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...
Math Is Still...
How Is Flocking Like Computing?
Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In...
8 months ago
Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz interviews the evolutionary ecologist Iain Couzin about how and why collective behaviors arise.
The post How Is Flocking Like...
The Works in...
The road from serfdom
Using opt-ins to reform Russia's backwards tsarist agricultural sector
9 months ago
Using opt-ins to reform Russia's backwards tsarist agricultural sector
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.
Math Is Still...
A New Map of the Universe, Painted With Cosmic Neutrinos
Physicists finally know where at least some of these high-energy particles come from, which helps...
a year ago
Physicists finally know where at least some of these high-energy particles come from, which helps make the neutrinos useful for exploring fundamental physics.
The post A New Map of the Universe, Painted With Cosmic Neutrinos first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
Caltech’s Ginsburg Center
Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and...
a year ago
Editor’s Note: On 10 August 2023, Caltech celebrated the groundbreaking for the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement, which will open in 2025. At a lunch following the ceremony, John Preskill made these remarks. Hello everyone. … Continue...
The Works in...
How to start an advance market commitment
A practical guide from the founders of Frontier
6 months ago
A practical guide from the founders of Frontier
Explorations of an...
Desert Birding, And The Spectacular Quebrada De Las Conchas
January 18, 2023
Ah, a sleep-in. The late night owling escapades (can it really be called owling if...
a year ago
January 18, 2023
Ah, a sleep-in. The late night owling escapades (can it really be called owling if we didn't find any owls?) had made our decision for a leisurely start quite easy to make. It also helped that we had just a few bird targets this day.
We began in the cactus-laden...
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?
NeuroLogica Blog
Fossil Fuels – Reduce Demand or Supply?
This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a...
a year ago
This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a somewhat of a dilemma. Is the optimal path to reductions and eventual elimination of fossil fuel burning through reduced demand or supply? There are some interesting tradeoffs...
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...
3 months ago
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...
Beautiful Public...
Vehicle Crash Test Films from the 1970's and 1980s
Deep in the public archives of the NHTSA, there are thousands of films of some classic (and some...
over a year ago
Deep in the public archives of the NHTSA, there are thousands of films of some classic (and some ugly) 70’s and 80’s cars being smashed into smithereens.
The Roots of...
Who regulates the regulators?
IRBs
Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review...
a year ago
IRBs
Scott Alexander reviews a book about institutional review boards (IRBs), the panels that review the ethics of medical trials: From Oversight to Overkill, by Dr. Simon Whitney. From the title alone, you can see where this is going.
IRBs are supposed to (among other things)...
NeuroLogica Blog
What to Make of Havana Syndrome
I have not written before about Havana Syndrome, mostly because I have not been able to come to any...
8 months ago
I have not written before about Havana Syndrome, mostly because I have not been able to come to any strong conclusions about it. In 2016 there was a cluster of strange neurological symptoms among people working at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba. They would suddenly experience...
The Works in...
The Maintenance Race was just the beginning
A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
a year ago
A new book from Stewart Brand, serialized on Works in Progress
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
Asterisk
You’re Invited to a Colonoscopy!
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost...
a year ago
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost nowhere else. But do they work? We finally have a comprehensive trial, but it’s left gastroenterologists with more questions than answers.
Math Is Still...
How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction
Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even...
a year ago
Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even after centuries of solar observations.
The post How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Drew Ex Machina
Drew Ex Machina 10th Anniversary: Top Ten Posts
I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my...
9 months ago
I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my then-new website, Drew Ex Machina. […]
nanoscale views
Scientific publishing - where are we going?
I think it's safe to say that anyone involved in scientific publishing will tell you that it's a...
a year ago
I think it's safe to say that anyone involved in scientific publishing will tell you that it's a mess and the trends are worrisome. This week, this news release/article came out about this preprint which shows a number of the issues. In brief (not all of this is in the...
Asterisk
My Primal Scream of Rage: The Big Alcohol Study That Didn't Happen
Five years ago, the National Institutes of Health cancelled the largest study on alcohol ever...
a year ago
Five years ago, the National Institutes of Health cancelled the largest study on alcohol ever planned. Here’s why — and why you should be mad too.
NeuroLogica Blog
Robots and a Sense of Self
Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption)...
a month ago
Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption) have a sense of self. This sense has several components – we feel as if we occupy our physical bodies, that our bodies are distinct entities separate from the rest of the universe,...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Copper and Green Energy
The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The...
5 months ago
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
Electronic structure and a couple of fun links
Real life has been very busy recently. Posting will hopefully pick up soon.
One brief item. ...
8 months ago
Real life has been very busy recently. Posting will hopefully pick up soon.
One brief item. Earlier this week, Rice hosted Gabi Kotliar for a distinguished lecture, and he gave a very nice, pedagogical talk about different approaches to electronic structure calculations. ...
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 Roots of...
2023 in review
2023 was another big year for me and The Roots of Progress.
It was a year when ROP as an...
11 months ago
2023 was another big year for me and The Roots of Progress.
It was a year when ROP as an organization really started to take off. Even though the org itself was formed in 2021, at first it was just a vehicle for my own intellectual work, plus a few side projects. Last year we...
ToughSF
Actively Cooled Armor: from Helium to Liquid Tin.
We have seen designs for long ranged particle beams
and powerful lasers. Could they be the end-all,...
over a year ago
We have seen designs for long ranged particle beams
and powerful lasers. Could they be the end-all, be-all of space warfare? Not if we fend off their destructive
power with actively cooled armor.
Let's have a look at the different cooling
solutions, from high pressure gas to...
The Roots of...
What if they gave an Industrial Revolution and nobody came?
Imagine you could go back in time to the ancient world to jump-start the Industrial Revolution. You...
a year ago
Imagine you could go back in time to the ancient world to jump-start the Industrial Revolution. You carry with you plans for a steam engine, and you present them to the emperor, explaining how the machine could be used to drain water out of mines, pump bellows for blast furnaces,...
Asterisk
Intelligence Testing
Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how...
a year ago
Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how much.
Math Is Still...
How Failure Has Made Mathematics Stronger
The topologist Danny Calegari discusses the inevitability of disappointment in math, and how to...
7 months ago
The topologist Danny Calegari discusses the inevitability of disappointment in math, and how to learn from it.
The post How Failure Has Made Mathematics Stronger first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
The Army and Navy Style Guides
These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed...
a year ago
These fascinating Army and Navy brand style guides define the look, feel and voice of our armed forces.
The Works in...
Whatever happened to the industrial R&D lab?
From the Works in Progress archives.
a year ago
From the Works in Progress archives.
nanoscale views
Molecular electronics in 2023
This past week I was fortunate to attend this meeting, the most recent in an every-few-years series...
a year ago
This past week I was fortunate to attend this meeting, the most recent in an every-few-years series that brings together a group of researchers interested in electronic transport in molecular systems. This brings together physicists and chemists, and this was the first one I've...
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.
Wanderingspace
COMET 67P/CG ANIMATED FROM ROSETTA STILLS
COMET #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO
INTERNATIONAL #ROSETTA MISSION
Date 18 jul 2015
Distance to...
over a year ago
COMET #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO
INTERNATIONAL #ROSETTA MISSION
Date 18 jul 2015
Distance to Target 182 km
Orange+Blue filtershttps://t.co/ZuYVehJOLx
ESA/Rosetta/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA/J. Roger pic.twitter.com/Fg8rNmjbNy
— landru79 (@landru79) June 13, 2022
Hit...
Cremieux Recueil
"You Couldn't Replicate Our Study Because You're Ugly"
Attractiveness rating studies shouldn't be taken too seriously
2 weeks ago
Attractiveness rating studies shouldn't be taken too seriously
NeuroLogica Blog
The Speed of Gravity
I recently received an e-mail question from an SGU listener about the speed of gravity. They were...
a year ago
I recently received an e-mail question from an SGU listener about the speed of gravity. They were questioning a statement they heard by Neil DeGrasse Tyson that if the sun were magically plucked from existence, the Earth would not feel the effects for 8 minutes and 20 seconds –...
Math Is Still...
Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition
Measurement and entanglement both have a “spooky” nonlocal flavor to them. Now physicists are...
a year ago
Measurement and entanglement both have a “spooky” nonlocal flavor to them. Now physicists are harnessing that nonlocality to probe the spread of quantum information and control it.
The post Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition first appeared on...
Light from Space
Lunar Eclipse Triptych
A total lunar eclipse is (next to the much rarer solar eclipses) a spectacle to behold and one of...
over a year ago
A total lunar eclipse is (next to the much rarer solar eclipses) a spectacle to behold and one of the few celestial events that happen in human timescales in the course of a few hours.
In mid-May 2022 there was a beautiful eclipse visible from North America and I have
The Works in...
Issue 09: Cheap shots and killer bots
Plus: Why scientific writing is so bad, how to stop snakebites from killing 100,000 people every...
over a year ago
Plus: Why scientific writing is so bad, how to stop snakebites from killing 100,000 people every year, and what science can learn from the fight against global poverty.
brr
South Pole Arrival
Flying to the bottom of the world!
over a year ago
Flying to the bottom of the world!
The Roots of...
Developing a technology with safety in mind
If a technology may introduce catastrophic risks, how do you develop it?
It occurred to me that the...
a year ago
If a technology may introduce catastrophic risks, how do you develop it?
It occurred to me that the Wright Brothers’ approach to inventing the airplane might make a good case study.
The catastrophic risk for them, of course, was dying in a crash. This is exactly what happened...
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour To Borneo: Kota Kinabalu, Mount Kinabalu, Sepilok And The Kinabatangan River
Our Quest Nature Tours group assembled in Kota Kinabalu on the evening of October 3 and the...
a month ago
Our Quest Nature Tours group assembled in Kota Kinabalu on the evening of October 3 and the following morning we were off. Kota Kinabalu is situated on the coast, but is only a two hour drive from the mountains that form the spine of Borneo and its highest peak, Mount Kinabalu....
Math Is Still...
In a Monster Star’s Light, a Hint of Darkness
Astronomers are scouring the cosmos for fingerprints of the invisible — tiny clumps of pure dark...
a year ago
Astronomers are scouring the cosmos for fingerprints of the invisible — tiny clumps of pure dark matter that might solve a long-standing cosmic mystery.
The post In a Monster Star’s Light, a Hint of Darkness first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
News items for the new year
After I was not chosen to be Speaker of the US House of Representatives, I think it’s time to...
a year ago
After I was not chosen to be Speaker of the US House of Representatives, I think it’s time to highlight some brief items:
Here is a great blog post by a Rice grad alum, Daniel Gonzales, about flow to approach faculty searches. I had written a fair bit on this a number of years...
NeuroLogica Blog
Mach Effect Thrusters Fail
When thinking about potential future technology, one way to divide possible future tech is into...
9 months ago
When thinking about potential future technology, one way to divide possible future tech is into probable and speculative. Probable future technology involves extrapolating existing technology into the future, such as imaging what advanced computers might be like. This category...
The Works in...
How Israel turned homeowners into YIMBYs
A housing success story
8 months ago
Light from Space
Andromeda: Our Galactic Neighbor
Many things have been said about the Andromeda Galaxy, arguably the most majestic galaxy that...
2 months ago
Many things have been said about the Andromeda Galaxy, arguably the most majestic galaxy that amateur astronomers can image due to it's sheer size in the sky—many times larger than the Moon appears to us, but also many times dimmer.
With the naked eye, even in
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
Chris Grossack's...
Externalizing Some Simple Topos Statements
Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with
the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done...
over a year ago
Hey all! It’s been a minute. I’ve been super busy with
the UC strike and honestly I haven’t done math in any
serious capacity for almost the past month. It’s been a
lot of hard work trying to get fair contracts out of the UC,
but I had a lot of travel plans this December to...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Newsletter One + Patient Zero | Out-Of-Pocket
Shall we begin?
a year ago
Asterisk
Why Isn’t Solar Scaling in Africa?
The World Bank designed the Scaling Solar program to set Africa on a course to sustainable energy....
10 months ago
The World Bank designed the Scaling Solar program to set Africa on a course to sustainable energy. Instead, it shed light on how a lack of transparency in the climate and development industry hampers progress.
Math Is Still...
Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy...
10 months ago
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy clusters. If confirmed, the approach could be used to reveal where cosmic magnetic fields come from.
The post Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe’s Biggest Magnetic Fields...
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
Math Is Still...
Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why?
How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a...
9 months ago
How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, first arose billions of years ago in bacteria with a primitive sociality.
The post Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? first...
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.
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...
Sean Carroll
The Zombie Argument for Physicalism (Contra Panpsychism)
The nature of consciousness remains a contentious subject out there. I’m a physicalist myself — as I...
over a year ago
The nature of consciousness remains a contentious subject out there. I’m a physicalist myself — as I explain in The Big Picture and elsewhere, I think consciousness is best understood as weakly-emergent from the ordinary physical behavior of matter, without requiring any special...
The Works in...
Issue 17: No great stagnation in cruise ships
Plus: animals as chemical factories, how progress lost its glamour, and how Madrid built 120 miles...
2 weeks ago
Plus: animals as chemical factories, how progress lost its glamour, and how Madrid built 120 miles of metro in twelve years.
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...
Cremieux Recueil
Rich Country, Poor Country
Growth is our most precious resource and small amounts of it make a big difference
3 months ago
Growth is our most precious resource and small amounts of it make a big difference
Eukaryote Writes...
COVID-19 FAQ
A lot of people have been asking me questions about the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) outbreak, in my...
over a year ago
A lot of people have been asking me questions about the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) outbreak, in my informal capacity as “local biodefense person”.
Interaction Magic -...
Designing bikes or bike lanes?
Which impacts the cycling experience more: the design of the bike or the bike lanes? Interview and...
over a year ago
Which impacts the cycling experience more: the design of the bike or the bike lanes? Interview and podcast with city transport planners Catherine Osborn and David Wills.
brr
Pressure Altitude
Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
a year ago
Day-to-day variability at the South Pole.
Math Is Still...
The Lawlessness of Large Numbers
Mathematicians can often figure out what happens as quantities grow infinitely large. What about...
a year ago
Mathematicians can often figure out what happens as quantities grow infinitely large. What about when they are just a little big?
The post The Lawlessness of Large Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
These Cells Spark Electricity in the Brain. They’re Not Neurons.
For decades, researchers have debated whether brain cells called astrocytes can signal like neurons....
a year ago
For decades, researchers have debated whether brain cells called astrocytes can signal like neurons. Researchers recently published the best evidence yet that some astrocytes are part of the electrical conversation.
The post These Cells Spark Electricity in the Brain....
nanoscale views
Cavities and tuning physics
I've written before about cavity quantum electrodynamics. An electromagnetic cavity - a resonator...
a year ago
I've written before about cavity quantum electrodynamics. An electromagnetic cavity - a resonator of some kind, like your microwave oven chamber is for microwaves, or like an optical cavity made using nearly perfect mirrors - picks out what electromagnetic modes are allowed...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Conversation Gets it Wrong on GMOs
Even high quality media outlets will get it wrong from time to time. I notice this tends to happen...
a year ago
Even high quality media outlets will get it wrong from time to time. I notice this tends to happen when there is a mature and sophisticated propaganda campaign that has had enough time and reach to essentially gaslight a major portion of the public, and further where a particular...
Asterisk
Moving Past Environmental Proceduralism
The foundations of modern environmental legislation were laid in the early ‘70s. Some of these laws...
8 months ago
The foundations of modern environmental legislation were laid in the early ‘70s. Some of these laws helped fix the ozone layer, clean up DDT, and fight lead pollution — while others are delaying the necessary transition to green energy. If the activists of fifty years ago had...
Blog - Practical...
How the Hawaiian Power Grid Works
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In January of 2024, right on...
9 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In January of 2024, right on the heels of a serious drought across the state, a major storm slammed into the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Kauai. Severe winds caused damage to buildings, and heavy rain flooded...
Explorations of an...
The Terror Bird's Relative
January 21, 2023
Laura and I left Salta before dawn so that we could be at our first birding...
a year ago
January 21, 2023
Laura and I left Salta before dawn so that we could be at our first birding location nice and early. The forecasted weather would be few degrees warmer than normal summer temperatures, and we wanted to make the most of our morning.
Our goal for the day was to...
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
nanoscale views
Continuing Studies course, take 2
A year and a half ago, I mentioned that I was going to teach a course through Rice's Glasscock...
10 months ago
A year and a half ago, I mentioned that I was going to teach a course through Rice's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, trying to give a general audience introduction to some central ideas in condensed matter physics. Starting in mid-March, I'm doing this again. Here is a...
Math Is Still...
Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes
The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s...
4 months ago
The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s expansion may be weakening. One community of theoretical physicists expected as much.
The post Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes...
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...
NeuroLogica Blog
An Earth-like Climate is Fragile
One of the biggest questions of exoplanet astronomy is how many potentially habitable planets are...
a year ago
One of the biggest questions of exoplanet astronomy is how many potentially habitable planets are out there in the galaxy. By one estimate the answer is 6 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way. But of course we have to set parameters and make estimates, so this number can...
Explorations of an...
Argentina!
Laura and I landed in Buenos Aires on the morning of January 9, a little bleary-eyed and feeling the...
a year ago
Laura and I landed in Buenos Aires on the morning of January 9, a little bleary-eyed and feeling the effects from the three flights and two layovers. But we had made it. Nearly six years had passed since I last visited Buenos Aires. It had been the final port of call on my...
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
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 →
Asterisk
Salt, Sugar, Water, Zinc: How Scientists Learned to Treat the 20th Century’s Biggest Killer of...
Oral rehydration therapy is now the standard treatment for dehydration. It’s saved millions of...
a year ago
Oral rehydration therapy is now the standard treatment for dehydration. It’s saved millions of lives, and can be prepared at home in minutes. So why did it take so long to discover?
Math Is Still...
A New Experiment Casts Doubt on the Leading Theory of the Nucleus
By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force...
a year ago
By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force that binds protons and neutrons.
The post A New Experiment Casts Doubt on the Leading Theory of the Nucleus first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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.
Stephen Wolfram...
Computing the Eclipse: Astronomy in the Wolfram Language
Basic Eclipse Computation It’s taken millennia to get to the point where it’s possible to accurately...
8 months ago
Basic Eclipse Computation It’s taken millennia to get to the point where it’s possible to accurately compute eclipses. But now—as a tiny part of making “everything in the world” computable—computation about eclipses is just a built-in feature of the Wolfram Language. The core...
Quantum Frontiers
My favorite rocket scientist
Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is...
5 months ago
Whenever someone protests, “I’m not a rocket scientist,” I think of my friend Jamie Rankin. Jamie is a researcher at Princeton University, and she showed me her lab this June. When I first met Jamie, she was testing instruments to … Continue reading →
Math Is Still...
Deep Beneath Earth’s Surface, Clues to Life’s Origins
Last spring, scientists retrieved a trove of mantle rocks from underneath the Atlantic seafloor — a...
11 months ago
Last spring, scientists retrieved a trove of mantle rocks from underneath the Atlantic seafloor — a bounty that could help write the first chapter of life's story on Earth.
The post Deep Beneath Earth’s Surface, Clues to Life’s Origins first appeared on Quanta...
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote writes for Asterisk Magazine
See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus...
2 months ago
See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus every time we figure out how to look closer: Through the Looking Glass, and What Zheludev et al. (2024) Found There at Asterisk Magazine I’ve written for Asterisk before: What I won’t...
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
Eukaryote Writes...
Internet Harvest (2020, 1)
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.
NeuroLogica Blog
Rats!
What killed off the dodo? Humans first arrived at Mauritius island in the late 1500s. They found on...
6 months ago
What killed off the dodo? Humans first arrived at Mauritius island in the late 1500s. They found on this island fat flightless birds who nested on the ground and were a convenient way to restock their ship’s food supply. Within 80 years the dodo went extinct. But hunting was not...
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.
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
Want Growth? Kill Small Businesses
The central question of development economics is simple: how can poor countries become rich? The...
5 months ago
The central question of development economics is simple: how can poor countries become rich? The answer is neither small-scale, targeted interventions nor broad generalizations about growth. Instead, we should focus on firms.
The Roots of...
Neither EA nor e/acc is what we need to build the future
Over the last few years, effective altruism has gone through a rise-and-fall story arc worthy of any...
a year ago
Over the last few years, effective altruism has gone through a rise-and-fall story arc worthy of any dramatic tragedy.
The pandemic made them look prescient for warning about global catastrophic risks, including biosafety. A masterful book launch put them on the cover of TIME....
Cremieux Recueil
American Elections Are Unfair
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
a month ago
Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Sound
Invisible and relentless, sound is seemingly just there, traveling through our surroundings to carry...
over a year ago
Invisible and relentless, sound is seemingly just there, traveling through our surroundings to carry beautiful music or annoying noises. In this article I’ll explain what sound is, how it’s created and propagated.
Throughout this presentation you will be hearing different sounds,...
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
nanoscale views
What are "quantum oscillations"?
For the first time in a couple of decades, I was visiting the Aspen Center for Physics, which is...
a year ago
For the first time in a couple of decades, I was visiting the Aspen Center for Physics, which is always a fun, intellectually stimulating experience. (Side note: I sure hope that the rapidly escalating costs of everything in the Aspen area don't make this venue untenable in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Microbes Aboard the ISS
As I have written many times, including in yesterday’s post, people occupying space is hard. The...
11 months ago
As I have written many times, including in yesterday’s post, people occupying space is hard. The environment of space, or really anywhere not on Earth, is harsh and unforgiving. One of the issues, for example, rarely addressed in science fiction or even discussions of space...
Math Is Still...
New Cell Atlases Reveal Untold Variety in the Brain and Beyond
Recent efforts to map every cell in the human body have researchers floored by unfathomable...
a year ago
Recent efforts to map every cell in the human body have researchers floored by unfathomable diversity, with many thousands of subtly different types of cells in the human brain alone.
The post New Cell Atlases Reveal Untold Variety in the Brain and Beyond first...
Probably...
What is a percentile rank?
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous...
6 months ago
Here’s another installment in Data Q&A: Answering the real questions with Python. Previous installments are available from the Data Q&A landing page. percentile_rank What is a Percentile Rank?¶ Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. What’s the difference between...
NeuroLogica Blog
Elizabeth Holmes Going to Prison
I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it...
a year ago
I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it took 7 years to follow this story through to the end. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the company Theranos, was convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to 11 years in prison....
nanoscale views
Recent papers to distract....
Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers...
a month ago
Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers who are US citizens: vote if you have not already done so!).
Reaching back, this preprint by Aharonov, Collins, Popescu talks about a thought experiment in which angular...
NeuroLogica Blog
Climate Sensitivity and Confirmation Bias
I love to follow kerfuffles between different experts and deep thinkers. It’s great for revealing...
9 months ago
I love to follow kerfuffles between different experts and deep thinkers. It’s great for revealing the subtleties of logic, science, and evidence. Recently there has been an interesting online exchange between a physicists science communicator (Sabine Hossenfelder) and some...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Musings on CVS, two-way negotiation, and venture studios | Out-Of-Pocket
+ we're hosting another dinner! and courses ending!
8 months ago
+ we're hosting another dinner! and courses ending!
symmetry magazine
New map of space precisely measures nearly 400,000 nearby galaxies
The Siena Galaxy Atlas will be a tool for research into how galaxies form and evolve, gravitational...
a year ago
The Siena Galaxy Atlas will be a tool for research into how galaxies form and evolve, gravitational waves, dark matter and the structure of our universe.
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence and the Nanny State Part II
In Part I of this post I outlined some basic considerations in deciding how much the state should...
a year ago
In Part I of this post I outlined some basic considerations in deciding how much the state should impose regulations on people and institutions in order to engineer positive outcomes. In the end the best approach, it seems to me, is a balanced one, where we consider the burden of...
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...
ToughSF
Advanced Solar Energy in Space: Part I
Solar Thermal Rockets can be efficient and have high performance. However, they remain...
over a year ago
Solar Thermal Rockets can be efficient and have high performance. However, they remain temperature-limited to an exhaust velocity of 12km/s.
How do we surpass this limit?
The limits
NASA's Suntower concept.
Solar Thermal Rockets have been shown to have great potential if...
The Works in...
History is in the making
It's technology and ideas, not politics, that change our lives the most. History should reflect...
3 weeks ago
It's technology and ideas, not politics, that change our lives the most. History should reflect that.
Quantum Frontiers
Announcing the quantum-steampunk short-story contest!
The year I started studying calculus, I took the helm of my high school’s literary magazine....
over a year ago
The year I started studying calculus, I took the helm of my high school’s literary magazine. Throughout the next two years, the editorial board flooded campus with poetry—and poetry contests. We papered the halls with flyers, built displays in the … Continue reading →
ToughSF
How to Live on Other Planets: Uranus
The weirdest of the planets.
A blue giant, resting on its side.
Could we find a home in...
over a year ago
The weirdest of the planets.
A blue giant, resting on its side.
Could we find a home in the
Uranian system?
Description
Uranus is the fourth-largest
planet and the first ‘ice giant’. It orbits between 18.3 and 20.1 AU from the
Sun, making it four times more distant than...
Math Is Still...
Does AI Know What an Apple Is? She Aims to Find Out.
The computer scientist Ellie Pavlick is translating philosophical concepts such as “meaning” into...
8 months ago
The computer scientist Ellie Pavlick is translating philosophical concepts such as “meaning” into concrete, testable ideas.
The post Does AI Know What an Apple Is? She Aims to Find Out. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Electronic Noses
I am always sniffing around (pun intended) for new and interesting technology, especially anything...
2 months ago
I am always sniffing around (pun intended) for new and interesting technology, especially anything that I think is currently flying under the radar of public awareness but has the potential to transform our world in some way. I think electronic nose technology fits into this...
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 →
symmetry magazine
Kétévi Assamagan pays it forward
Kétévi Assamagan's contributions to physics go beyond his research at the Large Hadron...
a year ago
Kétévi Assamagan's contributions to physics go beyond his research at the Large Hadron Collider.
Kétévi Assamagan first became interested in physics in high school—because he had to be. His school in Togo, in West Africa, required students to declare a major....
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
For Movies – Animals Don’t Sound Real Enough
What does a majestic eagle sound like, or the hoot of a spider monkey, or the roar of a bear? Unless...
a year ago
What does a majestic eagle sound like, or the hoot of a spider monkey, or the roar of a bear? Unless you have an interest in movie tropes, or listen regularly to the SGU, you may have a complete misconception about the sounds these and many other animals make. Eagles, for...
NeuroLogica Blog
How Much Do Couples Share Traits?
Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms,...
a year ago
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...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Spiderweb Microphone
Microphones convert sound into an electrical signal for subsequent amplification, as in auditorium...
3 months ago
Microphones convert sound into an electrical signal for subsequent amplification, as in auditorium public address systems; or transmission, as in landline and mobile phones. The most common types of microphones are carbon, used in early telephones, condenser, electret, dynamic,...
Math Is Still...
How Pools of Genetic Diversity Affect a Species’ Fate
A new, deeper understanding of how the breeding structure of species affects their genetic diversity...
a year ago
A new, deeper understanding of how the breeding structure of species affects their genetic diversity is giving conservationists better tools for saving animals.
The post How Pools of Genetic Diversity Affect a Species’ Fate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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.
Probably...
Migration and Population Growth
On a recent run I was talking with a friend from Spain about immigration in Europe. We speculated...
6 months ago
On a recent run I was talking with a friend from Spain about immigration in Europe. We speculated about whether the population of Spain would be growing or shrinking if there were no international migration. I thought it might be shrinking, but we were not sure. Fortunately, Our...
nanoscale views
What is a metal-insulator transition?
The recent excitement about the alleged high temperature superconductor "LK99" has introduced some...
a year ago
The recent excitement about the alleged high temperature superconductor "LK99" has introduced some in the public to the idea of a metal-insulator or insulator-metal transition (MIT/IMT). For example, one strong candidate explanation for the sharp drop in resistance as a function...
Probably...
Another step toward a two-hour marathon
This is an update to an analysis I run each time the marathon world record is broken. If you like...
a year ago
This is an update to an analysis I run each time the marathon world record is broken. If you like this sort of thing, you will like my forthcoming book, Probably Overthinking It, which is available for preorder now. On October 8, 2023, Kelvin Kiptum ran the Chicago Marathon in...
wadertales
Curlew nest survival
The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,...
a year ago
The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK, largely due to a rapid decline in breeding numbers. In this context, the fact that there are a few pink squares (indicating increased numbers) on the map showing breeding...
Asterisk
The Virtue of Wonder: Martha Nussbaum’s Justice for Animals
Martha Nussbaum’s latest book challenges us to change the way we think — and feel — about animals....
a year ago
Martha Nussbaum’s latest book challenges us to change the way we think — and feel — about animals. What role can wonder and awe play when pathos comes up short?
Math Is Still...
Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to ‘Peak’ Fitness
Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful...
a year ago
Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful adaptations. But a new study of “fitness landscapes” and antibiotic resistance in bacteria shows that life still finds a way.
The post Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Wave of Concierge Medicine | Out-Of-Pocket
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
5 months ago
This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
Uncharted...
Become a World-Class Communicator
I’m running a 2nd cohort of my course: How to Become a World-Class Communicator, starting in two...
2 months ago
I’m running a 2nd cohort of my course: How to Become a World-Class Communicator, starting in two weeks, on November 4th!
NeuroLogica Blog
New Platform for Timed Drug Release
This is one of those technologies that most people probably never think about, but could potentially...
a year ago
This is one of those technologies that most people probably never think about, but could potentially have a significant impact on our lives – timed drug release. The concept is nothing new, but there is a lot of room for improvement on current technologies. We already have...
Blog - Practical...
The Hidden Engineering of Wildlife Crossings
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Wallis Annenberg...
5 days ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
This is the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing under construction over the 101 just outside Los Angeles, California. When it’s finished in a few years, it will be the largest wildlife crossing (*of its kind) on...
Math Is Still...
Data Compression Drives the Internet. Here’s How It Works.
One student’s desire to get out of a final exam led to the ubiquitous algorithm that shrinks data...
a year ago
One student’s desire to get out of a final exam led to the ubiquitous algorithm that shrinks data without sacrificing information.
The post Data Compression Drives the Internet. Here’s How It Works. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
The power of awe
Mid-afternoon, one Saturday late in September, I forgot where I was. I forgot that I was visiting...
a year ago
Mid-afternoon, one Saturday late in September, I forgot where I was. I forgot that I was visiting Seattle for the second time; I forgot that I’d just finished co-organizing a workshop partially about nuclear physics for the first time. I’d … Continue reading →
Quantum Frontiers
A (quantum) complex legacy
Early in the fourth year of my PhD, I received a most John-ish email from John Preskill, my PhD...
a year ago
Early in the fourth year of my PhD, I received a most John-ish email from John Preskill, my PhD advisor. The title read, “thermodynamics of complexity,” and the message was concise the way that the Amazon River is damp: “Might … Continue reading →
The Works in...
New York’s long road to congestion pricing
The decades of work that went into getting the policy very, very close to the finish line
4 months ago
The decades of work that went into getting the policy very, very close to the finish line
nanoscale views
Fiber optics + a different approach to fab
Two very brief items of interest:
This article is a nice popular discussion of the history of...
3 months ago
Two very brief items of interest:
This article is a nice popular discussion of the history of fiber optics and the remarkable progress it's made for telecommunications. If you're interested in a more expansive but very accessible take on this, I highly recommend City of...
Math Is Still...
New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth
Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What...
a year ago
Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies?
The post New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Ghosts Are Not Real
It’s Halloween, so there are a lot of fluff pieces about ghosts and similar phenomena circulating in...
a year ago
It’s Halloween, so there are a lot of fluff pieces about ghosts and similar phenomena circulating in the media. There are some good skeptical pieces as well, which is always nice to see. For this piece I did not want to frame the headline as a question, which I think is...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How to integrate into an EMR and why Epic won with Brendan Keeler | Out-Of-Pocket
everything you need to know about EMRs, healthcare data standards, and integrations
a year ago
everything you need to know about EMRs, healthcare data standards, and integrations
IEEE Spectrum
How the Computer Graphics Industry Got Started at the University of Utah
Animation has come a long way since 1900, when J. Stuart Blackton created The Enchanted Drawing, the...
a year ago
Animation has come a long way since 1900, when J. Stuart Blackton created The Enchanted Drawing, the earliest known animated film. The 90-second movie was created using stop-motion techniques, as flat characters, props, and backgrounds were drawn on an easel or made from...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Clinical Pharmacists, Generative AI, and InpharmD | Out-Of-Pocket
Going under the hood of a generative AI product
11 months ago
Going under the hood of a generative AI product
Inverted Passion
A primer on dopamine
1/ I recently made notes on the book “Hooked” but wasn’t satisfied by the depth of explanation in...
11 months ago
1/ I recently made notes on the book “Hooked” but wasn’t satisfied by the depth of explanation in it. 2/ I wanted to get down into neuroscience of habit-forming products and that inevitably lead me to the (in)famous neurotransmitter dopamine. 3/ Before we dive into what dopamine...
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Need Sensors (and other structures too)
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Almost immediately after I...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
Almost immediately after I started making videos about engineering, people started asking me to play video games on the channel. Apparently there’s roughly a billion people who watch online gaming these days,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Weaponized Pedantry and Reverse Gish Gallop
Have you ever been in a discussion where the person with whom you disagree dismisses your position...
10 months ago
Have you ever been in a discussion where the person with whom you disagree dismisses your position because you got some tiny detail wrong or didn’t know the tiny detail? This is a common debating technique. For example, opponents of gun safety regulations will often use the...
nanoscale views
Interesting reading - resonators, quantum geometry w/ phonons, and fractional quantum anomalous Hall
Real life continues to be busy, but I wanted to point out three recent articles that I found...
6 months ago
Real life continues to be busy, but I wanted to point out three recent articles that I found interesting:
Mechanical resonators are a topic with a long history, going back to the first bells and the tuning fork. I've written about micromachined resonators before, and the quest...
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...
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
Math Is Still...
Memories Help Brains Recognize New Events Worth Remembering
Memories may affect how well the brain will learn about future events by shifting our perceptions of...
a year ago
Memories may affect how well the brain will learn about future events by shifting our perceptions of the world.
The post Memories Help Brains Recognize New Events Worth Remembering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
Chuck E. Cheese’s Animatronics Band Bows Out
That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that...
2 weeks ago
That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that the company was phasing out the animatronic bands from all but five locations by the end of this year, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. Much to my surprise, I was truly sad that the...
Drew Ex Machina
NASA’s Explorer 18: The First Interplanetary Monitoring Platform
Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the...
a year ago
Among the greatest scientific achievements of the opening years of the Space Age was the characterization of Earth’s magnetic field and the discovery of what became […]
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
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
Math Is Still...
The Physicist Who’s Challenging the Quantum Orthodoxy
For decades, physicists have struggled to develop a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity —...
a year ago
For decades, physicists have struggled to develop a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity — and space-time — are fundamentally classical?
The post The Physicist Who’s Challenging the Quantum Orthodoxy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
Muon g-2 doubles down with latest measurement, explores uncharted territory
Fermilab's Muon g-2 experiment brings particle physics closer to a showdown between theory and...
a year ago
Fermilab's Muon g-2 experiment brings particle physics closer to a showdown between theory and experiment.
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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
"We Should Sell To Self-Insured Employers" | Out-Of-Pocket
Six Stages Of Health Tech Grief Pt. 2
a year ago
Six Stages Of Health Tech Grief Pt. 2
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare should NOT be local | Out-Of-Pocket
Let's think bigger
a year ago
Math Is Still...
Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms
Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest...
a year ago
Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest otherwise.
The post Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Can Psychedelics Improve Mental Health?
Research suggests that psychedelic drugs can reopen critical periods of brain development to create...
6 months ago
Research suggests that psychedelic drugs can reopen critical periods of brain development to create opportunities for re-learning and psychological healing. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with Gül Dölen, a neuroscientist studying the therapeutic potential of...
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 […]
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....
NeuroLogica Blog
Should Japan Release Radioactive Water Into The Pacific?
Japan is planning on releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into...
a year ago
Japan is planning on releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into the ocean. They claim this will be completely safe, but there are protests going on in both Japan and South Korea, and China has just placed a ban on seafood from Japan. In a perfect...
Interaction Magic -...
Modelling my brain
A 22 hour medical experiment breathing 12% oxygen, and the 7000 images of my brain that came out of...
over a year ago
A 22 hour medical experiment breathing 12% oxygen, and the 7000 images of my brain that came out of it.
Math Is Still...
Two Students Unravel a Widely Believed Math Conjecture
Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures...
a year ago
Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures known as Apollonian circles. But a summer project would lead to its downfall.
The post Two Students Unravel a Widely Believed Math Conjecture first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Scammers on the Rise
Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume...
10 months ago
Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume it’s a scam and you will probably be right. Recently I was called on my cell phone by someone claiming to be from Venmo. They asked me to confirm if I had just made two fund...
Blog - Practical...
You Spend More on Rust Than Gasoline (Probably)
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In July of 1995, Folsom Lake,...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In July of 1995, Folsom Lake, a reservoir created by Folsom Dam in Northern California, reached its full capacity as snow continued to melt in the upstream Sierra. With the power plant shut down for...
Math Is Still...
The Computing Pioneer Helping AI See
Alexei Efros has spent his career learning how machines see differently from humans. Now he’s...
a year ago
Alexei Efros has spent his career learning how machines see differently from humans. Now he’s helping to bridge the gap.
The post The Computing Pioneer Helping AI See first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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...
a year ago
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...
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) […]
Math Is Still...
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...
a year ago
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...
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
Math Is Still...
The Mathematician Who Finds the Poetry in Math and the Math in Poetry
The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now...
11 months ago
The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now turning a mathematical eye to literature.
The post The Mathematician Who Finds the Poetry in Math and the Math in Poetry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute
The rise and fall of the influential, embattled Oxford research center that brought us the concept...
a month ago
The rise and fall of the influential, embattled Oxford research center that brought us the concept of existential risk.
Asterisk
What We Owe The Future
William MacAskill’s latest book presents itself as an introduction to the burgeoning longtermist...
over a year ago
William MacAskill’s latest book presents itself as an introduction to the burgeoning longtermist movement. But his views are eccentric – even within the movement he founded.
Wanderingspace
Mars Express is Still Making Great Images 20 Years Later
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In...
3 months ago
Mars Express was launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, and is ESA’s first Mars mission. In one shot, you can see Mars as a half-lit disk, with Phobos, its tiny moon, hovering above. Right below Phobos is Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano, towering 22 km...
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
Math Is Still...
Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring
Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining...
a year ago
Shor’s algorithm will enable future quantum computers to factor large numbers quickly, undermining many online security protocols. Now a researcher has shown how to do it even faster.
The post Thirty Years Later, a Speed Boost for Quantum Factoring first appeared on...
Blog - Practical...
How Long Would Society Last During a Total Grid Collapse?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In February 2021, a winter...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In February 2021, a winter storm that swept through Texas caused one of the most severe power crises in American history. The cold weather created shockingly high electricity demands as people tried to keep...
NeuroLogica Blog
Germany and Nuclear Power
Germany has been thrown around a lot as an example of both what to do and what not to do in terms of...
a year ago
Germany has been thrown around a lot as an example of both what to do and what not to do in terms of addressing global warming by embracing green energy technology. It’s possible to look back now and review the numbers, to see what the effect was of its decision to embrace...
symmetry magazine
Spacetime: All the universe’s a stage
In the 1900s, Albert Einstein unified the concepts of space and time, giving us a useful new way to...
a year ago
In the 1900s, Albert Einstein unified the concepts of space and time, giving us a useful new way to picture the universe.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Six Healthcare Startup Ideas | Out-Of-Pocket
In collaboration with The Generalist
a year ago
In collaboration with The Generalist
Wanderingspace
The First Ever Real-Time Video from Another Planet
When you watch this video, if you find yourself thinking of the Apollo moon landings— here is why:...
over a year ago
When you watch this video, if you find yourself thinking of the Apollo moon landings— here is why: this is the first real-time video taken from another world since 1972, and this is the first ever taken on another planet.
Most “video” you see from other planetary missions are...
NeuroLogica Blog
Journalists Fail on UAP Story
Nothing about the recent resurgence in interest in UFOs (now called UAPs for unidentified anomalous...
a year ago
Nothing about the recent resurgence in interest in UFOs (now called UAPs for unidentified anomalous phenomena) is really new. It’s basically the same stories with the same level of completely unconvincing evidence. But what is somewhat new is the level of credulity and outright...
Cremieux Recueil
2024 SAT Data Drop
The College Board has just released the latest SAT data. Here's a review.
2 months ago
The College Board has just released the latest SAT data. Here's a review.
brr
Frost
Everyday objects, but cold.
a year ago
Everyday objects, but cold.
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence of Ancient Solar Flares
From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or...
a year ago
From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or even coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In 1859 a large CME hit Earth (known as the Carrington Event), shorting out telegraphs, brightening the sky, and causing aurora deep into...
NeuroLogica Blog
Big Ring Challenges Cosmological Principle
University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) PhD student Alexia Lopez, who two years ago discovered a...
11 months ago
University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) PhD student Alexia Lopez, who two years ago discovered a giant arc of galaxy clusters in the distant universe, has now discovered a Big Ring. This (if real) is one of the largest structures in the observable universe at 1.3 billion light...
Sean Carroll
Energy Conservation and Non-Conservation in Quantum Mechanics
Conservation of energy is a somewhat sacred principle in physics, though it can be tricky in certain...
over a year ago
Conservation of energy is a somewhat sacred principle in physics, though it can be tricky in certain circumstances, such as an expanding universe. Quantum mechanics is another context in which energy conservation is a subtle thing — so much so that it’s still worth writing papers...
Math Is Still...
New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal
By eliminating a hidden inefficiency, computer scientists have come up with a new way to multiply...
9 months ago
By eliminating a hidden inefficiency, computer scientists have come up with a new way to multiply large matrices that’s faster than ever.
The post New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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.”
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
Math Is Still...
What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly?
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet...
5 months ago
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet experiment, leaving open the possibility that the results point to a new fundamental particle.
The post What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Democracy by Mistake
Most political scientists see democracy as the natural consequence of economic development or the...
10 months ago
Most political scientists see democracy as the natural consequence of economic development or the result of strategic and rational choice. A detailed look through history suggests democracy emerges as often as not by another path: human error.
NeuroLogica Blog
Diamond Batteries Again
Why does news reporting of science and technology have to be so terrible at baseline? I know the...
a week ago
Why does news reporting of science and technology have to be so terrible at baseline? I know the answers to this question – lack of expertise, lack of a business model to support dedicated science news infrastructure, the desire for click-bait and sensationalism – but it is still...
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence Suggests Lunar Cave
Astronomers have discovered multiple “pits” on the surface of the moon – these look superficially...
5 months ago
Astronomers have discovered multiple “pits” on the surface of the moon – these look superficially like craters, but on closer inspection are actually vertical pits. There has been considerable speculation that these pits might be cave openings. Now, an analysis of data from the...
Math Is Still...
Can Thermodynamics Go Quantum?
The Industrial Revolution brought us the laws of thermodynamics, and new ideas about work, energy...
3 months ago
The Industrial Revolution brought us the laws of thermodynamics, and new ideas about work, energy and efficiency. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern about what these concepts might mean in the age of quantum mechanics....
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?
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
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Ice Formation
In today's bigger is better world, you don't order a large coffee, you order a 20 fluid ounce Venti...
4 months ago
In today's bigger is better world, you don't order a large coffee, you order a 20 fluid ounce Venti coffee. From 1987 through 2004, McDonald's restaurants had a supersize option for larger than large portions of its French fries and soft drinks. The prefix, super, has been used...
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.
The Roots of...
What I’ve been reading, July–August 2023
A quasi-monthly feature (I skipped it last month, so this is a double portion).
This is a longish...
a year ago
A quasi-monthly feature (I skipped it last month, so this is a double portion).
This is a longish post covering many topics; feel free to skim and skip around. Recent blog posts and news stories are generally omitted; you can find them in my links digests.
These updates are less...
nanoscale views
The wormhole kerfuffle, ER=EPR, and all that
I was busy trying to finish off a grant proposal and paper revisions this week and didn't have the...
over a year ago
I was busy trying to finish off a grant proposal and paper revisions this week and didn't have the time to react in realtime to the PR onslaught surrounding the recent Nature paper by a team from Harvard, MIT, Fermilab, and Google. There are many places to get caught up on this,...
Drew Ex Machina
Tropical Weather Analytics and Phantom Space Partner on Hurricane Hunter Satellite Constellation
Tropical Weather Analytics, Inc. (TWA), with a revolutionary 3D measurement capability for improved...
a year ago
Tropical Weather Analytics, Inc. (TWA), with a revolutionary 3D measurement capability for improved hurricane forecasting and weather intelligence, is announcing a strategic partnership with Phantom Space […]
Explorations of an...
Heading East Across The Chaco
I’ve written about the Chaco region before – that vast dry, scrubby area south of the Amazon which...
a year ago
I’ve written about the Chaco region before – that vast dry, scrubby area south of the Amazon which happens to cover much of central and northern Argentina. Laura and I had skirted the edge of the Chaco earlier in the trip, including near Laguna Salinas Grande and in the Salta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Dwarf Planet Ring Mystery
Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence...
a year ago
Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence consistent with existing theories, providing further confirmation, but it’s exciting to find evidence that cannot be explained with existing theories. Astronomers may have found such...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: Did The FDA Mess Up With Aduhelm? | Out-Of-Pocket
what if it incentivizes actually good drugs?
a year ago
what if it incentivizes actually good drugs?
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
wadertales
Learning lessons from Slender-billed Curlews
The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct,...
a week ago
The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct, tells a sad tale. We now know that, by the time that the Slender-billed Curlew Action Plan was published in 1996, it was already too late to save the species. Resources expended...
Math Is Still...
Evolution: Fast or Slow? Lizards Help Resolve a Paradox.
Why does natural selection appear to happen slowly on long timescales and quickly on short ones? A...
11 months ago
Why does natural selection appear to happen slowly on long timescales and quickly on short ones? A multigenerational study of four lizard species addresses biology’s “paradox of stasis.”
The post Evolution: Fast or Slow? Lizards Help Resolve a Paradox. first appeared...
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...
New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material
In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes...
11 months ago
In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align.
The post New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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. ...
Many Worlds
After Seven Years Away Exploring an Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx is Landing Soon with Precious Samples
Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the...
a year ago
Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft should be landing in the Utah desert later this month. The delivery will be a first for NASA — its first sample return from an asteroid and one of a very...
Wanderingspace
We don’t post enough Mars Scenic Views
I mean… we don’t post enough in general.
over a year ago
I mean… we don’t post enough in general.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More thoughts consumerization in healthcare | Out-Of-Pocket
tales from other countries, industries, and more
3 months ago
tales from other countries, industries, and more
Apoorva Srinivasan
a review on protein language models
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been...
7 months ago
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer...
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
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...
Damn Interesting
Giving the Bird the Bird
We’re not going to post things on Twitter X anymore. The new owner keeps doing awful stuff. If you...
a year ago
We’re not going to post things on Twitter X anymore. The new owner keeps doing awful stuff. If you have enjoyed our mostly-daily curated links via the aforementioned collapsing service, we invite you to bookmark our curated links page, or follow us a number of other ways.
Rather...
symmetry magazine
LHC experiments see four top quarks
The ATLAS and CMS experiments have observed a process 4,000 times rarer than the production of Higgs...
a year ago
The ATLAS and CMS experiments have observed a process 4,000 times rarer than the production of Higgs bosons.
The ATLAS and CMS experiments have successfully detected the production of a quartet of top quarks during high-energy proton collisions inside the Large...
symmetry magazine
Life along the future DUNE beamline
Unseen neutrinos, visible lives: A photographer journeys through the Midwest.
a year ago
Unseen neutrinos, visible lives: A photographer journeys through the Midwest.
Math Is Still...
How Is Cell Death Essential to Life?
Cells in our bodies are constantly dying — and these countless tiny deaths are essential to human...
2 weeks ago
Cells in our bodies are constantly dying — and these countless tiny deaths are essential to human health and multicellular life itself. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with cellular biologist Shai Shaham about what makes a cell “alive” and the latest developments...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Introducing The OOP Talent Collective | Out-Of-Pocket
if you're hiring, this will help you find the best candidates
a year ago
if you're hiring, this will help you find the best candidates
Math Is Still...
How This Marine Worm Can Tell Moonglow From Sunbeams
For the first time, scientists have decoded the molecular structure of a protein that helps to sync...
a year ago
For the first time, scientists have decoded the molecular structure of a protein that helps to sync a biological clock to the phases of the moon.
The post How This Marine Worm Can Tell Moonglow From Sunbeams first appeared on Quanta Magazine
nanoscale views
Some interesting links - useful lecture notes, videos
Proposal writing, paper writing, and course prep are eating a lot of my bandwidth right now, but I...
a year ago
Proposal writing, paper writing, and course prep are eating a lot of my bandwidth right now, but I wanted to share a few things:
David Tong at Cambridge is a gifted educator and communicator who has written lecture notes that span a wide swath of the physics curriculum, from...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Answers: Too much money in digital health? | Out-Of-Pocket
Here's what some of you had to say
a year ago
Here's what some of you had to say
Wanderingspace
Europa Seen by Juno
Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson processed the image to enhance the color and contrast.
over a year ago
Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson processed the image to enhance the color and contrast.
Cremieux Recueil
Focusing on Healthcare’s Administrative Costs Is Misguided
Substantial thinking about healthcare reform starts with acknowledging that administrative bloat...
2 weeks ago
Substantial thinking about healthcare reform starts with acknowledging that administrative bloat isn't the big problem
symmetry magazine
Encouraging a new community
Physicists advocate for getting community college students involved in research.
a year ago
Physicists advocate for getting community college students involved in research.
Casey Handmer's blog
Entrepreneurship changed the way I think
A quick note with some self reflection on the eve of my 37th year and after nearly three years of...
3 months ago
A quick note with some self reflection on the eve of my 37th year and after nearly three years of running a hardware start up. I never saw myself as a founder. At some point a few years ago I realized nearly all my friends were founders or managers of their own business, but I...
Math Is Still...
The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View
Astronomers are reveling in the James Webb Space Telescope’s discoveries about the formative epoch...
2 months ago
Astronomers are reveling in the James Webb Space Telescope’s discoveries about the formative epoch of cosmic history.
The post The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Does higher density cause lower birth rates?
Assessing one recent claim that it does
7 months ago
Assessing one recent claim that it does
Drew Ex Machina
NASA’s Viking Mission & The Search for Life on Mars: The Experiments
For young space enthusiasts like myself growing up in the 1970s, NASA’s Viking mission to Mars was...
over a year ago
For young space enthusiasts like myself growing up in the 1970s, NASA’s Viking mission to Mars was one of the more exciting and memorable. The Viking […]
The Roots of...
Quote quiz: “drifting into dependence”
Quote quiz: who said this? (No fair looking it up). I have modified the original quotation slightly,...
a year ago
Quote quiz: who said this? (No fair looking it up). I have modified the original quotation slightly, by making a handful of word substitutions to bring it up to date:
It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all power to AI. But we are...
Blog - Practical...
The Bizarre Paths of Groundwater Around Structures
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In 2015, an unusual incident...
over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
In 2015, an unusual incident happened on the construction site for a sewage lift station in British Columbia, Canada. WorksafeBC, the provincial health and safety agency, posted a summary of the event on...
Uncharted...
The Players of the Syrian Chessboard
What will Israel, Russia, Turkey, the Kurds, Europe, and Lebanon do?
a week ago
What will Israel, Russia, Turkey, the Kurds, Europe, and Lebanon do?
The Works in...
Issue 14: A peasant surprise
Plus: Giving yourself the Zika virus, cut-and-cover railway tunnels, and more reasons to donate your...
10 months ago
Plus: Giving yourself the Zika virus, cut-and-cover railway tunnels, and more reasons to donate your organs.
Wanderingspace
Venus from Earth (with Stacking)
Image taken by @TheVastReaches. According to the photographer, “It takes just a few minutes to...
over a year ago
Image taken by @TheVastReaches. According to the photographer, “It takes just a few minutes to collect all the frames. This started as 6 video files, 45,000 frames total. Then they are stacked and combined.”
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...
The Works in...
The duplication crisis: the other replication crisis
How bad publishing incentives hinder long-term thinking in computational biology research
3 months ago
How bad publishing incentives hinder long-term thinking in computational biology research
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Physicians and Pharma Marketing | Out-Of-Pocket
oh we getting that drug money
a year ago
oh we getting that drug money
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...
Asterisk
Fracking Eyeballs
How an alliance between psychologists and advertisers at the turn of the 20th century taught us how...
a year ago
How an alliance between psychologists and advertisers at the turn of the 20th century taught us how to measure (and monetize) human attention.
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
Out-Of-Pocket 2021 Predictions | Out-Of-Pocket
the future is easy to predict right
a year ago
the future is easy to predict right
NeuroLogica Blog
Harvesting Energy from Water Vapor
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about...
a year ago
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about it. UMASS researchers have produced a device that generates electricity by harvesting charge from water vapor. They write: The common feature of these materials is that they are...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 1: Introduction
Ever since wrapping up our extensive traveling last spring, Laura and I have been itching to get...
9 months ago
Ever since wrapping up our extensive traveling last spring, Laura and I have been itching to get back on the road in Latin America. After returning to Ontario, finding a rental house and obtaining employment, our lives have been a little more grounded. I still have been on some...
nanoscale views
The future of the semiconductor industry, + The Mechanical Universe
Three items of interest:
This article is a nice review of present semiconductor memory...
8 months ago
Three items of interest:
This article is a nice review of present semiconductor memory technology. The electron micrographs in Fig. 1 and the scaling history in Fig. 3 are impressive.
This article in IEEE Spectrum is a very interesting look at how some people think we will get...
Explorations of an...
Birding Near The Bolivia Border
January 22, 2023 (continued)
Laura and I left the humid east slope of the Andes behind and worked...
a year ago
January 22, 2023 (continued)
Laura and I left the humid east slope of the Andes behind and worked our way north along the paved highway through the incredible Quebrada de Humahuaca. This valley is famous for its scenery and it was easy to see why. The contrasts, textures and...
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...
What Are Sheaves?
These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics.
The post...
5 months ago
These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics.
The post What Are Sheaves? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Why We Shut Down
In international development, it’s not enough to try to do good. We need the tools to tell if a...
5 months ago
In international development, it’s not enough to try to do good. We need the tools to tell if a project is really working — and the incentive to end it if it’s not.
Damn Interesting
Pushing the Envelope
As is often the case with people in dangerous professions, the Apollo astronauts found that life...
over a year ago
As is often the case with people in dangerous professions, the Apollo astronauts found that life insurance policies were prohibitively expensive. Rather than pay the exorbitant insurance fees, the astronauts devised a system to ensure their wives and children would be financially...
Light from Space
The Helping Hand of LDN 1355
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark...
over a year ago
LDN 1355 is a dark nebula in Cassiopeia, vaguely in the shape of an outstreched human hand—the dark dust obscuring the reflection nebula behind it.
Total exposure time: 58h 50' (211,800s)
Image resolution: 5,216 × 3,909px (1.924″/px)
Shot from my driveway
Cremieux Recueil
The Worst Argument Against Ozempic
Unfortunately, being skinny might require effort
3 months ago
Unfortunately, being skinny might require effort
symmetry magazine
From inventor to entrepreneur
Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for...
a year ago
Creating a startup to commercialize technology developed during research is a risky road for physicists and engineers, but the help of experts can improve their chances.
Asterisk
Growing Up Overnight
A look at the past few years of LLM progress.
a year ago
A look at the past few years of LLM progress.
symmetry magazine
Creating the next 3D maps of the universe
Scientists have proposed new instruments that would use spectroscopy to decode dark matter, dark...
a year ago
Scientists have proposed new instruments that would use spectroscopy to decode dark matter, dark energy and cosmic inflation.
Telescope images can tell us a whole lot about celestial objects: where they are located in the sky, how bright they are, how big they...
Many Worlds
All Six Element Needed For Life as We Know It Have Now Been Found in The Watery Plumes of Enceladus
The elements needed for life as we know it are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen sulfur and...
a year ago
The elements needed for life as we know it are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen sulfur and phosphorus. Before today, planetary scientists could say that five of those crucial elements had been found in the watery spray that spurts out of the Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. All that...
Damn Interesting
The Unceasing Cessna Hacienda
Warren “Doc” Bayley was a man of the people. When he and his wife Judy opened their Las Vegas resort...
over a year ago
Warren “Doc” Bayley was a man of the people. When he and his wife Judy opened their Las Vegas resort in 1956, Bayley had no plans to compete with the flashier, corporate casinos at the center of the Strip. Instead, the Hacienda Hotel catered to families, as well as to locals who...
Blog - Practical...
Why There's a Legal Price for a Human Life
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
One of the very first...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
One of the very first documented engineering disasters happened in 27 AD in the early days of the Roman Empire. A freed slave named Atilius built a wooden amphitheater in a town called Fidenae outside of Rome....
Probably...
Reject Math Supremacy
The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool...
a week ago
The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool for teaching and learning — and many ideas that are commonly presented in math notation can be more clearly presented in code. In the draft third edition of Think Stats there is...
Math Is Still...
How ‘Idle’ Egg Cells Defend Their DNA From Damage
How do immature egg cells maintain genetic quality for decades before they mature? Scientists find...
7 months ago
How do immature egg cells maintain genetic quality for decades before they mature? Scientists find unusual safeguards in this quiescent cell that may inform research into fertility.
The post How ‘Idle’ Egg Cells Defend Their DNA From Damage first appeared on Quanta...
Math Is Still...
The Social Benefits of Getting Our Brains in Sync
Our brain waves can align when we work and play closely together. The phenomenon, known as...
8 months ago
Our brain waves can align when we work and play closely together. The phenomenon, known as interbrain synchrony, suggests that collaboration is biological.
The post The Social Benefits of Getting Our Brains in Sync first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Cows vs. Chemists: The Health Debates Over Plant-Based Meat
Everyone wants to know if plant-based meats are good for you. Despite what you might read, no one...
a year ago
Everyone wants to know if plant-based meats are good for you. Despite what you might read, no one has a definitive answer.
NeuroLogica Blog
Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers as Fuel
The press release for a recent study declares: “New catalyst could provide liquid hydrogen fuel of...
a year ago
The press release for a recent study declares: “New catalyst could provide liquid hydrogen fuel of the future.” But don’t get excited – the optimism is more than a bit gratuitous. I have written about hydrogen fuel before, and the reasons I am not optimistic about hydrogen as a...
Melting Asphalt
The Elephant in the Brain
It's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book,...
over a year ago
It's finally here! The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — my first book, coauthored with Robin Hanson — is now widely available. You can find the ebook version on Kindle, Google Play, and iBooks. It's also…
Read more ›
nanoscale views
Bob Curl - it is possible to be successful and also a good person
I went to a memorial service today at Rice for my late colleague Bob Curl, who died this past...
over a year ago
I went to a memorial service today at Rice for my late colleague Bob Curl, who died this past summer, and it was a really nice event. I met Bob almost immediately upon my arrival at Rice back in 2000 (though I’d heard about him from my thesis advisor, who’d met him at the Nobel...
Math Is Still...
Animal Mutation Rates Reveal Traits That Speed Evolution
The first large-scale comparison of mutation rates gives insights into how quickly species can...
a year ago
The first large-scale comparison of mutation rates gives insights into how quickly species can evolve.
The post Animal Mutation Rates Reveal Traits That Speed Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Why don’t healthcare companies say what they do? | Out-Of-Pocket
And some tips to figure out what a company does
a year ago
And some tips to figure out what a company does
ToughSF
Starship Lite: from rapid Interplanetary to Interstellar
Elon Musk
stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary
boost vehicle...
over a year ago
Elon Musk
stated that a stripped-down SpaceX Starship could become an interplanetary
boost vehicle able to push probes towards the farthest objects in our Solar
System.
What
other missions could the Starship ‘Lite’ do, and how quickly?
Near SSTO
Rockets performance
scales...
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: An Englishman in New York
Reflections on the revolution in Manhattan
over a year ago
Reflections on the revolution in Manhattan
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
Quantum Frontiers
Astrobiology meets quantum computation?
The origin of life appears to share little with quantum computation, apart from the difficulty of...
a year ago
The origin of life appears to share little with quantum computation, apart from the difficulty of achieving it and its potential for clickbait. Yet similar notions of complexity have recently garnered attention in both fields. Each topic’s researchers expect only … Continue...
Eukaryote Writes...
Fiber arts, mysterious dodecahedrons, and waiting on “Eureka!”
Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
over a year ago
Why didn't we invent knitting before 1000 CE?
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.
Interaction Magic -...
3 tips for co-designing with kids
Designing future sports products with a group of 11 year olds.
a year ago
Designing future sports products with a group of 11 year olds.
Explorations of an...
Heading East Into The Atlantic Forest
The Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica in Portuguese) stretches across the southeastern coastal region...
a year ago
The Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica in Portuguese) stretches across the southeastern coastal region of Brazil, reaching inland as far as southeastern Paraguay and northeastern Argentina. In broad terms, the Atlantic Forest is formed and continues to be maintained by...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Lifecycle Analysis of Electric Vehicles
This article is part of my informal series on EVs, sorting through the claims, reality, and...
a year ago
This article is part of my informal series on EVs, sorting through the claims, reality, and propaganda. There are many complicated factors to sort through, but overall, in my opinion, most concerns about EVs are outdated or overblown. There are definitely locations and use...
IEEE Spectrum
The Forgotten History of Chinese Keyboards
Today, typing in Chinese works by converting QWERTY keystrokes into Chinese characters via a...
6 months ago
Today, typing in Chinese works by converting QWERTY keystrokes into Chinese characters via a software interface, known as an input method editor. But this was not always the case. Thomas S. Mullaney’s new book, The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Curious Case of Professional Employer Organizations | Out-Of-Pocket
A tale about complexity, risk skimming, and what counts as an “employee” or “company”
3 months ago
A tale about complexity, risk skimming, and what counts as an “employee” or “company”
Confessions of a...
Impacts of climate change on marine communities, seagrass dieback, and a trip to the Abrolhos...
You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks. No holiday for me though, here’s a...
over a year ago
You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few weeks. No holiday for me though, here’s a quick taste of some of the other stuff I’ve been up to! Impact of climate change on marine coastal ecosystems – A masterclass with Nuria Marbá I was lucky enough to be invited along...
NeuroLogica Blog
Passive Solar Water Desalination
I know we are supposed to be worried about the world supply of fresh water. I have been hearing that...
a year ago
I know we are supposed to be worried about the world supply of fresh water. I have been hearing that at least for the last 40 years, and the statistics are alarming. According to the Global Commission on the Economics of Water: “We are seeing the consequences not of freak events,...
Blog - Practical...
Was Starship’s Stage Zero a Bad Pad?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On April 20, 2023, SpaceX...
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
On April 20, 2023, SpaceX launched it’s first orbital test flight of its Starship spacecraft from Boca Chica on the gulf coast of Texas. You probably saw this, if not live, at least in the stunning videos that...
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;...
brr
Showering at the South Pole
Potable water, and not much of it.
a year ago
Potable water, and not much of it.
Quantum Frontiers
Beyond NISQ: The Megaquop Machine
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a...
a week ago
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a transcript of my remarks. The slides I presented are here. NISQ and beyond I’m honored to be back at Q2B for … Continue reading →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Things I’m watching in healthcare 2023 | Out-Of-Pocket
it's been a weird year
9 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Cool Ideas For Dentistry + Medicine With Nisarg Patel | Out-Of-Pocket
plus what actually happens in the operating room?
a year ago
plus what actually happens in the operating room?
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...
Asterisk
It’s 2024 and Drought is Optional
In the early 20th century, the United States diverted and dammed nearly every major river that runs...
7 months ago
In the early 20th century, the United States diverted and dammed nearly every major river that runs through the West, ushering in an era of unparalleled dominion over water. Today, California once again struggles with water scarcity — but solar energy could change all that.
Willem Pennings
ClockSquared improvements
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply...
a year ago
My ClockSquared project has a long history – it goes all the way back to 2015, when it was simply called the “Birthday word clock”. I haven’t spent much time on the project in recent years, but I’ve upgraded the internals a while ago and finally felt like writing a post about it....
Math Is Still...
The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes
A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about...
2 months ago
A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about the threads of the space-time fabric.
The post The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
What’s the Deal with Base Plates?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
A lot of engineering focuses...
2 weeks ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
A lot of engineering focuses on structural members. How wide is this beam? How tall is this column? But some of the most important engineering decisions are in how to connect those members together. Take a...
Math Is Still...
Scientists Find Optimal Balance of Data Storage and Time
Seventy years after the invention of a data structure called a hash table, theoreticians have found...
10 months ago
Seventy years after the invention of a data structure called a hash table, theoreticians have found the most efficient possible configuration for it.
The post Scientists Find Optimal Balance of Data Storage and Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 1
Check out our new series! This is the first episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your...
a year ago
Check out our new series! This is the first 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.
Probably...
The Gender Gap in Political Beliefs Is Small
In previous articles (here, here, and here) I’ve looked at evidence of a gender gap in political...
10 months ago
In previous articles (here, here, and here) I’ve looked at evidence of a gender gap in political alignment (liberal or conservative), party affiliation (Democrat or Republican), and policy preferences. Using data from the GSS, I found that women are more likely to say they are...
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...
Math Is Still...
Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information
Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are...
10 months ago
Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction.
The post Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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