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NeuroLogica Blog
The 80-20 Rule From the Topic Suggestions (Lal Mclennan): What is the 80/20 theory portrayed in Netflix’s...
11 hours ago
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11 hours ago
From the Topic Suggestions (Lal Mclennan): What is the 80/20 theory portrayed in Netflix’s Adolescence? The 80/20 rule was first posed as a Pareto principle that suggests that approximately 80 per cent of outcomes stem from just 20 per cent of causes. This concept takes its name...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: Legalizing the condo Moving the needle on US homebuilding
10 hours ago
Uncharted...
10 Fascinating GeoHistory Updates Q1 2025
10 hours ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
A few more thoughts on Medical Aid in Dying | Out-Of-Pocket Readers sent in their experiences and thoughts - let the morality fight begin
2 days ago
Eukaryote Writes...
Eukaryote Skips Town – why I’m leaving DC I’m hesitant to write this piece because it’s directly about my EA ambitions, and I’ve talked to a...
2 days ago
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2 days ago
I’m hesitant to write this piece because it’s directly about my EA ambitions, and I’ve talked to a lot of EAs trying to get into biosecurity who want advice, and I have no idea what they should take away from my story or if any of this should be taken as any kind of advice.
Math Is Still...
The Mysterious Flow of Fluid in the Brain A popular hypothesis for how the brain clears molecular waste, which may help explain why sleep...
2 days ago
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2 days ago
A popular hypothesis for how the brain clears molecular waste, which may help explain why sleep feels refreshing, is a subject of debate. The post The Mysterious Flow of Fluid in the Brain first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Works in...
Apply for Invisible College 2025 Our residential seminar for 18–22 year olds was such a success that we are running it again
2 days ago
Uncharted...
10 Interesting Facts on Relationships & Sex Q1 2025
3 days ago
The Works in...
How Airbus took off Why you can build a European airliner, but not a European Google
3 days ago
NeuroLogica Blog
How To Keep AIs From Lying We had a fascinating discussion on this week’s SGU that I wanted to bring here – the subject of...
4 days ago
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4 days ago
We had a fascinating discussion on this week’s SGU that I wanted to bring here – the subject of artificial intelligence programs (AI), specifically large language models (LLMs), lying. The starting point for the discussion was this study, which looked at punishing LLMs as a...
Math Is Still...
Three Hundred Years Later, a Tool from Isaac Newton Gets an Update A simple, widely used mathematical technique can finally be applied to boundlessly complex problems....
4 days ago
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4 days ago
A simple, widely used mathematical technique can finally be applied to boundlessly complex problems. The post Three Hundred Years Later, a Tool from Isaac Newton Gets an Update first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Inverted Passion
Don’t compete The Internet is full of people winning all the time. Someone is traveling to exotic locations,...
6 days ago
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6 days ago
The Internet is full of people winning all the time. Someone is traveling to exotic locations, someone else is raising funds, and another person is winning awards. Essentially, everyone around you is succeeding while you do spend your days as the nature intended – sleeping,...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The New Out-Of-Pocket 10 year plan | Out-Of-Pocket It’s time for a new north start for this company
a week ago
Math Is Still...
How Metabolism Can Shape Cells’ Destinies A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy...
a week ago
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a week ago
A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy and building materials — plays a vital, overlooked role in the first steps of life. The post How Metabolism Can Shape Cells’ Destinies first appeared on Quanta Magazine
IEEE Spectrum
AlexNet Source Code Is Now Open Source In partnership with Google, the Computer History Museum has released the source code to AlexNet, the...
a week ago
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a week ago
In partnership with Google, the Computer History Museum has released the source code to AlexNet, the neural network that in 2012 kickstarted today’s prevailing approach to AI. The source code is available as open source on CHM’s GitHub page. What Is AlexNet? AlexNet is an...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Neuroscience of Constructed Languages Language is an interesting neurological function to study. No animal other than humans has such a...
a week ago
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a week ago
Language is an interesting neurological function to study. No animal other than humans has such a highly developed dedicated language processing area, or languages as complex and nuanced as humans. Although, whale language is more complex than we previously thought, but still not...
nanoscale views
March Meeting 2025, Day 4 and wrap-up I saw a couple of interesting talks this morning before heading out: Alessandro Chiesa of Parma...
a week ago
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a week ago
I saw a couple of interesting talks this morning before heading out: Alessandro Chiesa of Parma spoke about using spin-containing molecules potentially as qubits, and about chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) in electron transfer.  Regarding the former, here is a review. ...
Cremieux Recueil
Sometimes Papers Contain Obvious Lies What you read in an abstract, a title, or even in the body of a paper might be the opposite of what...
a week ago
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a week ago
What you read in an abstract, a title, or even in the body of a paper might be the opposite of what papers actually show, and sometimes result are just made up
IEEE Spectrum
IEEE Recognizes Itaipu Dam’s Engineering Achievements Technology should benefit humanity. One of the most remarkable examples of technology’s potential to...
a week ago
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a week ago
Technology should benefit humanity. One of the most remarkable examples of technology’s potential to provide enduring benefits is the Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam, a massive binational energy project between Brazil and Paraguay. Built on the Paraná River, which forms part of the...
The Works in...
King of fruits Ordinary yellow pineapples were once so precious they were rented for display at dinner parties, but...
a week ago
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a week ago
Ordinary yellow pineapples were once so precious they were rented for display at dinner parties, but centuries of innovation made them commonplace.
Math Is Still...
How Did Multicellular Life Evolve? One of the most important events in the history of life on Earth was the emergence of...
a week ago
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a week ago
One of the most important events in the history of life on Earth was the emergence of multicellularity. In this episode, Will Ratcliff discusses how his snowflake yeast models provide insight into what drove the transition from single-celled to multicellular organisms. ...
Quantum Frontiers
The first and second centuries of quantum mechanics At this week’s American Physical Society Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California, John Preskill...
a week ago
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a week ago
At this week’s American Physical Society Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California, John Preskill spoke at an event celebrating 100 years of groundbreaking advances in quantum mechanics. Here are his remarks. Welcome, everyone, to this celebration of 100 years of … Continue...
Uncharted...
Rise Up, Europe! The Five Beliefs That Cripple a Continent
a week ago
nanoscale views
March Meeting 2025, Day 3 Another busy day at the APS Global Physics Summit.  Here are a few highlights: Shahal Ilani of the...
a week ago
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a week ago
Another busy day at the APS Global Physics Summit.  Here are a few highlights: Shahal Ilani of the Weizmann gave an absolutely fantastic talk about his group's latest results from their quantum twisting microscope.  In a scanning tunneling microscope, because tunneling happens...
Math Is Still...
Is Dark Energy Getting Weaker? New Evidence Strengthens the Case. Last year, an enormous map of the cosmos hinted that the engine driving cosmic expansion might be...
a week ago
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a week ago
Last year, an enormous map of the cosmos hinted that the engine driving cosmic expansion might be sputtering. Now physicists are back with an even bigger map, and a stronger conclusion. The post Is Dark Energy Getting Weaker? New Evidence Strengthens the Case. first...
The Works in...
Links in Progress: Where's my winter robot chauffeur? What we've been reading: science, metascience, tech, housing, fertility and more ...
a week ago
Probably...
Young Adults Want Fewer Children The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at...
a week ago
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a week ago
The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provides a first look at people born in the 2000s as young adults and an updated view of people born in the 1990s at the peak of their child-bearing years. Compared to previous generations at the same ages,...
nanoscale views
March Meeting 2025, Day 2 I spent a portion of today catching up with old friends and colleagues, so fewer highlights, but...
a week ago
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a week ago
I spent a portion of today catching up with old friends and colleagues, so fewer highlights, but here are a couple: Like a few hundred other people, I went to the invited talk by Chetan Nayak, leader of Microsoft's quantum computing effort. It was sufficiently crowded that the...
Beautiful Public...
WWII Japanese Mass Incarceration collections Haunting photos and documents document a shameful chapter of America’s history—the forced...
a week ago
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a week ago
Haunting photos and documents document a shameful chapter of America’s history—the forced displacement and incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII.
Stephen Wolfram...
What Can We Learn about Engineering and Innovation from Half a Century of the Game of Life Cellular... Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow...
a week ago
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a week ago
Metaengineering and Laws of Innovation Things are invented. Things are discovered. And somehow there’s an arc of progress that’s formed. But are there what amount to “laws of innovation” that govern that arc of progress? There are some exponential and other laws that purport to...
Blog - Practical...
This Bridge’s Bizarre Design Nearly Caused It To Collapse [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Washington Bridge...
a week ago
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a week ago
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] This is the Washington Bridge that carries I-195 over the Seekonk River in Providence, Rhode Island… or at least, it was the Washington Bridge. You can see that the westbound span is just about completely gone....
NeuroLogica Blog
Living with Predators For much of human history, wolves and other large carnivores were considered pests. Wolves were...
a week ago
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a week ago
For much of human history, wolves and other large carnivores were considered pests. Wolves were actively exterminated on the British Isles, with the last wolf killed in 1680. It is more difficulty to deliberately wipe out a species on a continent than an island, but across Europe...
nanoscale views
March Meeting 2025, Day 1 The APS Global Physics Summit is an intimate affair, with a mere 14,000 attendees, all apparently...
a week ago
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a week ago
The APS Global Physics Summit is an intimate affair, with a mere 14,000 attendees, all apparently vying for lunch capacity for about 2,000 people.   The first day of the meeting was the usual controlled chaos of people trying to learn the layout of the convention center while...
Math Is Still...
Quantum Speedup Found for Huge Class of Hard Problems It’s been difficult to find important questions that quantum computers can answer faster than...
a week ago
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a week ago
It’s been difficult to find important questions that quantum computers can answer faster than classical machines, but a new algorithm appears to do it for some critical optimization tasks. The post Quantum Speedup Found for Huge Class of Hard Problems first appeared...
The Works in...
The value of technological progress Evidence from the life of Matt Clancy
a week ago
Uncharted...
Why Do We Like Concerts? It's not what you think
a week ago
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI for Teaching A recent BBC article reminded me of one of my enduring technology disappointments over the last 40...
a week ago
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a week ago
A recent BBC article reminded me of one of my enduring technology disappointments over the last 40 years – the failure of the educational system to reasonably (let alone fully) leverage multimedia and computer technology to enhance learning. The article is about a symposium in...
nanoscale views
March Meeting 2025, Day 0 Technically, this year the conference is known as the APS Global Physics Summit rather than the...
a week ago
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a week ago
Technically, this year the conference is known as the APS Global Physics Summit rather than the March Meeting, but I'm keeping my blog post titles consistent with previous years.   Over 14,000 physicists have descended upon Anaheim, and there are parallel events in more than a...
Quantum Frontiers
Developing an AI for Quantum Chess: Part 1 In January 2016, Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter unveiled a YouTube video...
a week ago
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a week ago
In January 2016, Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter unveiled a YouTube video featuring an extraordinary chess showdown between actor Paul Rudd (a.k.a. Ant-Man) and the legendary Dr. Stephen Hawking. But this was no ordinary match—Rudd had challenged Hawking …...
Chris Grossack's...
A Cute Application of the Yoneda Lemma Every few weeks recently I’ve been putting a new fun problem on one of the whiteboards in the first...
a week ago
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a week ago
Every few weeks recently I’ve been putting a new fun problem on one of the whiteboards in the first year office. These are often inspired by something I saw on MSE, and I’m usually choosing problems that force you to understand something fundamental really well. Then I usually...
Explorations of an...
A Month In Northern Peru, Part 17: White-sand Birding At RN Allpahuayo-Mishana and Muyuna Lodge... February 24, 2024 Just outside of the city of Iquitos lies an expansive area containing white-sand...
a week ago
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a week ago
February 24, 2024 Just outside of the city of Iquitos lies an expansive area containing white-sand forest. The particular forest types that grow on white sand are somewhat uncommon in the Amazon, yet the stunted tree growth provides quite the contrast to "typical" Amazonian...
Cremieux Recueil
The End of Credentialism? Cognitive testing might be making a comeback. That could be very important.
a week ago
Math Is Still...
‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of...
a week ago
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a week ago
The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of the conjecture in three dimensions illuminates a whole crop of related problems. The post ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture first appeared on...
NeuroLogica Blog
Cutting to the Bone One potentially positive outcome from the COVID pandemic is that it was a wakeup call – if there was...
a week ago
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a week ago
One potentially positive outcome from the COVID pandemic is that it was a wakeup call – if there was any doubt previously about the fact that we all live in one giant interconnected world, it should not have survived the recent pandemic. This is particularly true when it comes to...
Casey Handmer's blog
Long duration propellant stability in Starship Some ideas on preventing cryogenic propellant boiloff in Starship during long duration cruise or...
a week ago
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a week ago
Some ideas on preventing cryogenic propellant boiloff in Starship during long duration cruise or while operating orbital fuel depots. The usual caveats apply! One of the major concerns with using Starship for the Human Landing System is that propellant (cryogenically liquid...
Math Is Still...
New Conversations, Deep Questions, Bold Ideas in Season Four of ‘The Joy of Why’ Steven Strogatz and Janna Levin return for a new season on major scientific and mathematical...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Steven Strogatz and Janna Levin return for a new season on major scientific and mathematical questions of our time, with 12 all-new episodes and a new format. The post New Conversations, Deep Questions, Bold Ideas in Season Four of ‘The Joy of Why’ first appeared on...
The Works in...
Issue 18: Urbanism with Chinese characteristics Plus: Reducing the motherhood penalty by extending fertility, the steam networks of New York City,...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Plus: Reducing the motherhood penalty by extending fertility, the steam networks of New York City, and the rise and fall of the Hanseatic league.
NeuroLogica Blog
Hybrid Bionic Hand If you think about the human hand as a work of engineering, it is absolutely incredible. The level...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
If you think about the human hand as a work of engineering, it is absolutely incredible. The level of fine motor control is extreme. It is responsive and precise. It has robust sensory feedback. It combines both rigid and soft components, so that it is able to grip and lift heavy...
Out-of-Pocket Blog
The Debate: Should Medical Aid in Death Be Legal? | Out-Of-Pocket Oh boy, I’m nervous to wade into this conversation
2 weeks ago
Cremieux Recueil
How To Get Cheap Ozempic Or other, more effective GLP-1 drugs
2 weeks ago
Math Is Still...
The Road Map to Alien Life Passes Through the ‘Cosmic Shoreline’ Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmospheres. But...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmospheres. But first, they need to know where to look — and that means figuring out which planets are likely to have atmospheres in the first place. The post The Road Map to Alien Life...
nanoscale views
The 2025 Wolf Prize in Physics One nice bit of condensed matter/nanoscale physics news:  This year's Wolf Prize in Physics has gone...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
One nice bit of condensed matter/nanoscale physics news:  This year's Wolf Prize in Physics has gone to three outstanding scientists, Jim Eisenstein, Moty Heiblum, and Jainendra Jain, each of whom have done very impactful work involving 2D electron gases - systems of electrons...
Uncharted...
Robotaxis Are Here Within 1-5 years, our daily transportation will be upended, and cities will be reshaped.
2 weeks ago
The Works in...
Flipping the switch on far-UVC We’ve known about far-UVC’s promise for a decade. Why isn't it everywhere?
2 weeks ago
Math Is Still...
Why Do Researchers Care About Small Language Models? Larger models can pull off greater feats, but the accessibility and efficiency of smaller models...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
Larger models can pull off greater feats, but the accessibility and efficiency of smaller models make them attractive tools. The post Why Do Researchers Care About Small Language Models? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
NeuroLogica Blog
Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease For my entire career as a neurologist, spanning three decades, I have been hearing about various...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
For my entire career as a neurologist, spanning three decades, I have been hearing about various kinds of stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Now a Phase I clinical trial is under way studying the latest stem cell technology, autologous induced pluripotent stem cells,...
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...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks 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...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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
3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks 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...
4 weeks ago
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4 weeks 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...
4 weeks ago
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4 weeks 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?
4 weeks 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...
4 weeks ago
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4 weeks 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
4 weeks ago
Uncharted...
Reaction to Your Comments on German Elections Election results, german nuclear, slower maps, and more
a month 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 month ago
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a month 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 month ago
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a month 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 month ago
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a month 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 month ago
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a month 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 month ago
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a month 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 month 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 —...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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
a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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
NeuroLogica Blog
Birds Separately Evolved Complex Brains The evolution of the human brain is a fascinating subject. The brain is arguably the most complex...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
7
a month 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
a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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
a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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
a month ago
The Works in...
A writing fellowship on scientific progress Works in Progress and Asimov Press are launching a paid six-month fellowship.
a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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 —...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
a month ago
7
a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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
a month 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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
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
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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...
2 months ago
5
2 months 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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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....
2 months ago
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2 months ago
The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal. The post New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection first appeared on Quanta...
Uncharted...
Final: So Where Should We Build Ten New Cities in the US? Final article in the series
2 months 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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
The Drumbeat of Releases Continues… Notebook Assistant Chat inside Any Notebook Bring Us Your Gigabytes! Introducing Tabular Manipulating Data in Tabular Getting Data into Tabular Cleaning Data for Tabular The Structure of Tabular Tabular Everywhere Algebra with Symbolic Arrays...
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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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
2 months 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
2 months 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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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...
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 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...
2 months ago
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2 months 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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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?
2 months ago
Probably...
Algorithmic Fairness This is the last in a series of excerpts from Elements of Data Science, now available from Lulu.com...
2 months ago
1
2 months ago
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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
There really is a significant mystery in the world of cosmology. This, in my opinion, is a good thing. Such mysteries point in the direction of new physics, or at least a new understanding of the universe. Resolving this mystery – called the Hubble Tension – is a major goal of...
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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Some lakes died before they could birth cities. Could we revive the lakes, and give them a 2nd chance at creating cities?
Cremieux Recueil
Lessons About the Civil Service and Political Appointees What does history tell us about how the executive branch can run the government?
2 months 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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
[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...
Uncharted...
Ten New US Cities: 3. Presidio The fastest wealth creation in the history of humanity
2 months 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...
2 months ago
37
2 months ago
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...
2 months ago
38
2 months ago
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
2 months ago
Out-of-Pocket Blog
Transcarent, AI Therapists, Interoperability, and more | Out-Of-Pocket Plus Out-Of-Pocket is hiring!!
2 months ago
Cremieux Recueil
National IQs Are Valid National IQ estimates are robust, reliable, and realistic
2 months 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...
2 months ago
34
2 months 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....
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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
2 months 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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Inside the proton, quarks and gluons shift and morph their properties in ways that physicists are still struggling to understand. Rithya Kunnawalkam Elayavalli brings to the problem a perspective unlike many of their peers. The post The Physicist Decoding the...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Material for Nanoconductors One of the things I have come to understand from following technology news for decades is that...
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
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...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
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...
2 months ago
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2 months 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...
2 months ago
84
2 months ago
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering locations linked? Forty-four authors have collaborated to bring together ringing, colour-ringing and GPS tracking data in a paper entitled Site-level connectivity identified from...
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...
2 months 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...
2 months ago
51
2 months ago
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...
2 months ago
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2 months 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?
2 months 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...
2 months ago
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2 months 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
50
2 months ago
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
54
2 months ago
How close are we to having fusion reactors actually sending electric power to the grid? This is a huge and complicated question, and one with massive implications for our civilization. I think we are still at the point where we cannot count on fusion reactors coming online...
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
6
2 months ago
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
1
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...
2 months ago
42
2 months ago
Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in computational complexity theory. The post Why Computer Scientists Consult Oracles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
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
6
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
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
6
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
6
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...
2 months ago
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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
63
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...
2 months ago
50
2 months ago
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
5
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...
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
40
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,...
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...
3 months ago
6
3 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...
3 months ago
51
3 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
3 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...
3 months ago
6
3 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...
3 months ago
50
3 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...
3 months ago
54
3 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,...
3 months ago
58
3 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...
3 months ago
1
3 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
3 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...
3 months ago
6
3 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...
3 months ago
61
3 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
3 months ago
Math Is Still...
The Year in Computer Science Researchers got a better look at chatbots’ thoughts, amateurs learned just how complicated simple...
3 months ago
77
3 months ago
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
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...
3 months ago
61
3 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
3 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...
3 months ago
71
3 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...
3 months ago
53
3 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)....
3 months ago
57
3 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...
3 months ago
58
3 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...
3 months ago
91
3 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%
3 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...
3 months ago
60
3 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...
3 months ago
5
3 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...
3 months ago
59
3 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...
3 months ago
6
3 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...
3 months ago
1
3 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...
3 months ago
67
3 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...
3 months ago
38
3 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...
3 months ago
56
3 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...
3 months ago
50
3 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
3 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...
3 months ago
84
3 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...
3 months ago
51
3 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,...
3 months ago
51
3 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...
3 months ago
1
3 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...
3 months ago
59
3 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?
3 months ago
Cremieux Recueil
Grading the World's Shortest Manifesto It gets an F and the student has earned the death penalty
3 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...
3 months ago
27
3 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...
3 months ago
92
3 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...
3 months ago
87
3 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,...
3 months ago
64
3 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...
3 months ago
51
3 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...
3 months ago
57
3 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...
3 months ago
55
3 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
59
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
5
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
54
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
41
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
76
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
48
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
49
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
1
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
59
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
82
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
70
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
54
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
41
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
53
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
49
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
28
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
49
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
26
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.
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
45
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
30
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
5
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
5
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
60
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
60
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
1
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
28
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...
4 months ago
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4 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
4 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...
4 months ago
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4 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...
4 months ago
26
4 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...
4 months ago
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4 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
4 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...
4 months ago
54
4 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...
4 months ago
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4 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.
4 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...
4 months ago
5
4 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...