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Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Cold Brew Coffee While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory...
11 months ago
18
11 months ago
While employees are thankful for their employer's largesse in providing free coffee, any cursory cost-benefit analysis shows that they get back more than they spend. Coffee's caffeine content boosts a person's focus and attention, and it reduces mental fatigue, all of these...
Apoorva Srinivasan
on edward jenner and creativity One common question that’s on everyone’s minds as we fiercely scrub our hands, pool our resources,...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
One common question that’s on everyone’s minds as we fiercely scrub our hands, pool our resources, conserve our consumption, stock up (but not hoard), invent calculus or write King Lear is: when will this end? Nobody knows what the answer to that question is but we
nanoscale views
Some updates on the NSF and related issues Non-blog life has been very busy, and events have been changing rapidly, but I thought it would be a...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Non-blog life has been very busy, and events have been changing rapidly, but I thought it would be a good idea to give a brief bulleted list of updates regarding the NSF and associated issues: A court decision regarding who has the authority to fire probationary federal workers...
Yale e360
As Oceans Warm, Predators Are Falling Out of Sync with Their Prey In the sea as on land, climate change is driving shifts in the abundance and distribution of...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
In the sea as on land, climate change is driving shifts in the abundance and distribution of species. Scientists are just beginning to focus on why some fish predators and prey — like striped bass and menhaden on the U.S. East Coast — are changing their behavior as waters warm....
Yale e360
Birds vs. Wind Turbines: New Research Aims to Prevent Deaths Window collisions and cats kill more birds than wind farms do, but ornithologists say turbine...
a month ago
1
a month ago
Window collisions and cats kill more birds than wind farms do, but ornithologists say turbine impacts must be taken seriously. Scientists are testing a range of technologies to reduce bird strikes — from painting stripes to using artificial intelligence — to keep birds safe. Read...
Quanta Magazine
How Math Achieved Transcendence Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to understand them. The post How Math Achieved Transcendence first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Casey Handmer's blog
To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization [Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
[Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate that we had kicked off the process of recompiling the foundation layer of our entire industrial...
Yale e360
In Vermont, a Push to Prevent Flooding or Get Out of the Way An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont especially hard. As disaster declarations mount, state officials and community groups are collaborating to restore floodplains, reduce runoff from slopes, and buy out vulnerable...
Quanta Magazine
The Brainstem Fine-Tunes Inflammation Throughout the Body The evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that controls breathing and heart rate also regulates...
a year ago
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a year ago
The evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that controls breathing and heart rate also regulates the immune system — a discovery about the brain-body axis made by experts on taste. The post The Brainstem Fine-Tunes Inflammation Throughout the Body first appeared on...
wadertales
Inland feeding by coastal godwits Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect estuaries but the same is not necessarily true for Black-tailed Godwits. In a 2022 paper in the journal Wader Study, Clément Jourdan and colleagues describe the movements of ten tagged...
Asterisk
Automating Math Computers can already help verify proofs. One day soon, they may be able to come up with new ones.
6 months ago
12
6 months ago
Computers can already help verify proofs. One day soon, they may be able to come up with new ones.
Asterisk
Why You’ve Never Been In A Plane Crash The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when...
a year ago
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a year ago
The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when accidents do happen.
IEEE Spectrum
Skylab: The Space Station That Fell on Australia end cap from one of Skylab’s oxygen tanks in the dirt. Cattle were drinking collected rainwater from...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
end cap from one of Skylab’s oxygen tanks in the dirt. Cattle were drinking collected rainwater from the remains of a US $2.2 billion NASA investment. Skylab’s Failure and Recovery Skylab’s fate was sealed moments after lift-off when the sun shield and main solar panel were...
Quanta Magazine
The Computer Scientist Peering Inside AI’s Black Boxes Cynthia Rudin wants machine learning models, responsible for increasingly important decisions, to...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Cynthia Rudin wants machine learning models, responsible for increasingly important decisions, to show their work. The post The Computer Scientist Peering Inside AI’s Black Boxes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Marine Madness
Fear factor: How sensationalised shark documentaries undermine conservation efforts Experts explain why misleading documentaries about sharks can be problematic. When Brendon Sing...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Experts explain why misleading documentaries about sharks can be problematic. When Brendon Sing first encountered sharks he was as a young boy behind the safety of aquarium glass in his native South Africa. Like many children of his generation, Brendon’s limited knowledge about...
Yale e360
Renewables Made Up More Than 90 Percent of New Power Installed Globally Last Year Renewables accounted for 92 percent of new power capacity worldwide last year, a new report...
3 months ago
Quanta Magazine
How a Biofilm’s Strange Shape Emerges From Cellular Geometry Micro decisions can have macro consequences. A soft matter physicist reveals how interactions within...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Micro decisions can have macro consequences. A soft matter physicist reveals how interactions within simple cellular collectives can lead to emergent physical traits. The post How a Biofilm’s Strange Shape Emerges From Cellular Geometry first appeared on Quanta...
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Texas Interchanges Texas So Tall? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Dallas High Five,...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Dallas High Five, one of the tallest highway interchanges in the world. It gets its name from the fact that there are five different levels of roadways crossing each other in this one spot. In some...
Quantum Frontiers
Now published: Building Quantum Computers Building Quantum Computers: A Practical Introduction by Shayan Majidy, Christopher Wilson, and...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Building Quantum Computers: A Practical Introduction by Shayan Majidy, Christopher Wilson, and Raymond Laflamme has been published by Cambridge University Press and will be released in the US on September 30. The authors invited me to write a Foreword for … Continue reading →
Light from Space
The Space Lobster Not well known to observers in the Northern Hemisphere, the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357) in Cepheus...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Not well known to observers in the Northern Hemisphere, the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357) in Cepheus shows a complex pattern of Hydrogen alpha and Oxygen-III regions. It's quite far south in the sky at a declination of −34° 20′ and here in Tucson it barely
Damn Interesting
The Traveler and His Baggage On 19 May 1943, a news report from Berlin deepened the already dreary gloom that clung to the people...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
On 19 May 1943, a news report from Berlin deepened the already dreary gloom that clung to the people of Nazi-occupied Paris. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proudly announced to the world that the German capital of Berlin was officially judenfrei–free of all Jews. As this...
Yale e360
A Win for Farmers and Tribes Brings New Hope to the Klamath In the long-contentious Klamath River watershed, an experiment that turned a barley field into a...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
In the long-contentious Klamath River watershed, an experiment that turned a barley field into a wetland not only improved water quality. It also offered a path forward for restoring populations of two endangered fish species that are of cultural importance to Native tribes. Read...
Quanta Magazine
Magnetism May Have Given Life Its Molecular Asymmetry The preferred “handedness” of biomolecules could have emerged from biased interactions between...
a year ago
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a year ago
The preferred “handedness” of biomolecules could have emerged from biased interactions between electrons and magnetic surfaces, new research suggests. The post Magnetism May Have Given Life Its Molecular Asymmetry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Light and Distance in an Expanding Universe Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that...
a year ago
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a year ago
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that distant galaxy for 13 and a half billion years, which I assume is true, but this neither represents the original nor the current distance to that galaxy in terms of light years. I...
Quanta Magazine
Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and multiplication — and raises hopes for progress on the famous abc conjecture. The post Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making first appeared on...
Yale e360
As U.S. Scientists Look Abroad, China Aims to Lure Top Talent Chinese locales are looking to lure top scientific talent from overseas by offering lavish sums for...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
Chinese locales are looking to lure top scientific talent from overseas by offering lavish sums for resettling, as well as housing, health care, and other perks. The moves come as the Trump administration cuts funding for science and works to expel Chinese students. Read more on...
Chris Grossack's...
Building Objects with Category Theory Typically category theory is useful for showing the uniqueness of certain objects by checking that...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Typically category theory is useful for showing the uniqueness of certain objects by checking that they satisfy some universal property. This makes them unique up to unique isomorphism. However, category theory can also be used in order to show that objects exist at all, usually...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Running Tests on Generative AI with Autoblocks | Out-Of-Pocket How can we keep these bots in check??
2 months ago
Yale e360
With the Great Mussel Die-Off, Scientists Scramble for Answers One of the most endangered animals in the world, freshwater mussels are threatened by pollution,...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
One of the most endangered animals in the world, freshwater mussels are threatened by pollution, climate change, habitat loss, and invasive species. But in the epicenter of their diversity — the Southeastern U.S. — the root cause of a catastrophic die-off remains a mystery.  Read...
pcloadletter
Quality is a hard sell in big tech I have noticed a trend in a handful of products I've worked on at big tech companies. I have friends...
a year ago
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a year ago
I have noticed a trend in a handful of products I've worked on at big tech companies. I have friends at other big tech companies that have noticed a similar trend: The products are kind of crummy. Here are some experiences that I have often encountered: the UI is flakey and/or...
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
23
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...
Beautiful Public...
Nuclear Weapon Test Films Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories has an archive of an estimated 10,000 films of nuclear...
a year ago
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a year ago
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories has an archive of an estimated 10,000 films of nuclear weapons tests from the 1940's - 1960's.
Uncharted...
Desalination: a Future of Infinite Water Desalination is finally cheap, and it’s only getting cheaper. Will this usher a world of plentiful...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Desalination is finally cheap, and it’s only getting cheaper. Will this usher a world of plentiful water everywhere? Will we be able to build in the Sahara?
NeuroLogica Blog
DNA Nanorobot Kill Switch for Cancer How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in...
a year ago
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a year ago
How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in question is: “A DNA robotic switch with regulated autonomous display of cytotoxic ligand nanopatterns.” The study is a proof of concept in an animal model, so we are still years away...
Yale e360
Scientists Look to Changing Tree Color to Predict Volcanic Eruptions NASA scientists believe it may be possible to predict when a volcano will erupt by using satellites...
a month ago
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a month ago
NASA scientists believe it may be possible to predict when a volcano will erupt by using satellites to track changes in the color of surrounding trees. Read more on E360 →
Drew Ex Machina
Top Ten Posts of 2022 Now that we are at the end of 2022, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Now that we are at the end of 2022, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see […]
IEEE Spectrum
The Forgotten Story of How IBM Invented the Automated Fab In 1970, Bill Harding envisioned a fully automated wafer-fabrication line that would produce...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
In 1970, Bill Harding envisioned a fully automated wafer-fabrication line that would produce integrated circuits in less than one day. Not only was such a goal gutsy 54 years ago, it would be bold even in today’s billion-dollar fabs, where the fabrication time of an advanced IC...
Yale e360
Will U.S. Push on Seabed Mining End Global Consensus on Oceans? President Trump’s recent order to expedite permits to begin deep-sea mining bypasses international...
a month ago
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a month ago
President Trump’s recent order to expedite permits to begin deep-sea mining bypasses international agreements that protect oceans. By moving unilaterally, says the Ocean Conservancy’s Jeff Watters, the U.S. could endanger fragile marine ecosystems and set a troubling...
Yale e360
How Tearing Down Small Dams Is Helping Restore Northeast Rivers More than 30,000 small dams currently block river tributaries from Maine to Maryland. New...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
More than 30,000 small dams currently block river tributaries from Maine to Maryland. New initiatives to remove them are aimed at restoring natural flows, improving habitat for aquatic life, and reopening thousands of river miles to migratory fish, from shad to American...
Drew Ex Machina
GOES Video of Solar Eclipse – October 14, 2023 Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14,...
a year ago
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a year ago
Solar eclipses have fascinated humanity since ancient times and the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023 was no different. Unlike a total solar eclipse where the […]
Blog - Practical...
The Most Implausible Tunneling Method [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The original plan to get I-95...
a month ago
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a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The original plan to get I-95 over the Baltimore Harbor was a double-deck bridge from Fort McHenry to Lazaretto Point. The problem with the plan was this: the bridge would have to be extremely high so that...
Asterisk
The Highway to NIMBYism San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up...
a year ago
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a year ago
San Francisco’s history of collective decision-making helped prevent the city from being carved up by highways. Today, that same legacy prevents the city from building what it desperately needs: more housing.
Yale e360
'Green Grab': Solar and Wind Boom Sparks Conflicts on Land Use Solar and wind farms are proliferating and increasingly taking up land worldwide, prompting...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Solar and wind farms are proliferating and increasingly taking up land worldwide, prompting criticism from rural communities and environmentalists. Solutions range from growing crops or grazing livestock under PV panels to putting floating solar farms on lakes and...
Yale e360
World's Richest 10 Percent Responsible for Two-Thirds of Warming The wealthiest 10 percent of people on Earth have fueled two-thirds of the warming since 1990,...
a month ago
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a month ago
The wealthiest 10 percent of people on Earth have fueled two-thirds of the warming since 1990, according to a new modeling study. Read more on E360 →
pcloadletter
Impact-based performance evaluation in big tech is terrible My theory is that some performance consultants got paid a lot of money one day for a single word:...
a year ago
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a year ago
My theory is that some performance consultants got paid a lot of money one day for a single word: "impact." If you have worked in big tech, you're probably all too familiar with this word because your annual performance evaluations are based on your impact. As an employee,...
Quanta Magazine
Debate May Help AI Models Converge on Truth How do we know if a large language model is lying? Letting AI systems argue with each other may help...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
How do we know if a large language model is lying? Letting AI systems argue with each other may help expose the truth. The post Debate May Help AI Models Converge on Truth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Making Sense of Moral Change A conversation about abolitionism, moral progress, and the pitfalls of historical counterfactuals.
over a year ago
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over a year ago
A conversation about abolitionism, moral progress, and the pitfalls of historical counterfactuals.
Quanta Magazine
‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of the conjecture in three dimensions illuminates a whole crop of related problems. The post ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture first appeared on...
Blog - Practical...
What Really Happened with the Substation Attack in North Carolina? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] At around 7PM on the balmy...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] At around 7PM on the balmy evening of Saturday, December 3, 2022, nearly every electric customer in Moore County, North Carolina was simultaneously plunged into darkness. Amid the confusion, the power utility...
The Works in...
Should you infect yourself with Zika? What life is like in a challenge trial
a year ago
Yale e360
To Protect Amazon from Drug Traffickers, Title Indigenous Lands, Report Says Drug traffickers are violently seizing Indigenous lands in the Peruvian Amazon to clear rainforest...
3 weeks ago
9
3 weeks ago
Drug traffickers are violently seizing Indigenous lands in the Peruvian Amazon to clear rainforest and grow coca. To combat the drug trade, a new report calls for titling Indigenous territories along major trafficking routes.  Read more on E360 →
Eukaryote Writes...
Web-surfing tips for strange times Meditations on what's bad about the internet lately and how to use it anyhow.
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Redox and The Future Of Integrations | Out-Of-Pocket Actually...what is an integration lol
a year ago
The Works in...
Write for Notes in Progress We're looking for new authors and article pitches
2 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
GTFO Employers | Out-Of-Pocket Back To The Future
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
How writing a popular-science book led to a Nature Physics paper Several people have asked me whether writing a popular-science book has fed back into my research....
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Several people have asked me whether writing a popular-science book has fed back into my research. Nature Physics published my favorite illustration of the answer this January. Here’s the story behind the paper. In late 2020, I was sitting by … Continue reading →
Probably...
Young Adults Want Fewer Children The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at people born in the 2000s as young adults and an updated view of people born in the 1990s at the peak of their child-bearing years. Compared to previous generations at the same ages,...
Asterisk
Want Growth? Kill Small Businesses The central question of development economics is simple: how can poor countries become rich? The...
a year ago
20
a year 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.
Eukaryote Writes...
Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11 This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at...
a year ago
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a year ago
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at great effort and expense during the 1969 Apollo landing.
Yale e360
In a First, Chimps Found Sharing Fermented Fruit For the first time, wild chimpanzees have been caught on film sharing fermented fruit. The footage...
2 months ago
4
2 months ago
For the first time, wild chimpanzees have been caught on film sharing fermented fruit. The footage comes from Cantanhez National Park in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, where camera traps recorded chimps eating fermented breadfruit together on 10 separate...
Yale e360
In War-Torn Sudan, a Gold Mining Boom Takes a Human Toll As civil war rages in Sudan, a surge in gold production is helping finance and arm the warring...
3 months ago
3
3 months ago
As civil war rages in Sudan, a surge in gold production is helping finance and arm the warring factions. Most of the mining is done on a small scale by villagers who process the gold using mercury and cyanide, posing serious threats to their health and to the environment. Read...
Willem Pennings
ClockSquared Mini, a word clock wristwatch About a year ago, I had some time to spare over the summer and decided to challenge myself with a...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
About a year ago, I had some time to spare over the summer and decided to challenge myself with a project that I call “Clocksquared Mini”. It is Clocksquared, but in a tiny wristwatch package. This gives rise to a major challenge, as everything has to be shrunk down approximately...
Chris Grossack's...
Finiteness in Sheaf Topoi The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be tricky for people new to...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
The notion of “finiteness” is constructively subtle in ways that can be tricky for people new to the subject to understand. For a while now I’ve wanted to figure out what’s going on with the different versions of “finite” in a way that felt concrete and obvious (I mentioned...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 17: White-sand Birding At RN Allpahuayo-Mishana and Muyuna Lodge... February 24, 2024 Just outside of the city of Iquitos lies an expansive area containing white-sand...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
February 24, 2024 Just outside of the city of Iquitos lies an expansive area containing white-sand forest. The particular forest types that grow on white sand are somewhat uncommon in the Amazon, yet the stunted tree growth provides quite the contrast to "typical" Amazonian...
SubAnima
The Problem With Richard Dawkins How should we view The Selfish Gene 50 years on?
over a year ago
The Works in...
570 million Frenchmen France's decline coincided with a collapse in its birth rate – now we know why.
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories By screening films in a brain scanner, neuroscientists discovered a rich library of neural scripts —...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
By screening films in a brain scanner, neuroscientists discovered a rich library of neural scripts — from a trip through an airport to a marriage proposal — that form scaffolds for memories of our experiences. The post How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal...
Quanta Magazine
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...
a year ago
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a year 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
Blog - Practical...
How Sewage Recycling Works [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Wichita Falls, Texas, went...
2 weeks ago
13
2 weeks ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Wichita Falls, Texas, went through the worst drought in its history in 2011 and 2012. For two years in a row, the area saw its average annual rainfall roughly cut in half, decimating the levels in the three...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Match Day and the Unmatched | Out-Of-Pocket an underutilized workforce?
a year ago
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...
a year ago
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a year 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. […]
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Pitching to payers, pilots, and what makes Blue Cross distinct with Tricia Garland | Out-Of-Pocket so you want to know what health insurers are looking for?
a year ago
wadertales
Counting breeding shorebirds using listening devices With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments such as wind turbines and monoculture forestry, conservationists are often asked to assess the potential effects of landscape change. Do passive acoustic devices have a role to play...
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
38
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 →
Yale e360
A.I. Is Quietly Powering a Revolution in Weather Prediction Weather forecasts powered by artificial intelligence are usually more accurate — and require less...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Weather forecasts powered by artificial intelligence are usually more accurate — and require less computational energy and fewer human hours — than conventional predictions. But questions remain about A.I. systems’ reliability and their ability to forecast extreme weather...
Quanta Magazine
Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals Complex neural pathways likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
Complex neural pathways likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times. The post Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale e360
Britain Sees Sunniest Spring on Record This spring was the warmest and sunniest on record in the U.K., a symptom of a rapidly warming...
a month ago
11
a month ago
This spring was the warmest and sunniest on record in the U.K., a symptom of a rapidly warming climate, weather officials say. Read more on E360 →
Chris Grossack's...
An Explicit Computation in Derived Algebraic Geoemtry Earlier this week my friend Shane and I took a day and just did a bunch of computations. In the...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
Earlier this week my friend Shane and I took a day and just did a bunch of computations. In the morning we did some differential geometry, where he told me some things about what he’s doing with symplectic lie algebroids. We went to get lunch, and then in the afternoon we did...
Asterisk
The Case for Insect Consciousness The evidence that insects feel pain is mounting, however we approach the issue.
6 months ago
symmetry magazine
SAGE Journey program ignites interest in STEM Three SAGE alumni talk about their experiences with a program meant to broaden gender diversity in...
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
How French Drains Work [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February of 2017, one of...
11 months ago
108
11 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...
Asterisk
The Next Revolution in Animal Agriculture The technologies of precision livestock farming could reshape animal agriculture. How will that go...
a year ago
18
a year ago
The technologies of precision livestock farming could reshape animal agriculture. How will that go for the animals?
Beautiful Public...
The Naughty Words the FAA Removed From the Sky New FOIA records from the FAA shed light on the frantic effort in 2015 to rename navigation...
a year ago
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a year ago
New FOIA records from the FAA shed light on the frantic effort in 2015 to rename navigation waypoints related to Donald Trump and reveal the list of naughty waypoint names that were changed over the years.
Wanderingspace
Space-X Looking Like 2001 Space Odyssey Amazing shot. Looks like a movie.
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using...
4 weeks ago
13
4 weeks ago
Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous. The post First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Bring Us Jurassic Park I think it’s increasingly difficult to argue that the recent boom in artificial intelligence (AI) is...
2 months ago
25
2 months ago
I think it’s increasingly difficult to argue that the recent boom in artificial intelligence (AI) is mostly hype. There is a lot of hype, but don’t let that distract you from the real progress. The best indication of this is applications in scientific research, because the...
Quanta Magazine
Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient essential for life. The pair are in the process of merging into a single organism. The post Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient first appeared on Quanta...
IEEE Spectrum
Why the Art of Invention Is Always Being Reinvented Every invention begins with a problem—and the creative act of seeing a problem where others might...
8 months ago
66
8 months ago
Every invention begins with a problem—and the creative act of seeing a problem where others might just see unchangeable reality. For one 5-year-old, the problem was simple: She liked to have her tummy rubbed as she fell asleep. But her mom, exhausted from working two jobs, often...
Quanta Magazine
New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books....
5 months ago
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5 months ago
The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal. The post New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection first appeared on Quanta...
IEEE Spectrum
The Data Reveals Top Patent Portfolios Eight years is a long time in the world of patents. When we last published what we then called the...
a month ago
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a month ago
Eight years is a long time in the world of patents. When we last published what we then called the Patent Power Scorecard, in 2017, it was a different technological and social landscape—Google had just filed a patent application on the transformer architecture, a momentous...
Yale e360
Malaria Cases Rising Amid Worsening Floods Malaria killed almost 600,000 people in 2023, as cases rose for the fifth consecutive year,...
6 months ago
4
6 months ago
Malaria killed almost 600,000 people in 2023, as cases rose for the fifth consecutive year, according to a new report from the World Health Organization. Read more on E360 →
Yale e360
As Earth's Magnetic Field Grows Stronger, Oxygen Levels Rise When the magnetic field around the Earth grows stronger, oxygen levels rise. That is the surprising...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
When the magnetic field around the Earth grows stronger, oxygen levels rise. That is the surprising finding of a new study looking at more than half a billion years of planetary history. Read more on E360 →
Light from Space
Iris Nebula and the Ghost of Cepheus The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus. A popular target with amateur astronomers, the...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus. A popular target with amateur astronomers, the sourrounding flux nebulas are harder to photograph and require long integration times. Also visible in this wide-field image, near the bottom left, is the Ghost Nebula. Click or...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
More 2023 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket should just start 2024 predictions I guess
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
How AI Models Are Helping to Understand — and Control — the Brain Martin Schrimpf is crafting bespoke AI models that can induce control over high-level brain...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
Martin Schrimpf is crafting bespoke AI models that can induce control over high-level brain activity. The post How AI Models Are Helping to Understand — and Control — the Brain first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
Willie Hobbs Moore: STEM Trailblazer At a time in American history when even the most intelligent Black women were expected to become, at...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
At a time in American history when even the most intelligent Black women were expected to become, at most, teachers or nurses, Willie Hobbs Moore broke with societal expectations to become a noted physicist and engineer. Moore probably is best known for being the first Black...
The Works in...
ARIA: Betting on science An inside look at Britain's new DARPA
over a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Quantum Complexity Shows How to Escape Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a...
a year ago
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a year ago
Inside of a black hole, the two theoretical pillars of 20th-century physics appear to clash. Now a group of young physicists think they have resolved the conflict by appealing to the central pillar of the new century — the physics of quantum information. The post...
Quanta Magazine
Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard limit to their abilities. The post Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quantum Frontiers
A classical foreshadow of John Preskill’s Bell Prize Editor’s Note: This post was co-authored by Hsin-Yuan Huang (Robert) and Richard Kueng. John...
a year ago
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a year ago
Editor’s Note: This post was co-authored by Hsin-Yuan Huang (Robert) and Richard Kueng. John Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, has been named the 2024 John Stewart Bell Prize recipient. The prize honors John’s contributions in … Continue...
NeuroLogica Blog
Deepfake Doctor Endorsements This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a recent BMJ study documents the scale of this fraud. The study focused on the UK, detailing instances of deepfakes of celebrity doctors endorsing dubious products. For example,...
Quanta Magazine
Overexposure Distorted the Science of Mirror Neurons After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and...
a year ago
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a year ago
After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and theory of mind are being refined and redefined. The post Overexposure Distorted the Science of Mirror Neurons first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Structuring the Unstructured and ScienceIO | Out-Of-Pocket how to train your model, the animated movie
a year ago
Yale e360
Microplastics Block Blood Flow in Brains of Mice A new study finds microplastics can block the flow of blood in the brains of mice. The study comes...
5 months ago
1
5 months ago
A new study finds microplastics can block the flow of blood in the brains of mice. The study comes on the heels of other research showing, for the first time, that microplastics can lodge in human brains. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently. The post How...
12 months ago
86
12 months ago
Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently. The post How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale e360
Foreign Trawlers Plunder Senegalese Waters, Driving Small Fishers to Migrate to Spain A foreign fleet of industrial trawlers is exhausting fish stocks in Senegal, driving artisanal...
a month ago
4
a month ago
A foreign fleet of industrial trawlers is exhausting fish stocks in Senegal, driving artisanal fishers to undertake a difficult, and sometimes deadly, migration to Spain. Read more on E360 →
Stephen Wolfram...
Launching Version 14.2 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica: Big Data Meets Computation & AI The Drumbeat of Releases Continues… Notebook Assistant Chat inside Any Notebook Bring Us Your...
5 months ago
70
5 months ago
The Drumbeat of Releases Continues… Notebook Assistant Chat inside Any Notebook Bring Us Your Gigabytes! Introducing Tabular Manipulating Data in Tabular Getting Data into Tabular Cleaning Data for Tabular The Structure of Tabular Tabular Everywhere Algebra with Symbolic Arrays...
Asterisk
When Was the Last Time We Built a New City? California Forever wants to build a new city in Solano county. On paper, it would be an affordable,...
a year ago
15
a year ago
California Forever wants to build a new city in Solano county. On paper, it would be an affordable, high-density urbanist wonderland — but can they actually pull it off?
Quanta Magazine
Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.” The post Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Out-Of-Pocket’s 2025 Predictions | Out-Of-Pocket I’m like 50% right every year, I just never know which 50%
6 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Categorization and What’s In a Name Categorization is critical in science, but it is also very tricky, often deceptively so. We need to...
a year ago
27
a year ago
Categorization is critical in science, but it is also very tricky, often deceptively so. We need to categorize things to help us organize our knowledge, to understand how things work and relate to each other, and to communicate efficiently and precisely. But categorization can...
Yale e360
Microplastics Block Blood Flow in Brains of Mice A new study finds microplastics can block the flow of blood in the brains of mice. The study comes...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
A new study finds microplastics can block the flow of blood in the brains of mice. The study comes on the heels of other research showing, for the first time, that microplastics can lodge in human brains. Read more on E360 →
Yale e360
Environmental Enforcement Slows Under Trump Federal enforcement of environmental laws has slowed significantly under President Trump. Read more...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Federal enforcement of environmental laws has slowed significantly under President Trump. Read more on E360 →
Yale e360
Whiplash: How Big Swings in Precipitation Fueled the L.A. Fires Climate scientist Daniel Swain says that two very wet years followed by a very dry one helped to...
5 months ago
4
5 months ago
Climate scientist Daniel Swain says that two very wet years followed by a very dry one helped to turn the Los Angeles wildfires into raging infernos. This phenomenon of “hydroclimate whiplash,” he says, is expected to occur in more and more places as the world warms. Read more...
Quanta Magazine
Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its...
a year ago
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a year ago
A mutant seedling revealed how plant tissues scatter incoming light, allowing plants to sense its direction and move toward it. The post Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale e360
A.I. Model Can Predict When Lightning Will Spark Wildfires Researchers have developed an AI model that can predict with 90 percent accuracy when and where...
3 months ago
1
3 months ago
Researchers have developed an AI model that can predict with 90 percent accuracy when and where lightning will ignite wildfires. Read more on E360 →
Yale e360
Wildlife Returns to Site of Devastating Southern California Wildfire Four months after the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, California, wildlife is making a...
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
Hobbyist Finds Math’s Elusive ‘Einstein’ Tile The surprisingly simple tile is the first single, connected tile that can fill the entire plane in a...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
The surprisingly simple tile is the first single, connected tile that can fill the entire plane in a pattern that never repeats — and can’t be made to fill it in a repeating way. The post Hobbyist Finds Math’s Elusive ‘Einstein’ Tile first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale e360
Recycling Nuclear Waste: A Win-Win or a Dangerous Gamble? As interest in nuclear power rises, startups are pursuing plans to recycle spent fuel and reuse its...
3 months ago
7
3 months ago
As interest in nuclear power rises, startups are pursuing plans to recycle spent fuel and reuse its untapped energy to power reactors. Advocates tout new recycling methods as a breakthrough, but many experts warn it will extract plutonium that could be used for nuclear...
Quanta Magazine
Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to ‘Peak’ Fitness Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful...
a year ago
31
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...
wadertales
How are migration sites connected? Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering locations linked? Forty-four authors have collaborated to bring together ringing, colour-ringing and GPS tracking data in a paper entitled Site-level connectivity identified from...
Quanta Magazine
How Did Multicellular Life Evolve? One of the most important events in the history of life on Earth was the emergence of...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
One of the most important events in the history of life on Earth was the emergence of multicellularity. In this episode, Will Ratcliff discusses how his snowflake yeast models provide insight into what drove the transition from single-celled to multicellular organisms. ...
Blog - Practical...
Why Bridges Don't Sink [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The essence of a bridge is not...
a year ago
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a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The essence of a bridge is not just that it goes over something, but that there’s clear space underneath for a river, railway, or road. Maybe this is already obvious to you, but bridges present a unique...
Many Worlds
Many Worlds Archive is Available I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column — sponsored by NASA’s NExSS...
a year ago
56
a year ago
I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column — sponsored by NASA’s NExSS initiative and the Lunar & Planetary Institute — for almost eight years. But the run came to an end in October. Now an archive of the more than 400 columns is easily available at...
Cremieux Recueil
National IQs Are Valid National IQ estimates are robust, reliable, and realistic
5 months ago
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...
over a year ago
87
over 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What's The Deal With Telemedicine? | Out-Of-Pocket we're in the weird in-between stage of adoption
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Luminescent Solar Concentrators for Solar Power Solar power is on the upswing. In 2023, 407–446 GW of solar power was installed globally, bringing...
10 months ago
71
10 months ago
Solar power is on the upswing. In 2023, 407–446 GW of solar power was installed globally, bringing the total to 1.6 TWdc. To put this into perspective, this was 55% of new power capacity added to energy production. For the first time, a renewable energy source contributed the...
Wanderingspace
Saturn Family Portrait From planetary.org: On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with...
over a year ago
42
over a year ago
From planetary.org: On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with its narrow-angle camera: Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Rhea, and Mimas. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. This is a full-color look at a view that was originally published in...
NeuroLogica Blog
Spotting Misinformation There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they...
a year ago
105
a year ago
There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they verify information they encounter in the news and on social media, and 96% of Americans say that we need to limit the spread of misinformation online. And yet, the spread of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Eclipse 2024 I am currently in Dallas Texas waiting to see, hopefully, the 2024 total solar eclipse. This would...
a year ago
91
a year ago
I am currently in Dallas Texas waiting to see, hopefully, the 2024 total solar eclipse. This would be my first total eclipse, and everything I have heard indicates that it is an incredible experience. Unfortunately, the weather calls for some clouds, although forecasts have been...
Uncharted...
Where to Build 10 New Cities in the US, Part 1 Plus vote on new types of content for Uncharted Territories!
5 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Microbes Aboard the ISS As I have written many times, including in yesterday’s post, people occupying space is hard. The...
a year ago
33
a year 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...
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
39
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....
The Works in...
Notes on Progress: A tale of two particles Not all radioactivity is risky or harmful
over a year ago
Yale e360
Biotech Firm Unveils ‘Woolly Mice,’ a Step Toward Recreating Woolly Mammoths A U.S. biotech firm working to bring back extinct animals said it had reached a milestone in its...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
A U.S. biotech firm working to bring back extinct animals said it had reached a milestone in its quest to recreate woolly mammoths. This week it unveiled “woolly mice” — mice that had been genetically engineered to sport woolly coats reminiscent of long-dead mammoths. Read more...
Cremieux Recueil
What’s the Deal With Autism Rates? Explaining the "autism epidemic".
2 months ago
The Works in...
Everything drugs The promise of SGLT2 inhibitors
a month ago
Drew Ex Machina
First Pictures: Views of Mars from NASA’s Mars Observer – July 27, 1993 Having enthusiastically followed NASA’s Viking mission to Mars as a teenager during the late-1970s,...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Having enthusiastically followed NASA’s Viking mission to Mars as a teenager during the late-1970s, the lack of any new NASA missions to Mars during the 1980s […]
NeuroLogica Blog
Starship Explodes in Successful Launch A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The irony comes from how we might define “success”. On April 20th SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of the fully assembled Starship, including a Starship rocket on top of a super heavy...
Yale e360
After 17 Years Underground, Massive Cicada Brood to Swarm U.S. After hiding underground for the last 17 years, billions of cicadas will take to the skies this...
2 months ago
1
2 months ago
After hiding underground for the last 17 years, billions of cicadas will take to the skies this summer, from Tennessee to Cape Cod.  Read more on E360 →
Quantum Frontiers
A (quantum) complex legacy: Part trois When I worked in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a friend reported that MIT’s postdoc association had...
a week ago
13
a week ago
When I worked in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a friend reported that MIT’s postdoc association had asked its members how it could improve their lives. The friend confided his suggestion to me: throw more parties.1 This year grants his wish on a … Continue reading →
IEEE Spectrum
Xerox Donates Legendary PARC Research Center Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Xerox is donating its legendary research lab PARC to the nonprofit research institute SRI International. The subsidiary’s pioneering research in the 1970s helped give birth to the era of personal computing. Xerox says the move will allow it to focus on its core business. The...
ToughSF
The Laser Revolution Part I: Megawatt beams to the skies There’s a laser revolution coming: a time when megawatt-scale beams will radically transform how we ...
a month ago
24
a month ago
There’s a laser revolution coming: a time when megawatt-scale beams will radically transform how we produce electricity, conduct war and even upset the nuclear world order. All they have to do it reach a certain convergence of price and power. And by current projections, it...
Quanta Magazine
How Does Math Keep Secrets? Cryptography is the thread that connects Julius Caesar, World War II and quantum computing, and it...
11 months ago
55
11 months ago
Cryptography is the thread that connects Julius Caesar, World War II and quantum computing, and it now lies under nearly every part of modern life. In this week’s episode, computer scientist Boaz Barak and co-host Janna Levin discuss the past and future of secrecy. ...
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
42
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...
Quanta Magazine
What Can Jellyfish Teach Us About Fluid Dynamics? Jellyfish and other aquatic creatures embody solutions to diverse problems in engineering, medicine...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Jellyfish and other aquatic creatures embody solutions to diverse problems in engineering, medicine and mathematics. John Dabiri, a fluid dynamics expert, talks with Steven Strogatz about what jellyfish can teach us about going with the flow. The post What Can...
Asterisk
The Devil in the Details: Matthew Desmond’s Poverty by America Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America is one of the most celebrated books on the subject....
a year ago
17
a year ago
Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America is one of the most celebrated books on the subject. Unfortunately, carelessness about the ways we measure poverty undercuts its main argument.
Yale e360
Cuts to U.S. Climate Aid Will Leave Large Gap in Global Funding The U.S. provides nearly a tenth of all climate finance globally, a well of funding that is at risk...
3 months ago
1
3 months ago
The U.S. provides nearly a tenth of all climate finance globally, a well of funding that is at risk of drying up as the Trump administration takes aim at overseas spending. Read more on E360 →
Cremieux Recueil
Sometimes Papers Contain Obvious Lies What you read in an abstract, a title, or even in the body of a paper might be the opposite of what...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
What you read in an abstract, a title, or even in the body of a paper might be the opposite of what papers actually show, and sometimes result are just made up
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Particle Health And Pulling Patient Data | Out-Of-Pocket One API, one dream
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Transcarent, AI Therapists, Interoperability, and more | Out-Of-Pocket Plus Out-Of-Pocket is hiring!!
5 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Cutting to the Bone One potentially positive outcome from the COVID pandemic is that it was a wakeup call – if there was...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
One potentially positive outcome from the COVID pandemic is that it was a wakeup call – if there was any doubt previously about the fact that we all live in one giant interconnected world, it should not have survived the recent pandemic. This is particularly true when it comes to...
Asterisk
The Ruin of Mumbai Mumbai’s land use regulations are designed to keep population density low. Instead, they force...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Mumbai’s land use regulations are designed to keep population density low. Instead, they force Mumbaikars into slums, while all of India pays the price.
NeuroLogica Blog
2023 Hottest Year on Record What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we...
a year ago
40
a year ago
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we can also say that the last 10 years are the hottest decade on record. 2023 dethrones 2016 as the previous warmest year and bumps 2010 out of the top 10. Further, in the last half of...
The Works in...
How Airbus took off Why you can build a European airliner, but not a European Google
3 months ago
Asterisk
Sins of the Children The circle of life on Chelicer 14d.
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition Measurement and entanglement both have a “spooky” nonlocal flavor to them. Now physicists are...
a year ago
23
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...
Yale e360
Reciprocity: Rethinking Our Relationship with the Natural World Robin Wall Kimmerer, the bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, recently published The...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Robin Wall Kimmerer, the bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, recently published The Serviceberry, which explores the economies of nature. In an e360 interview, the Native American ecologist discusses reciprocity, gratitude, and aligning human law with ecological law. Read...
Damn Interesting
The Kingpin of Shanghai Respectable heads of state rarely admit to keeping company with gangsters. But in April 1927, about...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
Respectable heads of state rarely admit to keeping company with gangsters. But in April 1927, about 15 years after the collapse of the last imperial dynasty, Chiang Kai-shek and China were at a crossroads. Chiang had followed a murky path to leadership of the Chinese Nationalist...
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A...
9 months ago
86
9 months ago
Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A surprisingly simple construction has given them an answer. The post Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem first appeared on Quanta...
Quantum Frontiers
Mo’ heights mo’ challenges – Climbing mount grad school My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride,...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
My wife’s love of mountain hiking and my interest in quantum thermodynamics collided in Telluride, Colorado. We spent ten days in Telluride, where I spoke at the Information Engines at the Frontiers of Nanoscale Thermodynamics workshop. Telluride is a gorgeous … Continue reading...
Quanta Magazine
The Physicist Decoding the Nonbinary Nature of the Subatomic World Inside the proton, quarks and gluons shift and morph their properties in ways that physicists are...
5 months ago
58
5 months ago
Inside the proton, quarks and gluons shift and morph their properties in ways that physicists are still struggling to understand. Rithya Kunnawalkam Elayavalli brings to the problem a perspective unlike many of their peers. The post The Physicist Decoding the...
Many Worlds
The Evolving Science of Technosignatures The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began decades ago as an effort to pick up radio...
a year ago
21
a year ago
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began decades ago as an effort to pick up radio signals from distant civilizations.  The effort was centered at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia and was by today’s standards quite rudimentary. A much broader search...
Wanderingspace
Ganymede from Juno Some incredibly sharp images from the Juno mission of Ganymede. The first new views of this...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
Some incredibly sharp images from the Juno mission of Ganymede. The first new views of this beautiful moon since Galileo. See more from kevinmgill on flickr. Also see the thread building up to these full composites in unmannedspaceflight.com.
Beautiful Public...
Special Database 18: 3,248 Mugshots Used for Training Image Recognition Systems The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has maintained a dataset of mugshot photos of 1,573 people for decades, including 175 minors, until we asked about them.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird health insurance concepts | Out-Of-Pocket Intercompany eliminations, copay shenanigans, and reference-based pricing
8 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Price Transparency Laws And Turquoise Health | Out-Of-Pocket Are we actually moving to a healthcare shopping experience?
a year ago
The Works in...
How Poor Maintenance Loses Wars - 2022, Ukraine Maintains A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Asterisk
The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google Over the past two decades, Google has hosted two different internal platforms for predictions. Why...
8 months ago
24
8 months ago
Over the past two decades, Google has hosted two different internal platforms for predictions. Why did the first one fail — and will the other endure?
NeuroLogica Blog
Factory Farming is Better Than Organic Farming Some narratives are simply ubiquitous in our culture (every culture has its universal narratives)....
6 months ago
76
6 months ago
Some narratives are simply ubiquitous in our culture (every culture has its universal narratives). Sometimes these narratives emerge out of shared values, like liberty and freedom. Sometimes they emerge out of foundational beliefs (the US still has a puritanical bent). And...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Amazon + One Medical Post | Out-Of-Pocket I guess I should say something?
a year ago
Yale e360
U.S. Support and New Investments Buoy Hopes for Marine Energy Producing energy from waves and tides has a stop-and-start history. But with a new U.S. testing site...
6 months ago
4
6 months ago
Producing energy from waves and tides has a stop-and-start history. But with a new U.S. testing site opening in 2026, recent federal investment, and accelerating efforts to reach net zero emissions, developers aiming to harness the vast power of the sea are feeling...
IEEE Spectrum
5 Questions for Robotics Legend Ruzena Bajcsy Ruzena Bajcsy is one of the founders of the modern field of robotics. With an education in...
7 months ago
80
7 months ago
Ruzena Bajcsy is one of the founders of the modern field of robotics. With an education in electrical engineering in Slovakia, followed by a Ph.D. at Stanford, Bajcsy was the first woman to join the engineering faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. She was the first, she...
Quanta Magazine
How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that...
a month ago
24
a month ago
From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that differ from their reflected forms. The post How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Confessions of a...
A first step into the unknown world of academia……. At the beginning of this blog I did promise to include some writings that would at least be...
over a year ago
39
over a year ago
At the beginning of this blog I did promise to include some writings that would at least be semi-useful (hopefully!) to future students hoping to move into a career in marine science; so here it goes! From today I am beginning a year long Postgraduate Teaching Internship at UWA....
Quanta Magazine
When Did Nature Burst Into Vivid Color? Scientists reconstructed 500 million years of evolutionary history to reveal which came first:...
a week ago
8
a week ago
Scientists reconstructed 500 million years of evolutionary history to reveal which came first: colorful signals or the color vision needed to see them. The post When Did Nature Burst Into Vivid Color? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could...
a year ago
69
a year ago
Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size. The post The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Plan To Build First Commercial Fusion Reactor How close are we to having fusion reactors actually sending electric power to the grid? This is a...
6 months ago
73
6 months ago
How close are we to having fusion reactors actually sending electric power to the grid? This is a huge and complicated question, and one with massive implications for our civilization. I think we are still at the point where we cannot count on fusion reactors coming online...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Hubble Tension Hubbub There really is a significant mystery in the world of cosmology. This, in my opinion, is a good...
5 months ago
60
5 months ago
There really is a significant mystery in the world of cosmology. This, in my opinion, is a good thing. Such mysteries point in the direction of new physics, or at least a new understanding of the universe. Resolving this mystery – called the Hubble Tension – is a major goal of...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Healthcare in Jail | Out-Of-Pocket How does it work?
a year ago
nanoscale views
Brief items - fresh perspectives, some news bits As usual, I hope to write more about particular physics topics soon, but in the meantime I wanted to...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
As usual, I hope to write more about particular physics topics soon, but in the meantime I wanted to share a sampling of news items: First, it's a pleasure to see new long-form writing about condensed matter subjects, in an era where science blogging has unquestionably shrunk...
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...
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Dog Soundboards I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have...
10 months ago
61
10 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....
nanoscale views
A science anecdote palate cleanser Apologies for slow posting.  Real life has been very intense, and I also was rather concerned when...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Apologies for slow posting.  Real life has been very intense, and I also was rather concerned when one of my readers mentioned last weekend that these days my blog was like concentrated doom-scrolling.  I will have more to say about the present university research crisis later,...
Explorations of an...
Monsoon Season In Arizona, Part 1: Introduction, Phoenix to Miller Canyon Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini...
9 months ago
12
9 months ago
Earlier this summer, Laura and I were trying to determine where we would visit for a couple of mini vacations. Due to the variations in her work schedule, Laura had two blocks of time - a five-day chunk in early August, and six days in early September - and we wanted to make the...
Quanta Magazine
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
62
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
Confidently Wrong How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and do you have a process for determining what your confidence level should be or do you just follow your gut feelings? Thinking about confidence is a form of metacognition – thinking...
Quanta Magazine
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...
9 months ago
48
9 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
The Works in...
The dysfunctional tiger How to upzone Hong Kong
2 months ago
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote writes for Asterisk Magazine See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus...
8 months ago
78
8 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...
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Diophantine Equations Piebald is an unusual word that appears in the Archimedes' cattle problem, a Diophantine problem...
11 months ago
19
11 months ago
Piebald is an unusual word that appears in the Archimedes' cattle problem, a Diophantine problem supposedly communicated by Archimedes to his friend, Eratosthenes. It's a Diophantine equation system of seven equations in eight unknowns, but it can be solved with the requirement...
NeuroLogica Blog
SpaceX Tests Super Heavy Booster Last Thursday SpaceX successfully conducted the most significant test firing of its Heavy Booster...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
Last Thursday SpaceX successfully conducted the most significant test firing of its Heavy Booster rocket to date. The rocket sports 33 Raptor 2 engines. During the test, 31 of them fired. One engine failed, and one was shut down. According to SpaceX, even with 31 engines the...
Quanta Magazine
How Simple Math Moves the Needle The spatial intuition behind a three-point turn offers an on-ramp to a century-old geometry problem....
a year ago
28
a year ago
The spatial intuition behind a three-point turn offers an on-ramp to a century-old geometry problem. The post How Simple Math Moves the Needle first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Tikalon Blog by Dev...
Copper and Green Energy The United States Department of Energy has updated its list of critically important materials. The...
a year ago
20
a year 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...
Yale e360
In Mexico’s ‘Avocado Belt,’ Villagers Stand Up to Protect Their Lands A boom in avocado production in Mexico has led to illegal deforestation and an influx of drug...
2 months ago
5
2 months ago
A boom in avocado production in Mexico has led to illegal deforestation and an influx of drug cartels dominating the lucrative trade. But Indigenous communities have fought back against the gangs and turned to traditional practices to grow avocados and save their forests.  Read...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Physics of Flocks Most people have watched large flocks of birds. They are fascinating, and have interested scientists...
a year ago
62
a year ago
Most people have watched large flocks of birds. They are fascinating, and have interested scientists for a long time. How, exactly, do so many birds maintain their cohesion as a flock? It’s obviously a dynamic process, but what are the mechanisms? When I was young I was taught...
The Works in...
Unending World A foretaste of Ch. 11 of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance on Books in Progress
8 months ago
Stephen Wolfram...
Towards a Computational Formalization for Foundations of Medicine A Theory of Medicine? As it’s practiced today, medicine is almost always about particulars: “this...
5 months ago
57
5 months ago
A Theory of Medicine? As it’s practiced today, medicine is almost always about particulars: “this has gone wrong; this is how to fix it”. But might it also be possible to talk about medicine in a more general, more abstract way—and perhaps to create a framework in which one can...
Asterisk
Half A Million Kinksters Can’t Be Wrong The story of how one independent researcher conducted the largest-ever survey on fetishes, and what...
a year ago
17
a year ago
The story of how one independent researcher conducted the largest-ever survey on fetishes, and what it has to teach us about sex, pleasure, and social science methodology.
The Works in...
Invisible College applications close on Friday Applications to our new residential seminar close this coming Friday, 31st May
a year ago
Breck's Blog
Mind Changers
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians Cross the Line to Get to the Point A new paper establishes a long-conjectured bound about the size of the overlap between sets of lines...
a year ago
26
a year ago
A new paper establishes a long-conjectured bound about the size of the overlap between sets of lines and points. The post Mathematicians Cross the Line to Get to the Point first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis. ...
11 months ago
77
11 months ago
The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis. The post ‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Wave of Concierge Medicine | Out-Of-Pocket This episode of Out-Of-Pocket is brought to you by…
12 months ago
Yale e360
Heat and Fire Making Pollution Worse Across Much of the U.S. By several measures, air pollution is getting worse in the U.S., a trend due in large part to more...
2 months ago
4
2 months ago
By several measures, air pollution is getting worse in the U.S., a trend due in large part to more severe heat and wildfires, according to a new report. Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Part 2: How To Build Patient Communities | Out-Of-Pocket And my investments in Most Days + Little Otter
a year ago
Yale e360
Planned Indian Mega-Port Could 'Wipe Out' Isolated Tribe The Shompen, residents of a small island in the Indian Ocean, are among the world's last isolated...
2 months ago
4
2 months ago
The Shompen, residents of a small island in the Indian Ocean, are among the world's last isolated tribes. But that may soon change as the Indian government moves forward with plans for a massive port that could "wipe out" the tribe, a watchdog group says. Read more on E360 →
Quanta Magazine
Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in...
4 days ago
5
4 days ago
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan. The post Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms first appeared on Quanta...
IEEE Spectrum
Why Are We Still Doing What Simon Says? In 1976, Ralph Baer and Howard Morrison, two game designers, happened to see a trade show...
a year ago
62
a year ago
In 1976, Ralph Baer and Howard Morrison, two game designers, happened to see a trade show demonstration of an Atari arcade game called Touch Me. The game’s waist-high cabinet featured four large buttons on the top, which lit up in random sequence; the player had to push the...
Yale e360
In Vermont, a Push to Prevent Flooding or Get Out of the Way An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont...
5 months ago
1
5 months ago
An increase in extreme precipitation events has hit the tiny, mountainous state of Vermont especially hard. As disaster declarations mount, state officials and community groups are collaborating to restore floodplains, reduce runoff from slopes, and buy out vulnerable...
IEEE Spectrum
Who Really Invented the Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery? Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value....
a year ago
34
a year ago
Fifty years after the birth of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see its value. It’s used in billions of laptops, cellphones, power tools, and cars. Global sales top US $45 billion a year, on their way to more than $100 billion in the coming decade. The first...
Wanderingspace
Eclipse 2024 from Space https://twitter.com/ThePlanetaryGuy
a year ago
Probably...
What’s a Chartist? Recently I heard the word “chartist” for the first time in my life (that I recall). And then later...
7 months ago
8
7 months ago
Recently I heard the word “chartist” for the first time in my life (that I recall). And then later the same day, I heard it again. So that raises two questions: To answer the second question first, it’s someone who supported chartism, which was “a working-class movement for...
Yale e360
As U.S. Scientists Look Abroad, China Aims to Lure Top Talent Chinese locales are looking to lure top scientific talent from overseas by offering lavish sums for...
3 weeks ago
10
3 weeks ago
Chinese locales are looking to lure top scientific talent from overseas by offering lavish sums for resettling, as well as housing, health care, and other perks. The moves come as the Trump administration cuts funding for science and works to expel Chinese students. Read more on...
brr
Mud Murdo The beautiful ambiance of a McMurdo summer.
over a year ago
Yale e360
Deconstructing Buildings: The Quest for New Life for Old Wood A growing number of cities have launched initiatives to reuse the wood waste from construction and...
3 weeks ago
1
3 weeks ago
A growing number of cities have launched initiatives to reuse the wood waste from construction and demolition that now ends up in landfills. The challenge, proponents say, is to deploy new techniques for disassembling old buildings and markets for repurposing the salvaged...
Melting Asphalt
Here Be Sermons I've long turned up my nose at sermons and related forms of mass moralizing. One reason, quite...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
I've long turned up my nose at sermons and related forms of mass moralizing. One reason, quite simply, is that they bore me. Honesty good. Violence bad. My eyes glaze over. Empathy, rah! Racism, boo! Please, don't we know this… Read more ›
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Out-Of-Pocket’s 2023 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket mine are right all the others are wrong
a year ago
Blog - Practical...
Every Kind of Bridge Explained in 15 Minutes [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The Earth is pretty cool and...
a year ago
131
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The Earth is pretty cool and all, but many of its most magnificent features make it tough for us to get around. When the topography is too wet, steep, treacherous, or prone to disaster, sometimes the only way...
Melting Asphalt
Outbreak Harry Stevens at The Washington Post recently published a very elegant simulation of how a disease...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
Harry Stevens at The Washington Post recently published a very elegant simulation of how a disease like COVID-19 spreads. If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking it out. Today I want to follow up with something I've been working… Read more ›
The Works in...
Join our events in your city Sydney, Washington DC, Madrid, and more – sign up now
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
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
45
a year ago
Under a microscope, cells in a worm embryo deliberately eliminated one-third of their genome — an uncompromising tactic that may combat harmful genetic parasites. The post To Defend the Genome, These Cells Destroy Their Own DNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
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
39
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...
Quanta Magazine
‘Turbocharged’ Mitochondria Power Birds’ Epic Migratory Journeys Slight changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of...
a month ago
27
a month ago
Slight changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of flight muscles provide extra energy for birds’ continent-spanning feats. The post ‘Turbocharged’ Mitochondria Power Birds’ Epic Migratory Journeys first appeared on...
NeuroLogica Blog
Woman with Catatonia for Years Wakes After Treatment The story of a woman, in a severe state of catatonia for years and “waking up” after being treated...
over a year ago
68
over a year ago
The story of a woman, in a severe state of catatonia for years and “waking up” after being treated for an autoimmune disease, is making the rounds and deserves a little bit of context. April Burrell was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia resulting in catatonia, and has...
The Works in...
How America Made Machines Make Machines A new section from Stewart Brand's Maintenance on Books in Progress
a year ago
Chris Grossack's...
$\mathsf{B}\text{Diff}(\Sigma)$ Classifies $\Sigma$-bundles I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the cobordism hypothesis,...
6 months ago
87
6 months ago
I’ve been trying to learn all about topological (quantum) field theories, the cobordism hypothesis, and how to use $(\infty,n)$-categories. This is all in service of some stuff I’m doing with skein algebras (which are part of a “$3+1$ TQFT” often named after Crane–Yetter, but...
Quanta Magazine
Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and evolution. The post Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Yale e360
As War Halts, the Environmental Devastation in Gaza Runs Deep The war in Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the environment, with water supplies contaminated, raw...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
The war in Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the environment, with water supplies contaminated, raw sewage pouring into the Mediterranean, once-fertile soils ruined, and the land stripped of trees. Experts say the extent of the damage needs to be tallied to help plan for a...
Asterisk
Democracy by Mistake Most political scientists see democracy as the natural consequence of economic development or the...
a year ago
16
a year 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.
Quanta Magazine
A Tower of Conjectures That Rests Upon a Needle On its surface, the Kakeya conjecture is a simple statement about rotating needles. But it underlies...
a year ago
68
a year ago
On its surface, the Kakeya conjecture is a simple statement about rotating needles. But it underlies a wealth of mathematics. The post A Tower of Conjectures That Rests Upon a Needle first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Injecting Caution Into Media Reports of Northern Lights as far South as California Friday, May 10, there was a lot of discussion on the news, on social media, and on different web...
a year ago
44
a year ago
Friday, May 10, there was a lot of discussion on the news, on social media, and on different web sites about storms on the Sun that are unleashing great outbursts of radiation and particles, some of them toward Earth. The fact that we are seeing such “space weather” now certainly...
NeuroLogica Blog
Robots and a Sense of Self Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption)...
7 months ago
67
7 months ago
Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption) have a sense of self. This sense has several components – we feel as if we occupy our physical bodies, that our bodies are distinct entities separate from the rest of the universe,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The College Health Opportunity | Out-Of-Pocket We can make college healthcare better! And honestly we have to
a year ago
Asterisk
The Unbearable Loudness of Chewing Why do some people find certain sounds intolerable? And why has it taken so long for scientists to...
6 months ago
17
6 months ago
Why do some people find certain sounds intolerable? And why has it taken so long for scientists to get even a preliminary answer?
The Works in...
How to write for Works in Progress We're looking for new authors and article pitches.
11 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Solution Aversion Fallacy I like to think deeply about informal logical fallacies. I write about them a lot, and even have an...
a year ago
63
a year ago
I like to think deeply about informal logical fallacies. I write about them a lot, and even have an occasional segment of the SGU dedicated to them. They are a great way to crystalize our thinking about the many ways in which logic can go wrong. Formal logic deals with arguments...
nanoscale views
March Meeting 2025, Day 3 Another busy day at the APS Global Physics Summit.  Here are a few highlights: Shahal Ilani of the...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
Another busy day at the APS Global Physics Summit.  Here are a few highlights: Shahal Ilani of the Weizmann gave an absolutely fantastic talk about his group's latest results from their quantum twisting microscope.  In a scanning tunneling microscope, because tunneling happens...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some Thoughts On Startups Overpromising | Out-Of-Pocket the role RFPs play, how it's difficult to define patient harm, and more
a year ago
Quantum Frontiers
The quantum gold rush Even if you don’t recognize the name, you probably recognize the saguaro cactus. It’s the archetype...
a year ago
134
a year ago
Even if you don’t recognize the name, you probably recognize the saguaro cactus. It’s the archetype of the cactus, a column from which protrude arms bent at right angles like elbows. As my husband pointed out, the cactus emoji is … Continue reading →
nanoscale views
Science slow down - not a simple question I participated in a program about 15 years ago that looked at science and technology challenges...
6 days ago
5
6 days ago
I participated in a program about 15 years ago that looked at science and technology challenges faced by a subset of the US government. I came away thinking that such problems fall into three broad categories. Actual science and engineering challenges, which require...
The Works in...
Heat waves Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one
11 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Issue With The COVID Bailout | Out-Of-Pocket A WHOLE NEW WORLD, A NEW PANDEMIC POINT OF VIEW
a year ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Food as medicine | Out-Of-Pocket The most cost-effective intervention we have
a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
AlexNet Source Code Is Now Open Source In partnership with Google, the Computer History Museum has released the source code to AlexNet, the...
3 months ago
41
3 months ago
In partnership with Google, the Computer History Museum has released the source code to AlexNet, the neural network that in 2012 kickstarted today’s prevailing approach to AI. The source code is available as open source on CHM’s GitHub page. What Is AlexNet? AlexNet is an...
NeuroLogica Blog
It’s Not Possible – Until Suddenly It Is There are a couple of recent stories that remind me that perhaps the most powerful thing in the...
over a year ago
40
over a year ago
There are a couple of recent stories that remind me that perhaps the most powerful thing in the world is political will. Often politicians and motivational speakers will say something along the lines of, “We can do anything, if we put our minds to it.” While this sounds like...
NeuroLogica Blog
Science News in 2023 This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are...
a year ago
26
a year ago
This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are what I consider to be the most impactful science news stories of 2023 (or at least the ones that caught by biased attention). This was a big year for medical breakthroughs. We are...
Asterisk
Lies, Damned Lies, and Manometer Readings America’s HVAC labor force is plagued by dishonesty and frequently incapable of meeting industry...
a year ago
18
a year ago
America’s HVAC labor force is plagued by dishonesty and frequently incapable of meeting industry standards. Interventions in indoor air quality are the next frontier in pandemic prevention — but are they up to the task?
Quanta Magazine
The Road Map to Alien Life Passes Through the ‘Cosmic Shoreline’ Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmospheres. But...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmospheres. But first, they need to know where to look — and that means figuring out which planets are likely to have atmospheres in the first place. The post The Road Map to Alien Life...
Yale e360
Cuts to U.S. Climate Aid Will Leave Large Gap in Global Funding The U.S. provides nearly a tenth of all climate finance globally, a well of funding that is at risk...
3 months ago
6
3 months ago
The U.S. provides nearly a tenth of all climate finance globally, a well of funding that is at risk of drying up as the Trump administration takes aim at overseas spending. Read more on E360 →
IEEE Spectrum
A Brief History of the Office Cubicle Robert Propst, a designer at the Herman Miller furniture company. Four years earlier, he had...
a year ago
97
a year ago
Robert Propst, a designer at the Herman Miller furniture company. Four years earlier, he had proposed a radical alternative to the office bullpen: the Action Office. He envisioned it as a holistic and integrated system designed to increase worker efficiency while providing an...
Yale e360
How a Former Herder Protected Mongolia's Vast Grasslands Batmunkh Luvsandash has fought to protect more than a million acres of steppe lands in his native...
2 months ago
7
2 months ago
Batmunkh Luvsandash has fought to protect more than a million acres of steppe lands in his native Mongolia. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he explains how, by drawing on the knowledge of local herders, he was able to take on the powerful mining industry and win. Read...
Stephen Wolfram...
What Can We Learn about Engineering and Innovation from Half a Century of the Game of Life Cellular... Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow...
3 months ago
48
3 months ago
Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow there’s an arc of progress that’s formed. But are there what amount to “laws of innovation” that govern that arc of progress? There are some exponential and other laws that purport to...
Uncharted...
Is Desalination Everywhere Realistic? Which countries are doing it already? Are they happy? Is desalinated water safe to drink? Does it...
7 months ago
34
7 months ago
Which countries are doing it already? Are they happy? Is desalinated water safe to drink? Does it taste good? Does it pollute too much? Can we shrink its cost?
wadertales
How successful are headstarted waders We know that headstarting (hatching eggs in captivity and rearing chicks through to fledging) can...
9 months ago
72
9 months ago
We know that headstarting (hatching eggs in captivity and rearing chicks through to fledging) can boost the number of young waders in a population. However, the sustainability of this intervention is dependent upon several factors that apply after the point of release. A paper in...
Yale e360
In a Warming World, Why Is the Southern Ocean Getting Cooler? Climate models predict that as the planet warms, so will the Southern Ocean. But for decades, the...
3 months ago
6
3 months ago
Climate models predict that as the planet warms, so will the Southern Ocean. But for decades, the waters around Antarctica have grown mysteriously cooler. A new study shows why. Read more on E360 →
Damn Interesting
A Blight on Soviet Science On a hazy afternoon in March 1927, a Russian scientist was walking through the dense forests of...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
On a hazy afternoon in March 1927, a Russian scientist was walking through the dense forests of Abyssinia, ducking under low-hanging branches and stopping to inspect the wild coffee trees lining his path. Accompanied by a group of local guides, the young traveller had been hiking...
Uncharted...
Why Do We Like Concerts? It's not what you think
3 months ago
Quanta Magazine
What Is Machine Learning? Neural networks and other forms of machine learning ultimately learn by trial and error, one...
12 months ago
84
12 months ago
Neural networks and other forms of machine learning ultimately learn by trial and error, one improvement at a time. The post What Is Machine Learning? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of...
over a year ago
67
over a year ago
So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of complex quantum systems. The post A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
symmetry magazine
Will AI make MC the MVP of particle physics? Particle physicists are building innovative machine-learning algorithms to enhance Monte Carlo...
a year ago
30
a year ago
Particle physicists are building innovative machine-learning algorithms to enhance Monte Carlo simulations with the power of AI.
Uncharted...
100 Billion Humans The world can carry them!
7 months ago
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
The Roots of...
The origins of the steam engine This is a guest post written by Anton Howes and animated by Matt Brown of Extraordinary Facility....
a year ago
19
a year ago
This is a guest post written by Anton Howes and animated by Matt Brown of Extraordinary Facility. This project was sponsored by The Roots of Progress, with funding generously provided by The Institute. Steam power did not begin with the steam engine. Long before...
Asterisk
Greening the Solar System A future where life flourishes beyond Earth is closer than you think. How, precisely, will we get...
4 months ago
19
4 months ago
A future where life flourishes beyond Earth is closer than you think. How, precisely, will we get there?
Yale e360
Saving U.S. Climate and Environmental Data Before It Goes Away Some 2,000 records went missing from government data sets after the Trump administration took office...
3 months ago
1
3 months ago
Some 2,000 records went missing from government data sets after the Trump administration took office in January. Canadian geographer Eric Nost talks about the work he and colleagues are doing to archive data related to climate and the environment while it is still...
Quantum Frontiers
Film noir and quantum thermo In four months, I’ll embark on the adventure of a lifetime—fatherhood. To prepare, I’ve been honing...
a year ago
114
a year ago
In four months, I’ll embark on the adventure of a lifetime—fatherhood. To prepare, I’ve been honing a quintessential father skill—storytelling. If my son inherits even a fraction of my tastes, he’ll soon develop a passion for film noir detective stories. … Continue reading →
NeuroLogica Blog
The Transition to Agriculture It is generally accepted that the transition from hunter-gatherer communities to agriculture was the...
3 months ago
21
3 months ago
It is generally accepted that the transition from hunter-gatherer communities to agriculture was the single most important event in human history, ultimately giving rise to all of civilization. The transition started to take place around 12,000 years ago in the Middle East,...
Yale e360
As Earth's Magnetic Field Grows Stronger, Oxygen Levels Rise When the magnetic field around the Earth grows stronger, oxygen levels rise. That is the surprising...
2 weeks ago
1
2 weeks ago
When the magnetic field around the Earth grows stronger, oxygen levels rise. That is the surprising finding of a new study looking at more than half a billion years of planetary history. Read more on E360 →
Yale e360
Chimps Found Treating Each Other's Wounds Chimpanzees in Uganda were found treating the injuries of other, unrelated chimps, including those...
a month ago
4
a month ago
Chimpanzees in Uganda were found treating the injuries of other, unrelated chimps, including those caught in hunting snares.  Read more on E360 →
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Digital health needs more creative financing options | Out-Of-Pocket And does venture actually work for healthcare services?
a year ago
NeuroLogica Blog
RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, and Vaccines RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will vehemently deny this, but I don’t buy it for a second. He is simply playing the, “I’m not anti-vaccine, I am pro-safe vaccine” gambit, which is disingenuous and always has been. We...
The Roots of...
What does it mean to “trust science”? And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me...
a year ago
26
a year ago
And this, my children, is why we do not say things like “I believe in science”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, science definitely exists—I’ve seen it. But not everything that calls itself science is science, and even good science sometimes gets wrong results. –Megan McArdle Should...
wadertales
Curlew nest survival The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,  largely due to a rapid decline in breeding numbers. In this context, the fact that there are a few pink squares (indicating increased numbers) on the map showing breeding...
Interaction Magic -...
The UX of LEGO Interface Panels LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I bought 52 of them from BrickLink to explore the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.
Out-of-Pocket Blog
GPT-3 x Healthcare: Democratizing AI | Out-Of-Pocket ICD-10 vs. GPT-3, who will win?
a year ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Part 7 Senzeni Na Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier...
6 months ago
71
6 months ago
Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier chapters. Google Mars .kml. Literary commentary podcast. [Edit: If you enjoy this kind of thing, you may find a career at my company, Terraform Industries, rewarding. We’re hiring...
Drew Ex Machina
An ISS Success Story: CyMISS (Tropical Cyclone Intensity Measurements from the ISS) to the Hurricane... The team at Tropical Weather Analytics (TWA), where this author is the Chief Scientist, had the...
11 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
New Type of Black Hole Discovered ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not surprising, as that is Gaia’s mission – to precisely map the three-dimensional position of two billion objects in our galaxy, using three separate instruments. The process is called...
symmetry magazine
Physics fashion and collider couture Symmetry is back with more physics-themed Halloween costumes.
a year ago
SubAnima
How information and individuality are connected Discrete categorisation of individuals and non-individuals is like herding cats. Thinking about...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Discrete categorisation of individuals and non-individuals is like herding cats. Thinking about individuality more generally offers some solutions
Uncharted...
Free Speech in the US vs Europe: Who Is Right? "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."—Evelyn Beatrice...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."—Evelyn Beatrice Hall, conveying the ideas of Voltaire
brr
Redeployment Part One Emerging from winter and preparing for our first flight!
a year ago
Quanta Magazine
Why Computer Scientists Consult Oracles Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in computational complexity theory. The post Why Computer Scientists Consult Oracles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beautiful Public...
Utah Highway LiDAR Scans Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
Utah's Department of Transportation uses state-of-the-art 3-D laser scanners to capture the surfaces and area surrounding 15,000 miles of its roads.
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional wisdom, but I’m not so sure. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted that AI would “make paid work redundant.” I encountered the same opinion watching the latest season of...
Quanta Magazine
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
99
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
Blog - Practical...
Where Does Grounded Electricity Actually Go? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Imagine this scenario: You...
a year ago
85
a year ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Imagine this scenario: You have a diesel-powered generator on a stand that is electrically isolated from the ground. Run a wire from the energized slot of an outlet to an electrode driven into the ground. Don’t...
Probably...
Multiple Regression with StatsModels This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
7 months ago
11
7 months ago
This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 10, which is about multiple regression. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab. In the previous...
Yale e360
Imperiled in the Wild, Many Plants May Survive Only in Gardens As the impacts of climate change and other threats mount, conservationists are racing to preserve...
3 months ago
1
3 months ago
As the impacts of climate change and other threats mount, conservationists are racing to preserve endangered plant species in botanical garden “metacollections” in the hope of eventually returning them to the wild. But what happens when there is no suitable habitat to return them...
Probably...
Hazard and Survival Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. If I have a tumor that I’ve been told has a...
7 months ago
10
7 months ago
Here’s a question from the Reddit statistics forum. If I have a tumor that I’ve been told has a malignancy rate of 2% per year, does that compound? So after 5 years there’s a 10% chance it will turn malignant? This turns out to be an interesting question, because the answer...
Blog - Practical...
HEAVY CONSTRUCTION of a Sewage Pump Station - Ep 4 This is the fourth episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's...
a year ago
47
a year ago
This is the fourth episode of a five-part pilot series to gauge your interest in "How It's Made"-esque heavy construction videos. Drop a comment or send me an email to let me know what you think! Watch on YouTube above or ad-free on Nebula here.
Yale e360
Warming Linked to Rising Cancer Rates Among Women in the Middle East New research finds a link between increasingly extreme heat in the Middle East and rising rates of...
a month ago
1
a month ago
New research finds a link between increasingly extreme heat in the Middle East and rising rates of cancer in women. Read more on E360 →
NeuroLogica Blog
The Politicians We Deserve This is an interesting concept, with an interesting history, and I have heard it quoted many times...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
This is an interesting concept, with an interesting history, and I have heard it quoted many times recently – “we get the politicians (or government) we deserve.” It is often invoked to imply that voters are responsible for the malfeasance or general failings of their elected...
Yale e360
Entries Invited for Yale Environment 360 Film Contest The 12th annual Yale Environment 360 Film Contest is now accepting entries. Read more on E360 →
2 months ago
Quanta Magazine
An Old Conjecture Falls, Making Spheres a Lot More Complicated The telescope conjecture gave mathematicians a handle on ways to map one sphere to another. Now that...
a year ago
39
a year ago
The telescope conjecture gave mathematicians a handle on ways to map one sphere to another. Now that it has been disproved, the universe of shapes has exploded. The post An Old Conjecture Falls, Making Spheres a Lot More Complicated first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine
Cryptography Tricks Make a Hard Problem a Little Easier Researchers have shown how to find the simplest description of a data set faster than by simply ...
a year ago
67
a year ago
Researchers have shown how to find the simplest description of a data set faster than by simply checking every possibility. The post Cryptography Tricks Make a Hard Problem a Little Easier first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour to Colombia: Tour Extension To Los Llanos The topography of Colombia is dominated by the Andes. While manifested as a single mountain range...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
The topography of Colombia is dominated by the Andes. While manifested as a single mountain range from Ecuador southwards, the mountains split into three ranges (or cordilleras) near the Colombia/Ecuador border, and these three ranges span the length of Colombia from this...
Yale e360
'Green Grab': Solar and Wind Boom Sparks Conflicts on Land Use Solar and wind farms are proliferating and increasingly taking up land worldwide, prompting...
4 months ago
1
4 months ago
Solar and wind farms are proliferating and increasingly taking up land worldwide, prompting criticism from rural communities and environmentalists. Solutions range from growing crops or grazing livestock under PV panels to putting floating solar farms on lakes and...