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Math Is Still...
‘Next-Level’ Chaos Traces the True Limit of Predictability In math and computer science, researchers have long understood that some questions are fundamentally...
17 hours ago
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17 hours ago
In math and computer science, researchers have long understood that some questions are fundamentally unanswerable. Now physicists are exploring how even ordinary physical systems put hard limits on what we can predict, even in principle. The post ‘Next-Level’ Chaos...
Uncharted...
What Asian Development Can Teach the World The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US...
21 hours ago
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21 hours ago
The Magic Development of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China, and What That Tells Us about US Tariffs, China’s Future, EU Protectionism, Japan’s Zombie Debt, Argentina’s Arrested Development, and more
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...
2 days ago
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2 days 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Where Are All the Dwarf Planets? In 2006 (yes, it was that long ago – yikes) the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially...
2 days ago
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2 days ago
In 2006 (yes, it was that long ago – yikes) the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially adopted the definition of dwarf planet – they are large enough for their gravity to pull themselves into a sphere, they orbit the sun and not another larger body, but they don’t...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Getting Healthcare Data To Train An AI Model - with Protege | Out-Of-Pocket And all the different ways you can “train” a model
2 days ago
Quantum Frontiers
What does it mean to create a topological qubit? I’ve worked on topological quantum computation, one of Alexei Kitaev’s brilliant innovations, for...
2 days ago
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2 days ago
I’ve worked on topological quantum computation, one of Alexei Kitaev’s brilliant innovations, for around 15 years now.  It’s hard to find a more beautiful physics problem, combining spectacular quantum phenomena (non-Abelian anyons) with the promise of transformative...
Math Is Still...
A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions...
3 days ago
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3 days ago
Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions among species. The post A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
Are AIs People? Every year, AI models get better at thinking. Could they possibly be capable of feeling? And if they...
3 days ago
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3 days ago
Every year, AI models get better at thinking. Could they possibly be capable of feeling? And if they are, how would we know?
Blog - Practical...
All Dams Are Temporary [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Lewis and Clark Lake, on the...
4 days ago
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4 days ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Lewis and Clark Lake, on the border between Nebraska and South Dakota, might not be a lake for much longer. Together with the dam that holds it back, the reservoir provides hydropower, flood control, and...
Math Is Still...
Years After the Early Death of a Math Genius, Her Ideas Gain New Life A new proof extends the work of the late Maryam Mirzakhani, cementing her legacy as a pioneer of...
5 days ago
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5 days ago
A new proof extends the work of the late Maryam Mirzakhani, cementing her legacy as a pioneer of alien mathematical realms. The post Years After the Early Death of a Math Genius, Her Ideas Gain New Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The New TIGR-Tas Gene Editing System Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing...
5 days ago
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5 days ago
Remember CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) – that new gene-editing system which is faster and cheaper than anything that came before it? CRISPR is derived from bacterial systems which uses guide RNA to target a specific sequence on a DNA strand....
Casey Handmer's blog
California’s path to redemption California is by far the richest and most powerful polity led by Progressive ideals, and it has...
6 days ago
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6 days ago
California is by far the richest and most powerful polity led by Progressive ideals, and it has taken a beating of late. In this post, I discuss a practical roadmap by which California must reclaim its mantle as the shining city on the hill, an embodiment of the positive...
Math Is Still...
The Physicist Working to Build Science-Literate AI By training machine learning models with enough examples of basic science, Miles Cranmer hopes to...
a week ago
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a week ago
By training machine learning models with enough examples of basic science, Miles Cranmer hopes to push the pace of scientific discovery forward. The post The Physicist Working to Build Science-Literate AI first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
The British Navy Resisted a Decent Lightning Rod for Decades Frustrated scientists turned to visual aids to help make their case for the lightning rod. The...
a week ago
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a week ago
Frustrated scientists turned to visual aids to help make their case for the lightning rod. The exploding thunder house is one example. When a small amount of gunpowder was deposited inside the dollhouse-size structure and a charge was applied, the house would either explode or...
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...
a week ago
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a week 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
NeuroLogica Blog
Are Small Modular Reactors Finally Coming? Small nuclear reactors have been around since the 1950s. They mostly have been used in military...
a week ago
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a week ago
Small nuclear reactors have been around since the 1950s. They mostly have been used in military ships, like aircraft carriers and submarines. They have the specific advantage that such ships could remain at sea for long periods of time without needing to refuel. But small modular...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Why are docs late? Why can’t I find prices for anything? | Out-Of-Pocket And why can’t I get my record into one place?
a week ago
Math Is Still...
The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps...
a week ago
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a week ago
Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps collectively construct a variety of coral shapes. The post The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
A review of Charles Piller’s Doctored How fraud and bad research derailed years of Alzheimer's progress
a week ago
Uncharted...
Reaction to Your Comments on German Elections Election results, german nuclear, slower maps, and more
a week ago
Beautiful Public...
Cold War Military Slides A reporter stumbled upon a treasure trove of Department of Defense slides from the 1970s and 1980s...
a week ago
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a week ago
A reporter stumbled upon a treasure trove of Department of Defense slides from the 1970s and 1980s depicting data from missile systems, Soviet capabilities and America’s nuclear arsenal.
Math Is Still...
New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes Physicists hope that understanding the churning region near singularities might help them reconcile...
a week ago
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a week ago
Physicists hope that understanding the churning region near singularities might help them reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. The post New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
The Alef Flying Car The flying car is an icon of futuristic technology – in more ways than one. This is partly why I...
a week ago
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a week ago
The flying car is an icon of futuristic technology – in more ways than one. This is partly why I can’t resist a good flying car story. I was recently sent this YouTube video on the Alef flying car. The company says his is a street-legal flying car, with vertical take off and...
Casey Handmer's blog
What can we send to Mars on the first Starships? As of today, it is 601 days until October 17, 2026, when the mass-optimal launch window to Mars...
a week ago
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a week ago
As of today, it is 601 days until October 17, 2026, when the mass-optimal launch window to Mars opens next.  While I don’t have any privileged information, it’s fun to speculate about what SpaceX could choose to send on its first Starship flights to Mars. (Spoiler alert: Rods...
nanoscale views
What is "static electricity"/"contact electrification"/triboelectricity? An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static...
a week ago
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a week ago
An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static electricity:  an electrical insulator like a wool cloth or animal fur is rubbed on a glass or plastic rod, and suddenly the rod can pick up pieces of styrofoam or little bits of paper. ...
Uncharted...
What’s at Stake in Germany’s Elections The future of Ukraine, of Europe, freedom of speech, and Germany’s economy
a week ago
Math Is Still...
How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories By screening films in a brain scanner, neuroscientists discovered a rich library of neural scripts —...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Thermoelectric Cooling – It’s Cooler Than You Think I am fascinated by the technologies that live largely behind the scenes. These are not generally...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
I am fascinated by the technologies that live largely behind the scenes. These are not generally consumer devices, but they may be components of consumer products, or may largely have a role in industry – but they make our modern world possible, or make it much better. In...
wadertales
Iceland’s waders in decline It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in West Europe and West Africa. There is a lot of guesswork associated with this number and little national monitoring information to assess whether species are doing well or badly....
nanoscale views
The National Science Foundation - this is not business as usual The National Science Foundation was created 75 years ago, at the behest of Vannevar Bush, who put...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
The National Science Foundation was created 75 years ago, at the behest of Vannevar Bush, who put together the famed study, Science, The Endless Frontier, in 1945.  The NSF has played a critical role in a huge amount of science and engineering research since its inception,...
IEEE Spectrum
Saving Public Data Takes More Than Simple Snapshots Shortly after the Trump administration took office in the United States in late January, more than...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Shortly after the Trump administration took office in the United States in late January, more than 8,000 pages across several government websites and databases were taken down, the New York Times found. Though many of these have now been restored, thousands of pages were purged...
Uncharted...
The Birth of German(y) Goods, Gods, and Guns
2 weeks ago
Math Is Still...
After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally succeeded, alongside her partner, Marc Cabanes. The post After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive Ten years ago, researchers proved that adding full memory can theoretically aid computation. They’re...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Ten years ago, researchers proved that adding full memory can theoretically aid computation. They’re just now beginning to understand the implications. The post Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Birds Separately Evolved Complex Brains The evolution of the human brain is a fascinating subject. The brain is arguably the most complex...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
The evolution of the human brain is a fascinating subject. The brain is arguably the most complex structure in the known (to us) universe, and is the feature that makes humanity unique and has allowed us to dominate (for good or ill) the fate of this planet. But of course we are...
Quantum Frontiers
Lessons in frustration Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken.  I was a master’s student in...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Assa Auerbach’s course was the most maddening course I’ve ever taken.  I was a master’s student in the Perimeter Scholars International program at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Perimeter trotted in world experts to lecture about modern physics. Many … Continue...
nanoscale views
What are parastatistics? While I could certainly write more about what is going on in the US these days (ahh, trying to...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
While I could certainly write more about what is going on in the US these days (ahh, trying to dismantle organizations you don't understand), instead I want to briefly highlight a very exciting result from my colleagues, published in Nature last month.  (I almost titled this post...
Uncharted...
Why Japan Succeeds Despite Stagnation Demographics & lending vs housing, culture & immigration
2 weeks ago
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...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks 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...
Blog - Practical...
An Engineer’s Love Letter to Cable-Stayed Bridges [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I’m Grady, and this is...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I’m Grady, and this is Practical Engineering. You know, every once in a while, all the science, technology, economic factors, and stylistic tastes converge into a singular, beautiful idea of absolute...
Math Is Still...
The Largest Sofa You Can Move Around a Corner A new proof reveals the answer to the decades-old “moving sofa” problem. It highlights how even the...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
A new proof reveals the answer to the decades-old “moving sofa” problem. It highlights how even the simplest optimization problems can have counterintuitive answers. The post The Largest Sofa You Can Move Around a Corner first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Powered Bionic Arm My younger self, seeing that title – AI Powered Bionic Arm – would definitely feel as if the future...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
My younger self, seeing that title – AI Powered Bionic Arm – would definitely feel as if the future had arrived, and in many ways it has. This is not the bionic arm of the 1970s TV show, however. That level of tech is probably closer to the 2070s than the 1970s. But we are...
Casey Handmer's blog
Maximizing electrical power output from a nuclear reactor delivered by Starship to a base on Mars This post is a follow on from Powering the Mars Base. It’s an extended riff on the following thought...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
This post is a follow on from Powering the Mars Base. It’s an extended riff on the following thought experiment: What is the most electrical power you could extract from an integrated Starship-delivered nuclear reactor on Mars? The usual caveats apply. I have taught nuclear...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming Mar. 13-14 There will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible in the Americas the night of March 13-14 The post...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
There will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible in the Americas the night of March 13-14 The post Total Eclipse of the Moon Coming Mar. 13-14 appeared first on Andrew Fraknoi - Astronomy Lectures - Astronomy Education Resources.
The Works in...
The prophet of parking A eulogy for the great Donald Shoup
3 weeks ago
Math Is Still...
How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories Quantum calculations amount to sophisticated estimates. But in 1931, Hans Bethe intuited precisely...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
Quantum calculations amount to sophisticated estimates. But in 1931, Hans Bethe intuited precisely how a chain of particles would behave — an insight that had far-reaching consequences. The post How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories first appeared on...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
What Do Hospitals Care About? | Out-Of-Pocket Let’s look at three big priorities and a real hospital
3 weeks ago
The Works in...
A writing fellowship on scientific progress Works in Progress and Asimov Press are launching a paid six-month fellowship.
3 weeks ago
Math Is Still...
Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash tables can be much faster than previously deemed possible. The post Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Who Believes Misinformation It’s probably not a surprise that a blog author dedicated to critical thinking and neuroscience...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
It’s probably not a surprise that a blog author dedicated to critical thinking and neuroscience feels that misinformation is one of the most significant threats to society, but I really to think this. Misinformation (false, misleading, or erroneous information) and disinformation...
Beautiful Public...
US Government UFO (UAP) Footage For decades, the public suspected that the US Government was hiding secret intelligence about UFOs —...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
For decades, the public suspected that the US Government was hiding secret intelligence about UFOs — (now known as UAPs). Turns out…it kind of was.
Uncharted...
The Steps to AGI How LLMs work, how they're improving today, what are the next ways in which they can get better, and...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
How LLMs work, how they're improving today, what are the next ways in which they can get better, and is that a straight shot to AGI?
nanoscale views
Indirect costs + potential unintended consequences It's been another exciting week where I feel compelled to write about the practice of...
3 weeks ago
3
3 weeks ago
It's been another exciting week where I feel compelled to write about the practice of university-based research in the US.  I've written about "indirect costs" before, but it's been a while.  I will try to get readers caught up on the basics of the university research ecosystem...
Math Is Still...
How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A...
4 weeks ago
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4 weeks ago
Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics. The post How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
AI Weeks When Decades Happen How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
4 weeks ago
wadertales
The call of the Whimbrel The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a...
4 weeks ago
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4 weeks ago
The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a long, dark winter. These wonderful waders are responding badly to recent changes to Iceland’s landscape, such as the ever-expanding areas of non-native forestry and power...
Math Is Still...
The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA By treating DNA as a language, Brian Hie’s “ChatGPT for genomes” could pick up patterns that humans...
a month ago
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a month ago
By treating DNA as a language, Brian Hie’s “ChatGPT for genomes” could pick up patterns that humans can’t see, accelerating biological design. The post The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Asterisk
A Defense of Weird Research Government-funded scientific research may appear strange or impractical, but it has repeatedly...
a month ago
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a month ago
Government-funded scientific research may appear strange or impractical, but it has repeatedly yielded scientific breakthroughs — and continues to pay for itself many times over.
nanoscale views
NSF targeted with mass layoffs, acc to Politico; huge cuts in president’s budget request According to this article at politico, there was an all-hands meeting at NSF today (at least for the...
a month ago
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a month ago
According to this article at politico, there was an all-hands meeting at NSF today (at least for the engineering directorate) where they were told that there will be staff layoffs of 25-50% over the next two months. This is an absolute catastrophe if it is accurately reported and...
Blog - Practical...
What’s Inside a Manhole? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] For as straightforward as they...
a month ago
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a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] For as straightforward as they are, there’s a lot of mystery to sewers. They’re mostly out of sight, out of mind, and ideally out of smell too. But there’s one familiar place you can get a hint of what’s...
IEEE Spectrum
The Lost Story of Alan Turing’s Secret “Delilah” Project It was 8 May 1945, Victory in Europe Day. With the German military’s unconditional surrender, the...
a month ago
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a month ago
It was 8 May 1945, Victory in Europe Day. With the German military’s unconditional surrender, the European part of World War II came to an end. Alan Turing and his assistant Donald Bayley celebrated victory in their quiet English way, by taking a long walk together. They had been...
NeuroLogica Blog
Do Apes Have a Theory of Mind Designing research studies to determine what is going on inside the minds of animals is extremely...
a month ago
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a month ago
Designing research studies to determine what is going on inside the minds of animals is extremely challenging. The literature is littered with past studies that failed to properly control for all variables and thereby overinterpreted the results. The challenge is that we cannot...
Casey Handmer's blog
Stuff you should have been taught in college but weren’t As part of my job running Terraform Industries, I get to build an amazing team of super smart...
a month ago
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a month ago
As part of my job running Terraform Industries, I get to build an amazing team of super smart people, and that involves interviewing hundreds of people. Over time certain patterns have become obvious, but I remember when they weren’t obvious to me on the other side of the table!...
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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
Math Is Still...
New Proofs Probe the Limits of Mathematical Truth By proving a broader version of Hilbert’s famous 10th problem, two groups of mathematicians have...
a month ago
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a month ago
By proving a broader version of Hilbert’s famous 10th problem, two groups of mathematicians have expanded the realm of mathematical unknowability. The post New Proofs Probe the Limits of Mathematical Truth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Links in Progress: Snakebites, Pig Hearts, and More A round up of the most important things happening in biotechnology and medicine
a month ago
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 16: ExplorNapo Lodge (February 21 - 23, 2024) February 21, 2024 (continued) We sped down the Amazon and made a left at the confluence with the...
a month ago
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a month ago
February 21, 2024 (continued) We sped down the Amazon and made a left at the confluence with the Napo River. The Napo had noticeably less flow, while we also realized that sandbars were also much more numerous, leading to the presence of many wading birds and terns. At around...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 15: More From Explorama Lodge (February 20 - 21, 2024) February 20, 2024 A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went...
a month ago
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a month ago
February 20, 2024 A Great Potoo was the first bird I heard this morning shortly after my alarm went off at 5:00 AM. It was going to be a good day.  At dinner the previous night Luis, Laura and I had come up with a plan for our full day at Explorama Lodge. We would begin by taking...
nanoscale views
An update, + a paper as a fun distraction My post last week clearly stimulated some discussion.  I know people don't come here for political...
a month ago
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a month ago
My post last week clearly stimulated some discussion.  I know people don't come here for political news, but as a professional scientist it's hard to ignore the chaotic present situation, so here are some things to read, before I talk about a fun paper: Science reports on what...
Math Is Still...
Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard...
a month ago
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a month 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
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 14: River Islands And Explorama Lodge (February 18 - 19, 2024) February 18, 2024 (continued)     Where I last left off, Laura and I had just completed our...
a month ago
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a month ago
February 18, 2024 (continued)     Where I last left off, Laura and I had just completed our sixteen-day loop through the mountains and deserts of northern Peru with the rental car. We dropped the vehicle off at the airport with no issues and boarded our flight. We were heading to...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: We can still build beautifully A tour of interesting developments built in the last two decades
a month ago
Cremieux Recueil
The Value of Foreign Diplomas Is that immigrant high-skilled or do they just have a fancy degree?
a month ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Incorruptible Skepticism Everything, apparently, has a second life on TikTok. At least this keeps us skeptics busy – we have...
a month ago
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a month ago
Everything, apparently, has a second life on TikTok. At least this keeps us skeptics busy – we have to redebunk everything we have debunked over the last century because it is popping up again on social media, confusing and misinforming another generation. This video is a great...
IEEE Spectrum
Sony Kills Recordable Blu-Ray And Other Vintage Media Physical media fans need not panic yet—you’ll still be able to buy new Blu-Ray movies for your...
a month ago
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a month ago
Physical media fans need not panic yet—you’ll still be able to buy new Blu-Ray movies for your collection. But for those who like to save copies of their own data onto the discs, the remaining options just became more limited: Sony announced last week that it’s ending all...
Math Is Still...
How Does Life Happen When There’s Barely Any Light? Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the...
a month ago
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a month ago
Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the lowest light levels ever observed in nature. The post How Does Life Happen When There’s Barely Any Light? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Why housing shortages cause homelessness It's not just about rents - it's also about the rooms friends and family can't afford to share
a month ago
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 13: Quebrada El Limón And The Last Of The Northwest (February 16-18,... February 16, 2024 The town of Olmos isn't the most picturesque in Peru. Situated in the coastal...
a month ago
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a month ago
February 16, 2024 The town of Olmos isn't the most picturesque in Peru. Situated in the coastal desert, the streets are dusty, the wind is always present and the roads are potholed. It is certainly not a town that caters to tourists, and I doubt many stop here. But an advantage...
Uncharted...
The Most Important Time in History Is Now AGI Is Coming Sooner Due to o3, DeepSeek, and Other Cutting-Edge AI Developments
a month ago
NeuroLogica Blog
The Skinny on DeepSeek On January 20th a Chinese tech company released the free version of their chatbot called DeepSeek....
a month ago
21
a month ago
On January 20th a Chinese tech company released the free version of their chatbot called DeepSeek. The AI chatbot, by all accounts, is about on par with existing widely available chatbots, like ChatGPT. It does not represent any new abilities or breakthrough in quality. And yet...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: Should we give babies the vote? And births rise in South Korea
a month ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
How are hospitals actually organized | Out-Of-Pocket We’re gonna need a whiteboard for this one
a month ago
Uncharted...
The Israel–Hamas Ceasefire Won’t Last Israel & Palestine, One Year Later
a month ago
Math Is Still...
Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe Is the universe flat and infinite, or something more complex? We can’t say for sure, but a new...
a month ago
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a month ago
Is the universe flat and infinite, or something more complex? We can’t say for sure, but a new search strategy is mapping out the subtle signals that could reveal if the universe had a shape. The post Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe...
nanoscale views
Turbulent times While I've been absolutely buried under deadlines, it's been a crazy week for US science, and things...
a month ago
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a month ago
While I've been absolutely buried under deadlines, it's been a crazy week for US science, and things are unlikely to calm down anytime soon.  As I've written before, I largely try to keep my political views off here, since that's not what people want to read from me, and I want...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 12: Cleaning Up The Remaining Marañón Endemics (February 14-15, 2024) February 14, 2024 (continued) It doesn't matter how much time we spend on the verdant, east slope of...
a month ago
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February 14, 2024 (continued) It doesn't matter how much time we spend on the verdant, east slope of the Andes. It is just never enough time. Our five days between the highland town of Pomacochas and the lower foothills near Pueblo Aguas Verdes were amazing, full of incredible...
Math Is Still...
New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books....
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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...
Uncharted...
Final: So Where Should We Build Ten New Cities in the US? Final article in the series
a month ago
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...
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a month 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...
Math Is Still...
The Jagged, Monstrous Function That Broke Calculus In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as...
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In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as nothing less than a “deplorable evil.” In time, it would transform the foundations of mathematics. The post The Jagged, Monstrous Function That Broke Calculus first...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: Satellite Cities How to build new cities near existing ones
a month ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Announcing…The Out-Of-Pocket Hackathon #2 | Out-Of-Pocket We’re doing it again, but we know what we’re doing now
a month ago
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 11: Fundo Alto Nieva (February 12 - 14, 2024) February 12, 2024 (continued) We found an area to park in the little village of Fundo Alto Nieva and...
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February 12, 2024 (continued) We found an area to park in the little village of Fundo Alto Nieva and completed the short, five-minute walk in to the reserve. This particular site has become famous in recent years as a place where the enigmatic Long-whiskered Owlet can be...
Blog - Practical...
Why are the Dutch So Famous for Waterworks? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Veluwemeer...
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[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Veluwemeer (velOOwemeer) Aqueduct in Harderwijk (HAR-der-vehk), Netherlands. It solves a pretty simple problem. If you put a bridge for vehicles over a navigable waterway, you often have to make it...
Math Is Still...
Concept Cells Help Your Brain Abstract Information and Build Memories Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as...
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a month ago
Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as “Jennifer Aniston cells,” help us think, imagine and remember episodes from our lives. The post Concept Cells Help Your Brain Abstract Information and Build Memories first...
IEEE Spectrum
A Spy Satellite You’ve Never Heard of Helped Win the Cold War In the early 1970s, the Cold War had reached a particularly frigid moment, and U.S. military and...
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In the early 1970s, the Cold War had reached a particularly frigid moment, and U.S. military and intelligence officials had a problem. The Soviet Navy was becoming a global maritime threat—and the United States did not have a global ocean-surveillance capability. Adding to the...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: New Lakes Creating new lakes is a unique way to make amazing new cities. Where can we do that?
a month ago
Probably...
Algorithmic Fairness This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com...
a month ago
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This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. This article is based on the Recidivism Case Study, which is about algorithmic fairness. The goal of the case study is to explain the statistical arguments...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Hubble Tension Hubbub There really is a significant mystery in the world of cosmology. This, in my opinion, is a good...
a month ago
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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...
Quantum Frontiers
Ten lessons I learned from John Preskill Last August, Toronto’s Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC) gave me 35 minutes...
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Last August, Toronto’s Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC) gave me 35 minutes to make fun of John Preskill in public. CQIQC was hosting its biannual conference, also called CQIQC, in Toronto. The conference features the awarding of … Continue reading →
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: Reviving Lakes Some lakes died before they could birth cities. Could we revive the lakes, and give them a 2nd...
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Some lakes died before they could birth cities. Could we revive the lakes, and give them a 2nd chance at creating cities?
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: The Salton Sea Salton City and Bombay Beach could flourish with industry and tourism
a month ago
Cremieux Recueil
Lessons About the Civil Service and Political Appointees What does history tell us about how the executive branch can run the government?
a month ago
Casey Handmer's blog
Moon Escape! [One from the archives, a previously unpublished short story I wrote c. 2017 on the theme of BASE...
a month ago
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[One from the archives, a previously unpublished short story I wrote c. 2017 on the theme of BASE jumping.] Why anyone thought a prison on the Moon was a good idea was beyond me. Remote, dangerous, inhospitable, to be sure. But certainly not impossible to escape from, as I was...
Casey Handmer's blog
Dittemore’s Law A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror...
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A quick note to formalize some observations on elite organization dysfunction. The Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center in Florida commemorates the 25 US astronauts who have died in flight.  Ron Dittemore is the retired former Space Shuttle program manager who was...
Casey Handmer's blog
The Los Angeles wildfires are self-inflicted I don’t ordinarily write about events “in the moment” but for this I will make an exception, as I...
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I don’t ordinarily write about events “in the moment” but for this I will make an exception, as I was personally affected. Caveats aside, my family and I are safe, we evacuated for several days, and due to heroic efforts by professional firefighters and psychotically brave...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: 3. Presidio The fastest wealth creation in the history of humanity
a month ago
IEEE Spectrum
How Antivirus Software Has Changed With the Internet We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the...
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We live in a world filled with computer viruses, and antivirus software is almost as old as the Internet itself: The first version of what would become McAfee antivirus came out in 1987—just four years after the Internet booted up. For many of us, antivirus software is an...
Math Is Still...
Heat Destroys All Order. Except for in This One Special Case. Heat is supposed to destroy anything it touches. But physicists have shown that an idealized form of...
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Heat is supposed to destroy anything it touches. But physicists have shown that an idealized form of magnetism is heatproof. The post Heat Destroys All Order. Except for in This One Special Case. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: 2. Starbase A city of dreams
a month ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Transcarent, AI Therapists, Interoperability, and more | Out-Of-Pocket Plus Out-Of-Pocket is hiring!!
a month ago
Cremieux Recueil
National IQs Are Valid National IQ estimates are robust, reliable, and realistic
a month ago
Chris Grossack's...
Where Do Those Undergraduate Divisibility Problems Come From? Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class or something...
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a month ago
Oftentimes in your “intro to proofs” class or your first “discrete math” class or something similar, you’ll be shown problems of the form “prove that for $n^6 + n^3 + 2n^2 + 2n$ is a multiple of $6$ for every $n$”… But where do these problems come from? And have you ever...
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Discover New Way for Spheres to ‘Kiss’ A new proof marks the first progress in decades on important cases of the so-called kissing problem....
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A new proof marks the first progress in decades on important cases of the so-called kissing problem. Getting there meant doing away with traditional approaches. The post Mathematicians Discover New Way for Spheres to ‘Kiss’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: 1. Guantanamo City Why we should turn Guantanamo Bay into Guantanamo City
a month ago
Uncharted...
Where to Build 10 New Cities in the US, Part 1 Plus vote on new types of content for Uncharted Territories!
a month ago
Math Is Still...
Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way. Certain grammatical rules never appear in any known language. By constructing artificial languages...
a month ago
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Certain grammatical rules never appear in any known language. By constructing artificial languages that have these rules, linguists can use neural networks to explore how people learn. The post Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way....
NeuroLogica Blog
Should the US Ban TikTok? My recent article on social media has fostered good social media engagement, so I thought I would...
a month ago
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My recent article on social media has fostered good social media engagement, so I thought I would follow up with a discussion of the most urgent question regarding social media – should the US ban TikTok? The Biden administration signs into law legislation that would ban the...
Math Is Still...
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...
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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...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Material for Nanoconductors One of the things I have come to understand from following technology news for decades is that...
a month ago
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One of the things I have come to understand from following technology news for decades is that perhaps the most important breakthroughs, and often the least appreciated, are those in material science. We can get better at engineering and making stuff out of the materials we have,...
Stephen Wolfram...
Who Can Understand the Proof? A Window on Formalized Mathematics Related writings: “Logic, Explainability and the Future of Understanding” (2018) » “The...
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Related writings: “Logic, Explainability and the Future of Understanding” (2018) » “The Physicalization of Metamathematics and Its Implications for the Foundations of Mathematics” (2022) » “Computational Knowledge and the Future of Pure Mathematics” (2014) » The Simplest Axiom...
NeuroLogica Blog
What Kind of Social Media Do We Want? Recently Meta decided to end their fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram. The move has been both...
a month ago
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a month ago
Recently Meta decided to end their fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram. The move has been both hailed and criticized. They are replacing the fact-checkers with an X-style “community notes”. Mark Zuckerberg summed up the move this way: “It means we’re going to catch less bad...
wadertales
How are migration sites connected? Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
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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...
Uncharted...
The Top 50 US Cities: Why Are They Where They Are? The geographic and historical reasons that have made some spots in the country the most populated...
a month ago
Math Is Still...
Rational or Not? This Basic Math Question Took Decades to Answer. It’s surprisingly difficult to prove one of the most basic properties of a number: whether it can be...
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It’s surprisingly difficult to prove one of the most basic properties of a number: whether it can be written as a fraction. A broad new method can help settle this ancient question. The post Rational or Not? This Basic Math Question Took Decades to Answer. first...
IEEE Spectrum
Tragedy Spurred the First Effective Land-Mine Detector Land mines have been around in one form or another for more than a thousand years. By now, you’d...
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a month ago
Land mines have been around in one form or another for more than a thousand years. By now, you’d think a simple and safe way of locating and removing the devices would’ve been engineered. But that’s not the case. In fact, up until World War II, the most common method for finding...
Asterisk
Yes, Shrimp Matter What made a private equity analyst decide to devote his life to tiny aquatic crustaceans?
a month ago
Blog - Practical...
The Hidden Engineering Behind Texas's Top Tourist Attraction [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I am on location in downtown...
a month ago
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a month ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I am on location in downtown San Antonio, Texas, where crews have just finished setting up this massive 650-ton crane. The counterweights are on. The outriggers are down. And the jib, an extension for the...
Math Is Still...
The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans,...
2 months ago
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Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, suggesting that the world is far more interconnected than anyone realized. The post The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria 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...
2 months ago
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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...
nanoscale views
This week in the arXiv: quantum geometry, fluid momentum "tunneling", and pasta sauce Three papers caught my eye the other day on the arXiv at the start of the new year: arXiv:2501.00098...
2 months ago
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Three papers caught my eye the other day on the arXiv at the start of the new year: arXiv:2501.00098 - J. Yu et al., "Quantum geometry in quantum materials" - I hope to write up something about quantum geometry soon, but I wanted to point out this nice review even if I haven't...
Probably...
Confidence In the Press This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s based on Chapter 16, which is part of the political alignment case study. You can read the complete example here, or run the Jupyter notebook on...
Math Is Still...
Why Computer Scientists Consult Oracles Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in...
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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
Math Is Still...
Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent...
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Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent home inside another. For the first time, biologists made it happen in the lab. The post Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life first appeared...
Explorations of an...
2024 (Part 2 of 2) June and July I always sound like a broken record each year when discussing June and July. I was...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
June and July I always sound like a broken record each year when discussing June and July. I was fortunate to have a lot of field work in 2024 which kept me occupied for most of these two months. But it's one of the best jobs in the world as I spend each and every day outside,...
Asterisk
Where the Wild Things Aren't We tell our children that weirdness is a blessing in disguise. That’s our fantasy, not theirs.
2 months ago
Asterisk
Get In, Weirdos
2 months ago
Asterisk
Can We Build a Five Gigawatt Data Center? By 2030, leading AI labs will need data centers so massive they will require the power equivalent of...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
By 2030, leading AI labs will need data centers so massive they will require the power equivalent of some of America’s largest cities. Will they be able to find it?
Asterisk
The Case for Insect Consciousness The evidence that insects feel pain is mounting, however we approach the issue.
2 months 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...
2 months ago
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2 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?
Asterisk
Automating Math Computers can already help verify proofs. One day soon, they may be able to come up with new ones.
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Computers can already help verify proofs. One day soon, they may be able to come up with new ones.
nanoscale views
End of the year thoughts - scientific philanthropy and impact As we head into 2025, and the prospects for increased (US) government investment in science,...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
As we head into 2025, and the prospects for increased (US) government investment in science, engineering, and STEM education seem very limited, I wanted to revisit a topic that I wrote about over a decade ago (!!!), the role of philanthropy and foundations in these...
Explorations of an...
2024 (Part 1 of 2) Another year has come and gone. As is tradition, I have written a couple of blog posts documenting...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Another year has come and gone. As is tradition, I have written a couple of blog posts documenting some of my natural history highlights throughout the year.  January Pre-dawn on January 1, 2024 saw me heading south towards Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia in search of a Gray Heron,...
Drew Ex Machina
Top Ten Posts of 2024 Now that we are at the end of 2024, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on...
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2 months ago
Now that we are at the end of 2024, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see […]
Inverted Passion
2024 wrapped This year’s review is going to be shorter than 2023 (and previous years) because I’m in Goa right...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
This year’s review is going to be shorter than 2023 (and previous years) because I’m in Goa right now for a holiday and I don’t feel like being in front of a screen for long. I mean, just look at this view and tell me that you’d rather be in front of a screen writing… Read...
The Works in...
Three percent more Monaco: Links in Progress, infrastructure edition Plus: high speed rail in Vietnam, India's first vertical lift sea bridge, and a £100 million bat...
2 months ago
Apoorva Srinivasan
diffusion models for protein generation Introduction Proteins are nature's versatile nanomachines— they have evolved to perform virtually...
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Introduction Proteins are nature's versatile nanomachines— they have evolved to perform virtually every important task in living systems. While nature has produced an incredible range of protein functions, these represent only a tiny fraction of what's possible in the protein...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Celebrating the Centennial of Galaxies January 1 2025 On January 1, 1925, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, DC, astronomer...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
On January 1, 1925, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, DC, astronomer Henry N. Russell read a paper contributed by a young astronomer named Edwin Hubble (who was too junior to earn a trip across the country from the California observatory where he...
Eukaryote Writes...
Learn to write well BEFORE you have something worth saying Lessons learned from trip reports and journal articles.
2 months ago
Explorations of an...
Making The Most Of Our Seoul Layover October 21, 2024 Laura and I had a long layover scheduled in Seoul, South Korea. I was pleasantly...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
October 21, 2024 Laura and I had a long layover scheduled in Seoul, South Korea. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there were no visa requirements for Canadians and so we schemed how we could leave the airport to go see some new birds. Neither of us had explored this...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: One Final Day At Kinabalu Park October 20, 2024     And just like that, it was our final day in Borneo. The previous afternoon saw...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
October 20, 2024     And just like that, it was our final day in Borneo. The previous afternoon saw Laura and I driving to the town of Kundasang which is the main jumping off point to visit Kinabalu Park. There remained several Bornean endemics that would be lifers for Laura...
Casey Handmer's blog
Salton Sea statistics I wanted to gain better insights into the Salton Sea level, evaporation, inflows and outflows. Step...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
I wanted to gain better insights into the Salton Sea level, evaporation, inflows and outflows. Step one was to gather publicly available data about its level, and collate it into a single graph. Here we see that despite the continual formation of Salton Sea advisory committees,...
Casey Handmer's blog
Part 8 Shikata Ga Nai Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier chapters. Google Mars .kml. Literary commentary podcast. “Shikata Ga Nai” Japanese for “What else can we do?” “It is what it is,” “There is no other choice.” The final chapter of...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Quest for the Bornean Peacock-Pheasant October 19, 2024 Laura and I were up dark and early from our accommodations in Ranau. I filled my...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
October 19, 2024 Laura and I were up dark and early from our accommodations in Ranau. I filled my thermos with coffee, we quickly packed (though not quietly, as every dog in the neighbourhood began barking), and we headed eastwards to the town of Telupid where we had a very...
Casey Handmer's blog
Part 7 Senzeni Na Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier...
2 months ago
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2 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Some More 2025 predictions | Out-Of-Pocket OOP readers always have some interesting ones
2 months ago
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Manukan Island And The Tempasuk Plain October 18, 2024 Following our adventure at Trus Madi, our remaining time in Borneo had dwindled to...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
October 18, 2024 Following our adventure at Trus Madi, our remaining time in Borneo had dwindled to just three days. On October 19 we planned to visit a hide often attended by the Bornean Peacock-Pheasant.  This gave us October 18th as a free day.  After mulling over a few other...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Jersey Drones Are Likely Drones The latest flap over drone sightings in New Jersey and other states in the North East appears to be...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
The latest flap over drone sightings in New Jersey and other states in the North East appears to be – essentially nothing. Or rather, it’s a classic example of a mass panic. There are reports of “unusual” drone activity, which prompts people to look for drones, which results in...
Quantum Frontiers
Finding Ed Jaynes’s ghost You might have heard of the conundrum “What do you give the man who has everything?” I discovered a...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
You might have heard of the conundrum “What do you give the man who has everything?” I discovered a variation on it last October: how do you celebrate the man who studied (nearly) everything? Physicist Edwin Thompson Jaynes impacted disciplines from quantum information theory to...
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,...
2 months ago
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2 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...
Probably...
Political Alignment and Outlook This is the fourth in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
This is the fourth in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 15, which is part of the political alignment case study. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab....
Uncharted...
Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps: Why Do People Live Where They Live in the... Deserts, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Snow, Paradises, Swamps
2 months ago
nanoscale views
Technological civilization and losing object permanence In the grand tradition of physicists writing about areas outside their expertise, I wanted to put...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
In the grand tradition of physicists writing about areas outside their expertise, I wanted to put down some thoughts on a societal trend.  This isn't physics or nanoscience, so feel free to skip this post. Object permanence is a term from developmental psychology.  A person (or...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Dec. 21 is Winter Solstice — Why We Have Seasons on Earth Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Saturday, Dec. 21 will be the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year, with which we mark the beginning of the winter season in the Earth’s northern hemisphere.  It’s interesting to note that the planets Venus and Jupiter do not have seasons like the...
Uncharted...
100,000 Gifts What happened in 2024 and what will happen in 2025
2 months ago
Math Is Still...
The Year in Computer Science Researchers got a better look at chatbots’ thoughts, amateurs learned just how complicated simple...
2 months ago
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Researchers got a better look at chatbots’ thoughts, amateurs learned just how complicated simple systems can be, and codes became expert self-fixers. The post The Year in Computer Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Math Is Still...
How Will We Know We’re Not Alone? The first planet beyond our solar system was identified just 30 years ago. Since then, thousands...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
The first planet beyond our solar system was identified just 30 years ago. Since then, thousands have been found and characterized. As we look for more, exoplanet experts are also probing for signs of alien biospheres hundreds of light-years away. In this episode, co-host Janna...
Math Is Still...
The Year in Biology Biologists used artificial intelligence to make discoveries about molecules and the brain, and...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Biologists used artificial intelligence to make discoveries about molecules and the brain, and overturned long-held assumptions about the immune system and RNA. The post The Year in Biology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cremieux Recueil
Evaluating a Sitting Senator's Healthcare Claims If you're a public official who wants to to use numbers, use correct numbers, and if you're going to...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
If you're a public official who wants to to use numbers, use correct numbers, and if you're going to speculate, try not so speculate wildly, lest you end up telling brazen lies to the American people
The Works in...
Links in Progress: All the single people And how China will lose 51 million people in 10 years
2 months ago
Blog - Practical...
The Hidden Engineering of Wildlife Crossings [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Wallis Annenberg...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing under construction over the 101 just outside Los Angeles, California. When it’s finished in a few years, it will be the largest wildlife crossing (*of its kind) on...
Math Is Still...
The Year in Physics Physicists discovered strange supersolids, constructed new kinds of superconductors, and continued...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Physicists discovered strange supersolids, constructed new kinds of superconductors, and continued to make the case that the cosmos is far weirder than anyone suspected. The post The Year in Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Factory Farming is Better Than Organic Farming Some narratives are simply ubiquitous in our culture (every culture has its universal narratives)....
2 months ago
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2 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...
Bartosz Ciechanowski
Moon In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial neighbor. Its face, periodically filled with light and devoured by darkness, has an ever-changing, but dependable presence in our skies. In this article, we’ll learn about the Moon and its path...
Math Is Still...
The Year in Math Landmark results in geometry and number theory marked an exciting year for mathematics, at a time...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Landmark results in geometry and number theory marked an exciting year for mathematics, at a time when advances in artificial intelligence are starting to transform the subject’s future. The post The Year in Math 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%
2 months ago
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Drone Madness: Here is the Antidote For those of us who, through the years, have been through wave after wave of uncritical and...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
For those of us who, through the years, have been through wave after wave of uncritical and sensational UFO stories in the media, the current obsession with (and jumping to unwarranted conclusions about) mysterious drones seems all too familiar.  As before, untrained observers,...
nanoscale views
Items for discussion, including google's latest quantum computing result As we head toward the end of the calendar year, a few items: Google published a new result in...
2 months ago
2
2 months ago
As we head toward the end of the calendar year, a few items: Google published a new result in Nature a few days ago.  This made a big news splash, including this accompanying press piece from google themselves, this nice article in Quanta, and the always thoughtful blog post by...
IEEE Spectrum
Jean Sammet: An Accidental Computer Programmer Jean Sammet rarely let anything get in the way of her professional goals. As a young student, she...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Jean Sammet rarely let anything get in the way of her professional goals. As a young student, she was barred from attending prestigious all-boys schools, so she pursued her love of mathematics at the best institutions she could find that were open to girls and women. Following...
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Ridiculous Mothing At Trus Madi Entomology Camp When doing research on the few possible "lifer" birds that I could find on this trip to Sabah, and...
2 months ago
3
2 months ago
When doing research on the few possible "lifer" birds that I could find on this trip to Sabah, and in particular, looking for sites to find the Bornean Frogmouth, I read about the Trus Madi Entomology Camp. This piqued my interest, as there is almost nothing I like more than...
Probably...
Reject Math Supremacy The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
The premise of Think Stats, and the other books in the Think series, is that programming is a tool for teaching and learning — and many ideas that are commonly presented in math notation can be more clearly presented in code. In the draft third edition of Think Stats there is...
Quantum Frontiers
Beyond NISQ: The Megaquop Machine On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
On December 11, I gave a keynote address at the Q2B 2024 Conference in Silicon Valley. This is a transcript of my remarks. The slides I presented are here. NISQ and beyond I’m honored to be back at Q2B for … Continue reading →
Casey Handmer's blog
Part 6 Guns Under The Table Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier chapters. Google Mars .kml. Literary commentary podcast. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the last update of this – in that time I read my children all of Green Mars...
Math Is Still...
What Is Entropy? A Measure of Just How Little We Really Know. Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world than a reflection of our growing ignorance. Embracing that truth is leading to a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Podcast Pseudoscience A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for ourselves. The BBC investigated the number one ranked UK podcast, Diary of a CEO with host Steven Bartlett, for the accuracy of the medical claims recently made on the show. While...
Uncharted...
10 Other Places Where Geniuses Hide Groups, networks, the Internet, IQ, state sponsorship, and many more
2 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
When IBM Built a War Room for Executives Computer History Museum’s collection has a biography of sorts—a life before CHM, a tale about how it...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Computer History Museum’s collection has a biography of sorts—a life before CHM, a tale about how it came to us, and a life within the museum. The chapters of that biography include the uses made of it, and the historical and interpretive stories it can be made to tell. This then...
NeuroLogica Blog
Diamond Batteries Again Why does news reporting of science and technology have to be so terrible at baseline? I know the...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Why does news reporting of science and technology have to be so terrible at baseline? I know the answers to this question – lack of expertise, lack of a business model to support dedicated science news infrastructure, the desire for click-bait and sensationalism – but it is still...
wadertales
Learning lessons from Slender-billed Curlews The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct,...
2 months ago
47
2 months ago
The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct, tells a sad tale. We now know that, by the time that the Slender-billed Curlew Action Plan was published in 1996, it was already too late to save the species. Resources expended...
Probably...
Young Americans are Marrying Later or Never I’ve written before about changes in marriage patterns in the U.S., and it’s one of the examples in...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
I’ve written before about changes in marriage patterns in the U.S., and it’s one of the examples in Chapter 13 of the new third edition of Think Stats. My analysis uses data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Today they released the most recent data, from surveys...
Math Is Still...
Mathematicians Uncover a New Way to Count Prime Numbers To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to an unlikely source. The post Mathematicians Uncover a New Way to Count Prime Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
The Players of the Syrian Chessboard What will Israel, Russia, Turkey, the Kurds, Europe, and Lebanon do?
2 months ago
Cremieux Recueil
Grading the World's Shortest Manifesto It gets an F and the student has earned the death penalty
2 months ago
Uncharted...
What Is Happening in Syria? Assad’s regime has fallen, leaving a power vacuum. Why? Who are the winners and losers? What will...
2 months ago
25
2 months ago
Assad’s regime has fallen, leaving a power vacuum. Why? Who are the winners and losers? What will happen next?
Stephen Wolfram...
Useful to the Point of Being Revolutionary: Introducing Wolfram Notebook Assistant Note: As of today, copies of Wolfram Version 14.1 are being auto-updated to allow subscription...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Note: As of today, copies of Wolfram Version 14.1 are being auto-updated to allow subscription access to the capabilities described here. [For additional installation information see here.] Just Say What You Want! Turning Words into Computation Nearly a year and a half ago—just a...
Math Is Still...
Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications. The post Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold first appeared on Quanta...
The Works in...
How pour-over coffee got good While popular with enthusiasts, pour-over coffee frustrated shops because it takes so long to make,...
2 months ago
61
2 months ago
While popular with enthusiasts, pour-over coffee frustrated shops because it takes so long to make, but that's changing.
IEEE Spectrum
Zen and the Art of Aibo Engineering Sony’s team made that happen. And since Aibo’s debut, the company has sold more than 170,000 of...
2 months ago
45
2 months ago
Sony’s team made that happen. And since Aibo’s debut, the company has sold more than 170,000 of the cute little quadrupeds—a huge number considering their price of several thousand dollars each. From the start, Aibo could express a range of simulated emotions and learn through...
NeuroLogica Blog
Have We Achieved General AI As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for...
2 months ago
55
2 months ago
As I predicted the controversy over whether or not we have achieved general AI will likely exist for a long time before there is a consensus that we have. The latest round of this controversy comes from Vahid Kazemi from OpenAI. He posted on X: “In my opinion we have already...
wadertales
Broad-billed Sandpiper: Now a Red-listed wader A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since...
2 months ago
51
2 months ago
A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since 1993. One of the focal species of their fieldwork is the secretive Broad-billed Sandpiper, an unusual taiga wader which nests on low-lying tussocks embedded in floating mats of...
Drew Ex Machina
Apollo A-002: Testing the Limits of the Launch Escape System One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed...
3 months ago
55
3 months ago
One of the more dangerous parts of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed spacecraft have had launch abort options to cover […]
Cremieux Recueil
Focusing on Healthcare’s Administrative Costs Is Misguided Substantial thinking about healthcare reform starts with acknowledging that administrative bloat...
3 months ago
nanoscale views
Seeing through your head - diffuse imaging From the medical diagnostic perspective (and for many other applications), you can understand why it...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
From the medical diagnostic perspective (and for many other applications), you can understand why it might be very convenient to be able to perform some kind of optical imaging of the interior of what you'd ordinarily consider opaque objects.  Even when a wavelength range is...
Wanderingspace
Enter Prometheus “Here's a view of Saturn's moon Prometheus, made from images captured with the narrow-angle camera...
3 months ago
50
3 months ago
“Here's a view of Saturn's moon Prometheus, made from images captured with the narrow-angle camera on Cassini on December 6, 2015. Cassini was about 37,400 km from Prometheus when the images were acquired. Part of the F ring is visible in the background at the top.” — Jason Major
Math Is Still...
Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup. The post Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
Where Geniuses Hide Today Where are today’s Michelangelos?
3 months ago
Stephen Wolfram...
Foundations of Biological Evolution: More Results & More Surprises This is a follow-on to Why Does Biological Evolution Work? A Minimal Model for Biological Evolution...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
This is a follow-on to Why Does Biological Evolution Work? A Minimal Model for Biological Evolution and Other Adaptive Processes [May 3, 2024]. Even More from an Extremely Simple Model A few months ago I introduced an extremely simple “adaptive cellular automaton” model that...
The Works in...
Issue 17: No great stagnation in cruise ships Plus: animals as chemical factories, how progress lost its glamour, and how Madrid built 120 miles...
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
How Is Cell Death Essential to Life? Cells in our bodies are constantly dying — and these countless tiny deaths are essential to human...
3 months ago
46
3 months ago
Cells in our bodies are constantly dying — and these countless tiny deaths are essential to human health and multicellular life itself. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with cellular biologist Shai Shaham about what makes a cell “alive” and the latest developments...
NeuroLogica Blog
Power-To-X and Climate Change Policy What is Power-to-X (PtX)? It’s just a fancy marketing term for green hydrogen – using green energy,...
3 months ago
47
3 months ago
What is Power-to-X (PtX)? It’s just a fancy marketing term for green hydrogen – using green energy, like wind, solar, nuclear, or hydroelectric, to make hydrogen from water. This process does not release any CO2, just oxygen, and when the hydrogen is burned back with that oxygen...
Probably...
Multiple Regression with StatsModels This is the third is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
3 months ago
40
3 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...
wadertales
Counting breeding shorebirds using listening devices With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments...
3 months ago
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3 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Common healthcare questions I get | Out-Of-Pocket Some of your FAQs finally answered
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
The AI Pioneer With Provocative Plans for Humanity While some fret about technology’s social impacts, Raj Reddy still believes in the power of...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
While some fret about technology’s social impacts, Raj Reddy still believes in the power of artificial intelligence to improve lives. The post The AI Pioneer With Provocative Plans for Humanity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Blog - Practical...
What’s the Deal with Base Plates? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] A lot of engineering focuses...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] A lot of engineering focuses on structural members. How wide is this beam? How tall is this column? But some of the most important engineering decisions are in how to connect those members together. Take a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Finding Small Primordial Black Holes Astrophysicists come up with a lot of whacky ideas, some of which actually turn out to be possibly...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Astrophysicists come up with a lot of whacky ideas, some of which actually turn out to be possibly true (like the Big Bang, black holes, accelerating cosmic expansion, dark matter). Of course, all of these conclusions are provisional, but some are now backed by compelling...
Cremieux Recueil
"You Couldn't Replicate Our Study Because You're Ugly" Attractiveness rating studies shouldn't be taken too seriously
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well. The post Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
Chuck E. Cheese’s Animatronics Band Bows Out That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that...
3 months ago
46
3 months ago
That may have been the last time I entered a Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria. And yet, when I heard that the company was phasing out the animatronic bands from all but five locations by the end of this year, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. Much to my surprise, I was truly sad that the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Climate Change Trends and Thoughts Climate change is a challenging issue on multiple levels – it’s challenging for scientists to...
3 months ago
46
3 months ago
Climate change is a challenging issue on multiple levels – it’s challenging for scientists to understand all of the complexities of a changing climate, it’s difficult to know how to optimally communicate to the public about climate change, and of course we face an enormous...
Casey Handmer's blog
Why do we need a Department of Government Efficiency? President Trump’s recent sweeping electoral victory is a clear mandate for change. There is some...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
President Trump’s recent sweeping electoral victory is a clear mandate for change. There is some urgency, and Trump has assembled the early stages of a team and coalition that can deliver it. It’s not exactly a mystery what Elon and Vivek plan for The Department of Government...
Wanderingspace
Saturn Vortex “This is a view of a ~2,000-km-wide vortex of swirling clouds above Saturn's north pole, imaged in...
3 months ago
44
3 months ago
“This is a view of a ~2,000-km-wide vortex of swirling clouds above Saturn's north pole, imaged in polarized light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera on November 27, 2012. I've processed the original monochrome image to approximate the color of the area at the time.” — Jason...
Asterisk
Rarely is the Question Asked: Is Our Children Learning? Across the world, more students than ever are in school. But it’s not clear that they're learning...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
Across the world, more students than ever are in school. But it’s not clear that they're learning more while there — or if that’s even the goal.
Asterisk
The Art of Asking Questions Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other...
3 months ago
19
3 months ago
Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other inaccuracies. We all use them anyway. How can we ask them better?
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Black Hole Has Daily Meals Worthy of Thanksgiving You think you ate too much?  No matter how stuffed you were after Thanksgiving (or another...
3 months ago
41
3 months ago
You think you ate too much?  No matter how stuffed you were after Thanksgiving (or another celebratory meal), it’s nothing compared to Quasar J0529-4351, which astronomers observed earlier this year to be consuming the mass of our entire Sun EACH and every day!  They called it...
Casey Handmer's blog
It Is Time To Build The Monster Scope A shorter version of this post was published in Palladium on 10/18/24. This version incorporates...
3 months ago
27
3 months ago
A shorter version of this post was published in Palladium on 10/18/24. This version incorporates helpful feedback from a number of knowledgeable readers.  With the recent SpaceX Starship orbital flight tests, it is time to commit to building the largest physically possible space...
nanoscale views
Foams! (or, why my split pea side dish boils over every Thanksgiving) Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.   Adapted from TOC figure of this...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.   Adapted from TOC figure of this paper Consider my shaving cream.  You might imagine that the (mostly water) material would just pool as a homogeneous liquid, since water molecules have a strong attraction for one...
The Works in...
History is in the making It's technology and ideas, not politics, that change our lives the most. History should reflect...
3 months ago
Explorations of an...
Borneo: Quest For The Bulwer's Pheasant The Bulwer's Pheasant was one of the first birds to grab hold of my attention when I first flipped...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
The Bulwer's Pheasant was one of the first birds to grab hold of my attention when I first flipped through the pages of my Borneo field guide many years ago. This pheasant of Bornean hill forest is nearly unbelievable-looking (the male, that is). He has a deep maroon chest and a...
Quantum Frontiers
Happy 200th birthday, Carnot’s theorem! In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a...
3 months ago
45
3 months ago
In Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, a Mole meets a Water Rat who lives on a River. The Rat explains how the River permeates his life: “It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, … Continue reading →
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...
3 months ago
57
3 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...
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...
3 months ago
44
3 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...
Uncharted...
The Moral Case for More People on Earth Today we’re going to cover four points that have emerged from the last few articles on growing our...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Today we’re going to cover four points that have emerged from the last few articles on growing our population, but which I haven’t covered yet:
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...
3 months ago
48
3 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...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Citizen fraud detection, self-experimentation, and OOP Updates | Out-Of-Pocket Some random musings and OOP announcements before the holiday
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to prove that all knots can be...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to prove that all knots can be found in a fractal called the Menger sponge. The post Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Uncharted...
The Earth Is Better with More People A world with 2 billion people would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless. With 100B, it...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
A world with 2 billion people would be decaying, poor, brutal, violent, hopeless. With 100B, it would be rich, beautiful, vibrant, peaceful, hopeful.
NeuroLogica Blog
Science Communication About Controversial Issues The world of science communication has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and it’s...
3 months ago
49
3 months ago
The world of science communication has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and it’s useful to think about those changes, both for people who generate and consume science communication. The big change, of course, is social media, which has disrupted journalism and...
Cremieux Recueil
Trump Should Finish What He Started A guestpost calling for Trump to finish radically reforming the tax system
3 months ago
Drew Ex Machina
You Can’t Fail Unless You Try: NASA’s Pioneer P-3 Lunar Orbiter Space enthusiasts of a certain age, like myself, grew up learning about the trio of NASA’s unmanned...
3 months ago
51
3 months ago
Space enthusiasts of a certain age, like myself, grew up learning about the trio of NASA’s unmanned programs which provided scientists and engineers with vital information […]
Math Is Still...
What Is Distributed Computing? Our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines. The...
3 months ago
50
3 months ago
Our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines. The post What Is Distributed Computing? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Interaction Magic -...
Engineering beneath the ice sheet Living in Greenland, deploying electronic beacons deep beneath the ice.
3 months ago
nanoscale views
Nanopasta, no, really Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun physics.  As you might readily imagine, there is a good deal of interdisciplinary and industrial interest in wanting to create fine fibers out of solution-based materials.  One...
Probably...
Download the World in Data Our World in Data recently announced that they are providing APIs to access their data....
3 months ago
44
3 months ago
Our World in Data recently announced that they are providing APIs to access their data. Coincidentally, I am using one of their datasets in my workshop on time series analysis at PyData Global 2024. So I took this opportunity to update my example using the new API – this notebook...
Andrew Fraknoi –...
Caves on Mars Recently, in social media posts, Dr. Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute discussed the intriguing caves...
3 months ago
48
3 months ago
Recently, in social media posts, Dr. Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute discussed the intriguing caves on the side of the giant martian volcano called Arsia Mons as interesting places for future exploration and even human residences. As it happens, my very first published...
nanoscale views
Brief items A few tidbits that I encountered recently: The saga of Ranga Dias at Rochester draws to a close,...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
A few tidbits that I encountered recently: The saga of Ranga Dias at Rochester draws to a close, as described by the Wall Street Journal.  It took quite some time for this to propagate through their system.  This is after multiple internal investigations that somehow were...
Wanderingspace
Uranus is not as boring as we thought “An animation of three near-infrared images of Uranus captured by the JWST Space Telescope with...
3 months ago
53
3 months ago
“An animation of three near-infrared images of Uranus captured by the JWST Space Telescope with assigned representative colors. During processing, I aligned the rings separately to reduce the bubbling effect caused by different inclinations, making the planet appear to rotate on...
Math Is Still...
In the Quantum World, Even Points of View Are Uncertain The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once — an insight with potentially major ramifications. The post In the Quantum World, Even Points of View Are Uncertain first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Making architecture easy Architecture is inherently public, which means buildings should be agreeable, not unpopular works of...
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on AI Art It’s been a while since I discussed artificial intelligence (AI) generated art here. What I have...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
It’s been a while since I discussed artificial intelligence (AI) generated art here. What I have said in the past is that AI art appears a bit soulless and there are details it has difficulty creating without bizarre distortions (hands are particularly difficult). But I also...
Cremieux Recueil
Preregistration Is No Panacea Stopping scientific cheaters requires setting up systems that can't be gamed
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
What Can Birdsong Teach Us About Human Language? We often consider spoken language to be a feature that distinguishes humans from other forms of...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
We often consider spoken language to be a feature that distinguishes humans from other forms of animal life. Brain research, however, suggests that other creatures — including certain birds — share some of our neural circuitry related to language. In this episode, co-host Janna...
Uncharted...
What Is the Earth’s Carrying Capacity? Most "experts" don't understand technology or economics
3 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Sleep health is getting interesting | Out-Of-Pocket The consumer and clinical worlds of sleep are colliding
3 months ago
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour To Borneo: Tabin Wildlife Reserve And Danum Valley We left the Kinabatangan River behind and transferred to our next destination, the Tabin Wildlife...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
We left the Kinabatangan River behind and transferred to our next destination, the Tabin Wildlife Reserve. This is the largest swath of protected forest; an area of lowland primary and logged forest that is home to iconic species like the Bornean Pygmy Elephant, the Sun Bear and...
Math Is Still...
All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet LUCA. The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively complex organism living 4.2 billion years ago, a time long considered too harsh for life to flourish. The post All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet...
Beautiful Public...
14,000 Photos of Army Uniforms and Rations from the 70s and 80s An incredible archive of 14,000 photos of Army uniforms, military gear and rations from the 70s and...
3 months 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...
3 months ago
43
3 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...
Blog - Practical...
Which Power Plant Does My Electricity Come From? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In June of 2000, the power...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In June of 2000, the power shut off across much of the San Francisco Bay area. There simply wasn’t enough electricity to meet demands, so more than a million customers were disconnected in California's largest...
Uncharted...
100 Billion Humans The world can carry them!
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Robots and a Sense of Self Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption)...
3 months ago
49
3 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,...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: What are children for? And how the UN’s birth rate forecasts keep getting it wrong
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
Mathematical Thinking Isn’t What You Think It Is The mathematician David Bessis claims that everyone is capable of, and can benefit greatly from,...
3 months ago
61
3 months ago
The mathematician David Bessis claims that everyone is capable of, and can benefit greatly from, mathematical thinking. The post Mathematical Thinking Isn’t What You Think It Is first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Pledge to Triple Nuclear by 2050 It’s interesting that there isn’t much discussion about this in the mainstream media, but the Biden...
3 months ago
40
3 months ago
It’s interesting that there isn’t much discussion about this in the mainstream media, but the Biden administration recently pledged to triple US nuclear power capacity by 2050. At COP28 last year the US was among 25 signatories who also pledged to triple world nuclear power...
nanoscale views
Really doing mechanics at the quantum level A helpful ad from Science Made Stupid. Since before the development of micro- and...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
A helpful ad from Science Made Stupid. Since before the development of micro- and nanoelectromechanical techniques, there has been an interest in making actual mechanical widgets that show quantum behavior.  There is no reason that we should not be able to make a mechanical...
Probably...
Comparing Distributions This is the second is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
This is the second is a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science which available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. It’s from Chapter 8, which is about representing distribution using PMFs and CDFs. This section explains why I think CDFs are often better for plotting...
Math Is Still...
How Public Key Cryptography Really Works, Using Only Simple Math The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part of your encryption to make your information much more secure. The post How Public Key Cryptography Really Works, Using Only Simple Math first appeared on Quanta...
NeuroLogica Blog
Managing Plastic Waste The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is recycled, while 25% is mismanaged or littered. About 1.7 million tons ends up in the ocean. This is not sustainable, but whose responsibility is it to deal with this issue? The debate...
The Works in...
Where inflation comes from How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences...
3 months ago
39
3 months ago
How we calculate inflation has always been contested with small changes leading to large differences in how well-off we think we are.
Uncharted...
Is Desalination Everywhere Realistic? Which countries are doing it already? Are they happy? Is desalinated water safe to drink? Does it...
3 months ago
22
3 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?
Math Is Still...
The Cosmos Teems with Complex Organic Molecules Wherever astronomers look, they see life’s raw materials. The post The Cosmos Teems with...
3 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
The First Virtual Meeting Was in 1916 At 8:30 p.m. on 16 May 1916, John J. Carty banged his gavel at the Engineering Societies Building in...
3 months ago
47
3 months ago
At 8:30 p.m. on 16 May 1916, John J. Carty banged his gavel at the Engineering Societies Building in New York City to call to order a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. This was no ordinary gathering. The AIEE had decided to conduct a live national meeting...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Licensing and Credentialing Nonsense with Assured | Out-Of-Pocket
3 months ago
NeuroLogica Blog
911 Conspiracy Theories Persist On September 11, 2001, as part of a planned terrorist attack, commercial planes were hijacked and...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
On September 11, 2001, as part of a planned terrorist attack, commercial planes were hijacked and flown into each of the two towers at the World Trade Center in New York. A third plane was flown into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed after the passengers fought back. This, of...
Uncharted...
Desalination: a Future of Infinite Water Desalination is finally cheap, and it’s only getting cheaper. Will this usher a world of plentiful...
3 months ago
20
3 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?
Math Is Still...
New Elliptic Curve Breaks 18-Year-Old Record Two mathematicians have renewed a debate about the fundamental nature of some of math’s most...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Two mathematicians have renewed a debate about the fundamental nature of some of math’s most important equations. The post New Elliptic Curve Breaks 18-Year-Old Record first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Probably...
Zipf’s Law Elements of Data Science is in print now, available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. To...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
Elements of Data Science is in print now, available from Lulu.com and online booksellers. To celebrate, I’ll post some excerpts here, starting with one of my favorite examples, Zipf’s Law. You can read the complete chapter here, or run the Jupyter notebook on Colab. In almost any...
Casey Handmer's blog
Solar and batteries for generic use cases A brief note on using solar and batteries as generic power sources. Over the last few years of work...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
A brief note on using solar and batteries as generic power sources. Over the last few years of work at Terraform Industries, we’ve developed several useful heuristics to understand how rapid progress in solar and battery costs will change industry. This includes the bifurcation...
Explorations of an...
A Quest Nature Tour To Borneo: Kota Kinabalu, Mount Kinabalu, Sepilok And The Kinabatangan River Our Quest Nature Tours group assembled in Kota Kinabalu on the evening of October 3 and the...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
Our Quest Nature Tours group assembled in Kota Kinabalu on the evening of October 3 and the following morning we were off. Kota Kinabalu is situated on the coast, but is only a two hour drive from the mountains that form the spine of Borneo and its highest peak, Mount Kinabalu....
The Works in...
The ultra-selfish gene Genetically modifying malaria-carrying mosquitoes could allow us to wipe out humanity’s most deadly...
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
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...
3 months ago
43
3 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
NeuroLogica Blog
The Social Media Dilemma Australia is planning a total ban on social media for children under 16 years old. Prime Minister...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Australia is planning a total ban on social media for children under 16 years old. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese argues that it is the only way to protect vulnerable children from the demonstrable harm that social media can do. This has sparked another round of debates about...
Math Is Still...
How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction? With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about all sorts of complex phenomena. Today, this practice is evolving to harness the power of machine learning and massive datasets. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Weird health insurance concepts | Out-Of-Pocket Intercompany eliminations, copay shenanigans, and reference-based pricing
4 months ago
Math Is Still...
Physicists Spot Quantum Tornadoes Twirling in a ‘Supersolid’ New observations of microscopic vortices confirm the existence of a paradoxical phase of matter that...
4 months ago
38
4 months ago
New observations of microscopic vortices confirm the existence of a paradoxical phase of matter that may also arise inside neutron stars. The post Physicists Spot Quantum Tornadoes Twirling in a ‘Supersolid’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Casey Handmer's blog
Powering the Mars base This post is part of the series on space topics. This post is not the last word on this topic. The...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
This post is part of the series on space topics. This post is not the last word on this topic. The usual caveats apply. I’m curious if you have strong opinions on different fuel mixes. A growing Mars base has a prodigious need for power. I’ve previously written two posts on...
Blog - Practical...
Why Are Cooling Towers Shaped Like That? [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is not smoke. And this...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is not smoke. And this isn’t a smoke stack (at least not the kind we normally think of). It serves a totally different purpose at a power plant than smoke stacks whose job is moving combustion products...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: Expanding the Mediterranean's busiest port Plus: New tunnels, monorails, canals, small modular reactors, and horseless carriages
4 months ago
nanoscale views
Recent papers to distract.... Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers who are US citizens:  vote if you have not already done so!). Reaching back, this preprint by Aharonov, Collins, Popescu talks about a thought experiment in which angular...
Uncharted...
Wind and Solar, a Perfect Match Also, why solar will beat wind, why they are so complementary, the nuclear renaissance, the poor...
4 months ago
20
4 months ago
Also, why solar will beat wind, why they are so complementary, the nuclear renaissance, the poor state of German energy, and more.
NeuroLogica Blog
A Discussion about Biological Sex At CSICON this year I gave talk about topics over which skeptics have and continue to disagree with...
4 months ago
52
4 months ago
At CSICON this year I gave talk about topics over which skeptics have and continue to disagree with each other. My core theme was that these are the topics we absolutely should be discussing with each other, especially at skeptical conferences. Nothing should be taboo or too...
Cremieux Recueil
American Elections Are Unfair Unfortunately, unfairness is baked in
4 months ago
Math Is Still...
He’s Gleaning the Design Rules of Life to Re-Create It Yizhi “Patrick” Cai is coordinating a global effort to write a complete synthetic yeast genome. If...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Yizhi “Patrick” Cai is coordinating a global effort to write a complete synthetic yeast genome. If he succeeds, the resulting cell will be the artificial life most closely related to humans to date. The post He’s Gleaning the Design Rules of Life to Re-Create It first...
NeuroLogica Blog
AC vs DC and other Power Questions I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9...
4 months ago
51
4 months ago
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9 hour seminar on scientific skepticism for the Dubai Future Foundation. That sounds like a lot of time, but it isn’t. It was a good reminder of the vast body of knowledge that is...
Explorations of an...
Borneo 2024: Introduction And Pre-Tour Birding About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for...
4 months ago
2
4 months ago
About a month ago, I returned to Sabah in east Malaysia for my fourth tour of duty as a guide for Quest Nature Tours. I've always said that Borneo is one of my favourite tours that I run and even after three previous trips I was looking forward to returning. One of the main...
IEEE Spectrum
Touchscreens Are Out, and Tactile Controls Are Back Tactile controls are back in vogue. Apple added two new buttons to the iPhone 16, home appliances...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Tactile controls are back in vogue. Apple added two new buttons to the iPhone 16, home appliances like stoves and washing machines are returning to knobs, and several car manufacturers are reintroducing buttons and dials to dashboards and steering wheels. With this...
Uncharted...
6 Questions You Asked Yourself about Solar How fast will it take over, how fast are costs shrinking, why is it so cheap, what industries will...
4 months ago
20
4 months ago
How fast will it take over, how fast are costs shrinking, why is it so cheap, what industries will it birth, how much surface will it take up, where will it appear first?
Math Is Still...
Math’s ‘Bunkbed Conjecture’ Has Been Debunked It was intuitive, even obvious. It was also wrong. The post Math’s ‘Bunkbed Conjecture’...
4 months ago
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...
4 months ago
46
4 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...
Asterisk
The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic Are we really living through a uniquely lonely moment in American history? When it comes to...
4 months ago
20
4 months ago
Are we really living through a uniquely lonely moment in American history? When it comes to friendship, this isn’t the first time that authorities have cried wolf.