feb 2026
The number 22/7 and the pigeon flock of Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet.
Melting Asphalt
Here Be Sermons
I've long turned up my nose at sermons and related forms of mass moralizing. One reason, quite...
11th Sep 2017
I've long turned up my nose at sermons and related forms of mass moralizing. One reason, quite simply, is that they bore me. Honesty good. Violence bad. My eyes glaze over. Empathy, rah! Racism, boo! Please, don't we know this…
Read more ›
Conservation...
Our work in the news, January 2026
3rd Feb 2026
Quantum Frontiers
Quantum Algorithms: A Call To Action
Quantum computing finds itself in a peculiar situation. The number one question asked about quantum...
21st Apr 2025
Quantum computing finds itself in a peculiar situation. The number one question asked about quantum computers by outsiders is very common sensical: What are they good for? The honest answer reveals an elephant in the room: We don’t fully know yet. For theorists like me, it’s an...
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...
15th Feb 2021
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....
The Quanta Podcast
Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming...
14th Oct 2021
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer.
Conservation...
On island nation, ‘ancestral bond’ to crocodiles is tested
1st Jun 2026
Many Worlds
Preparing For The Habitable Worlds Observatory, Our Best Shot at Finding ET Life
In a solar system far, far away, life of some sort is just waiting to be found. Or so the world of...
17th Oct 2023
In a solar system far, far away, life of some sort is just waiting to be found. Or so the world of astrobiology sure hopes it is. The new player in the astrobiology world, now called the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), is planned to launch in the 2040s if all goes well. ...
The Quanta Podcast
AI Filters Will Always Have Holes
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But...
6th Jan 2026
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But users have long played a cat-and-mouse game to try to trick language models into providing forbidden information. Just as quickly as these “jailbreaks” appear, AI companies patch them...
brr
The Last Egg
Five more months until freshies...
9th Jun 2023
Five more months until freshies...
The Quanta Podcast
New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity
Scientists have figured out how microbes can suck energy from rocks. Such lifeforms might be more...
7th Jul 2016
Scientists have figured out how microbes can suck energy from rocks. Such lifeforms might be more widespread than anyone anticipated.
The post New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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