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NeuroLogica Blog

NeuroLogica Blog
How Much Do Couples Share Traits? Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms,...
a year ago
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a year ago
Do birds of a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? These are both common aphorisms, which means that they are commonly offered as generally accepted truths, but also that they may by wrong. People like pithy phrases, so they spread prolifically, but that does not mean...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Fight over Education There is an ongoing culture war, and not just in the US, over the content of childhood education,...
a year ago
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a year ago
There is an ongoing culture war, and not just in the US, over the content of childhood education, both public and private. This seems to be flaring up recently, but is never truly gone. Republicans in the US have recently escalated this war by banning over 500 books in several...
NeuroLogica Blog
Have Current AI Reached Their Limit? We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications,...
a year ago
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a year ago
We are still very much in the hype phase of the latest crop of artificial intelligence applications, specifically the large language models and so-called “transformers” like Chat GPT. Transformers are a deep learning model that use self-attention to differentially weight the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Antarctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low For decades scientists were confused by Antarctic sea ice. Climate models predict that it should be...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
For decades scientists were confused by Antarctic sea ice. Climate models predict that it should be decreasing, and yet it has been steadily and slowly increasing. It also made for a great talking point for climate change deniers – superficially it seems like counter evidence to...
NeuroLogica Blog
Predicting Outcome in Severe Brain Injury One of the most difficult situations that a person can face is to have a loved-one in a critical...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
One of the most difficult situations that a person can face is to have a loved-one in a critical medical condition and have to make life-or-death medical decisions for them. I have been in this situation many times as the consulting neurologist, and I have seen how weighty this...
NeuroLogica Blog
Indigenous Knowledge I recently received the following question to the SGU e-mail: “I have had several conversations with...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
I recently received the following question to the SGU e-mail: “I have had several conversations with friends/colleagues lately regarding indigenous beliefs/stories. They assert that not believing these based on oral histories alone is morally wrong and ignoring a different...
NeuroLogica Blog
Spotting Misinformation There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
There is an interesting disconnect in our culture recently. About 90% of people claim that they verify information they encounter in the news and on social media, and 96% of Americans say that we need to limit the spread of misinformation online. And yet, the spread of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Rats! What killed off the dodo? Humans first arrived at Mauritius island in the late 1500s. They found on...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
What killed off the dodo? Humans first arrived at Mauritius island in the late 1500s. They found on this island fat flightless birds who nested on the ground and were a convenient way to restock their ship’s food supply. Within 80 years the dodo went extinct. But hunting was not...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Greener Li-Ion Battery It is increasingly obvious that battery technology is one of the keys to transitioning our...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
It is increasingly obvious that battery technology is one of the keys to transitioning our civilization away from burning fossil fuels. Batteries facilitate the use of cheap, green, but intermittent energy sources. They also allow for the electrification of technology sectors...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI To Create Virtual Environments Generative AI applications seem to be on the steep part of the development curve – not only is the...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Generative AI applications seem to be on the steep part of the development curve – not only is the technology getting better, but people are finding more and more uses for it. It’s a new powerful tool with broad applicability, and so there are countless startups and researchers...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Lunar Cycle and Suicide Does the lunar cycle affect human behavior? This seems to be a question that refuses to die, no...
a year ago
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a year ago
Does the lunar cycle affect human behavior? This seems to be a question that refuses to die, no matter how hard it is to confirm any actual effect. It’s now a cultural idea, deeply embedded and not going anywhere. A recent study, however, seems to show a correlation between...
NeuroLogica Blog
Neuralink Implants Chip in Human Elon Musk has announced that his company, Neuralink, has implanted their first wireless computer...
12 months ago
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12 months ago
Elon Musk has announced that his company, Neuralink, has implanted their first wireless computer chip into a human. The chip, which they plan on calling Telepathy (not sure how I feel about that) connects with 64 thin hair-like electrodes, is battery powered and can be recharged...
NeuroLogica Blog
Will Hydrogen BEV Hybrids Be A Thing? I recently recorded a YouTube video on the notion of hydrogen fuel cell cars (it will be posted...
a year ago
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a year ago
I recently recorded a YouTube video on the notion of hydrogen fuel cell cars (it will be posted soon, and I will add the link when it’s up). One question I did not get into in the video, but which is an interesting thought experiment, is hydrogen – plug-in battery hybrid...
NeuroLogica Blog
Washington Post on Past Lives Generally speaking the mainstream media does a terrible job of reporting anything in the realm of...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Generally speaking the mainstream media does a terrible job of reporting anything in the realm of pseudoscience or the paranormal. The Washington Post’s recent article on children who apparently remember their past lives is no exception. Journalists generally don’t have the...
NeuroLogica Blog
BBC Gets Into UFOs Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become fascinated with a topic, but eventually the novelty will wear thin and interest will fade. But the flame will be kept alive by the hardcore believers. Wait long enough, and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Havana Syndrome Revisited Last month I wrote about Havana Syndrome, the claim that a number of American and Canadian diplomats...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Last month I wrote about Havana Syndrome, the claim that a number of American and Canadian diplomats and military personnel were the targets of some sort of directed energy weapon attack causing symptoms of headache, disorientation, nausea, and sometimes associated with an...
NeuroLogica Blog
Bill Gates Backs Nuclear No one ever said that nuclear power is simple or easy. It’s a tricky and expensive technology. But...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
No one ever said that nuclear power is simple or easy. It’s a tricky and expensive technology. But it also has tremendous potential to create large amounts of reliable green low carbon energy, and many believe that we cannot ignore this potential if we are going to tackle climate...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Platform for Timed Drug Release This is one of those technologies that most people probably never think about, but could potentially...
a year ago
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a year ago
This is one of those technologies that most people probably never think about, but could potentially have a significant impact on our lives – timed drug release. The concept is nothing new, but there is a lot of room for improvement on current technologies. We already have...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Generation of Electric Robots Boston Dynamics (now owned by Hyundai) has revealed its electric version of its Atlas robot. These...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Boston Dynamics (now owned by Hyundai) has revealed its electric version of its Atlas robot. These robot videos always look impressive, but at the very least we know that we are seeing the best take. We don’t know how many times the robot failed to get the one great video. There...
NeuroLogica Blog
Weaponized Pedantry and Reverse Gish Gallop Have you ever been in a discussion where the person with whom you disagree dismisses your position...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Have you ever been in a discussion where the person with whom you disagree dismisses your position because you got some tiny detail wrong or didn’t know the tiny detail? This is a common debating technique. For example, opponents of gun safety regulations will often use the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Unifying Cognitive Biases Are you familiar with the “lumper vs splitter” debate? This refers to any situation in which there...
a year ago
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a year ago
Are you familiar with the “lumper vs splitter” debate? This refers to any situation in which there is some controversy over exactly how to categorize complex phenomena, specifically whether or not to favor the fewest categories based on similarities, or the greatest number of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is the AI Singularity Coming? Like it or not, we are living in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Recent advances in large...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
Like it or not, we are living in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Recent advances in large language models, like ChatGPT, have helped put advanced AI in the hands of the average person, who now has a much better sense of how powerful these AI applications can be (and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Non-Invasive Deep Brain Stimulation We are rapidly entering the era of neuromodulation – using electrical and magnetic fields in order...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
We are rapidly entering the era of neuromodulation – using electrical and magnetic fields in order to increase or decrease the activity of specific regions and circuits in the brain. Such treatments are already shown to be effective in treating some Parkinson’s symptoms,...
NeuroLogica Blog
UFOs and SGU on John Oliver The most recent episode of John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, featured a discussion of the UFO...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
The most recent episode of John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, featured a discussion of the UFO phenomenon. I’m always interested, and often disappointed, in how the mainstream media portrays skeptical topics. One interesting addition here is that Oliver actually referenced an SGU...
NeuroLogica Blog
Concrete Battery I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about concrete, or potential version of concrete that is able to function as a battery. If we can get the technology to work this could an extremely useful item for a future of green...
NeuroLogica Blog
Trust in New Technology In an optimally rational person, what should govern their perception of risk? Of course, people are...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
In an optimally rational person, what should govern their perception of risk? Of course, people are generally not “optimally rational”. It’s therefore an interesting thought experiment – what would be optimal, and how does that differ from how people actually assess risk? Risk is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Man Gets Pig Kidney Transplant On March 16 surgeons transplanted a kidney taken from a pig into a human recipient, Rick Slayman. So...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
On March 16 surgeons transplanted a kidney taken from a pig into a human recipient, Rick Slayman. So far the transplant is a success, but of course the real test will be how well the kidney functions and for how long. This is the first time such a transplant has been done into a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Boeing Starliner Launches Soon If all goes well, Boeing’s Starliner capsule will launch on Monday May 6th with two crew members...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
If all goes well, Boeing’s Starliner capsule will launch on Monday May 6th with two crew members aboard, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will be spending a week aboard the ISS. This is the last (hopefully) test of the new capsule, and if successful it will become officially...
NeuroLogica Blog
Light and Distance in an Expanding Universe Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Commenter Lal asks in the topic suggestions: “Media reports that light has been travelling from that distant galaxy for 13 and a half billion years, which I assume is true, but this neither represents the original nor the current distance to that galaxy in terms of light years. I...
NeuroLogica Blog
Moon Spacesuit Prototype Unveiled Good spacesuits are deceptively difficult to design, even with today’s technology. NASA is planning...
a year ago
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a year ago
Good spacesuits are deceptively difficult to design, even with today’s technology. NASA is planning to return to the moon in 2025 (if all goes well) but the spacesuit the astronauts will wear is one piece to the puzzle they have not completed yet (the other being the lunar...
NeuroLogica Blog
Intuitive and Analytical Thinking Here is a relatively simple math problem:  A bat and a ball cost $1.10 combined. The bat costs $1...
a year ago
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a year ago
Here is a relatively simple math problem:  A bat and a ball cost $1.10 combined. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? (I will provide the answer below the fold.) This problem is the basis of a large psychological literature on thinking systems in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Eclipse 2024 I am currently in Dallas Texas waiting to see, hopefully, the 2024 total solar eclipse. This would...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
I am currently in Dallas Texas waiting to see, hopefully, the 2024 total solar eclipse. This would be my first total eclipse, and everything I have heard indicates that it is an incredible experience. Unfortunately, the weather calls for some clouds, although forecasts have been...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Battery News I have been following battery technology pretty closely, as this is a key technology for the...
a year ago
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a year ago
I have been following battery technology pretty closely, as this is a key technology for the transition to green energy. The most obvious application is in battery electric vehicles (BEVs). The second most obvious application is in grid storage. But also there are all the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Making Fuel from Sunshine When it comes to big problems it’s generally a good idea to remember some basic principles. One is...
a year ago
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a year ago
When it comes to big problems it’s generally a good idea to remember some basic principles. One is that there is no free lunch. This is a cliche because it’s true. Another way to put this is – there are no solutions, only trade offs. Sometimes there is a genuine advance that does...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Type of Black Hole Discovered ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not...
a year ago
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a year ago
ESA’s Gaia orbital telescope has recently discovered two new black holes. This, in itself, is not surprising, as that is Gaia’s mission – to precisely map the three-dimensional position of two billion objects in our galaxy, using three separate instruments. The process is called...
NeuroLogica Blog
Harvesting Energy from Water Vapor I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about...
a year ago
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a year ago
I did not plan to write yet another post about energy, but this popped up and I had to write about it. UMASS researchers have produced a device that generates electricity by harvesting charge from water vapor. They write: The common feature of these materials is that they are...
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence Suggests Lunar Cave Astronomers have discovered multiple “pits” on the surface of the moon – these look superficially...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
Astronomers have discovered multiple “pits” on the surface of the moon – these look superficially like craters, but on closer inspection are actually vertical pits. There has been considerable speculation that these pits might be cave openings. Now, an analysis of data from the...
NeuroLogica Blog
What to Make of Havana Syndrome I have not written before about Havana Syndrome, mostly because I have not been able to come to any...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
I have not written before about Havana Syndrome, mostly because I have not been able to come to any strong conclusions about it. In 2016 there was a cluster of strange neurological symptoms among people working at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba. They would suddenly experience...
NeuroLogica Blog
Evolution and Copy-Paste Errors Evolution deniers (I know there is a spectrum, but generally speaking) are terrible scientists and...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Evolution deniers (I know there is a spectrum, but generally speaking) are terrible scientists and logicians. The obvious reason is because they are committing the primary mortal sin of pseudoscience – working backwards from a desired conclusion rather than following evidence and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Thoughts on Aging If either of the two presumptive nominees for the major political parties in the US are elected in...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
If either of the two presumptive nominees for the major political parties in the US are elected in November they will be the oldest person ever to be inaugerated as president. What implications does this have? As a neurologist who sees patients every workday of various ages,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Clickbait and Misinformation Which is worse – clickbaity headlines for news articles that are factually correct, but may be...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Which is worse – clickbaity headlines for news articles that are factually correct, but may be playing up a sensational angle, or straight-up misinformation? It depends on what you mean by “worse”. A new study tries to address this information, with some interesting findings....
NeuroLogica Blog
Everything Will Evaporate What will be the ultimate fate of our universe? There are a number of theories and possibilities,...
a year ago
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a year ago
What will be the ultimate fate of our universe? There are a number of theories and possibilities, but at present the most likely scenario seems to be that the universe will continue to expand, most mass will eventually find its way into a black hole, and those black holes will...
NeuroLogica Blog
Being Trans Is Not A Mental Illness On the current episode of the SGU, because it is pride month, we expressed our general support for...
a year ago
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a year ago
On the current episode of the SGU, because it is pride month, we expressed our general support for the LGBTQ community. I also opined about how important it is to respect individual liberty, the freedom to simply live your authentic life as you choose, and how ironic it is that...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Neolithic Revolution What was the greatest invention of human civilization? Arguably it was agriculture, which allowed...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
What was the greatest invention of human civilization? Arguably it was agriculture, which allowed for civilization itself. Prior to agriculture humans were some combination of hunters, gatherers, scavengers, and fishers. We lived off the land, which was a full-time job. Many...
NeuroLogica Blog
T-rex Had Lips One of the challenges of paleontology is that we are trying to infer and entire animal just from the...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the challenges of paleontology is that we are trying to infer and entire animal just from the hard parts that fossilize, mostly bones and teeth (and sometimes just teeth). But if we look at animals today there are a lot of details we could not guess from their bones alone...
NeuroLogica Blog
Understanding Jumbo Phage Viruses Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the most abundant form of life on Earth. And yet we know comparatively little about them. But in recent years phage research has taken off with renewed interest. This is partly driven by the availability of CRISPR-based tools for...
NeuroLogica Blog
Should Tech Companies Be Liable for Content The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is hearing a case that will have profound effects on social media – is...
a year ago
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a year ago
The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is hearing a case that will have profound effects on social media – is Google liable for a terrorist killing? The family of Nohemi Gonzalez is suing Google, because she was shot by an Islamic terrorist in 2015 and the family alleges this act was abetted...
NeuroLogica Blog
UFOs – Has the Narrative Shifted In an interview for Newsweek, Michio Kaku was asked about UFOs. Here’s his response: Well, first of...
a year ago
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a year ago
In an interview for Newsweek, Michio Kaku was asked about UFOs. Here’s his response: Well, first of all, I think that there’s been a game changer. In the old days, the burden of proof was on the true believers to prove that what they saw last night was a flying saucer of some...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Moon Race is On Back in the 1960 there was a race to land people on the Moon between the US and the Soviet Union....
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Back in the 1960 there was a race to land people on the Moon between the US and the Soviet Union. This was very much a part of the cold war, with each country interested in showing off its technical prowess to the world with a technology closely related to that needed to deliver...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part IV Part 4 This will be the final installment of this mini-debate about climate change and health...
a year ago
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a year ago
Part 4 This will be the final installment of this mini-debate about climate change and health effects, following a typical format of each person getting to make a statement and a response. Scott makes a lot of complaints about tone, format and fairness while simultaneously trying...
NeuroLogica Blog
Scammers on the Rise Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume it’s a scam and you will probably be right. Recently I was called on my cell phone by someone claiming to be from Venmo. They asked me to confirm if I had just made two fund...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Role of Plausibility in Science I have been writing blog posts and engaging in science communication long enough that I have a...
a year ago
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a year ago
I have been writing blog posts and engaging in science communication long enough that I have a pretty good sense how much engagement I am going to get from a particular topic. Some topics are simply more divisive than others (although there is an unpredictable element from social...
NeuroLogica Blog
Reconductoring our Electrical Grid Over the weekend when I was in Dallas for the eclipse, I ran into a local businessman who works in...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Over the weekend when I was in Dallas for the eclipse, I ran into a local businessman who works in the energy sector, mainly involved in new solar projects. This is not surprising as Texas is second only to California in solar installation. I asked him if he is experiencing a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Are Animals Conscious? This is a great scientific question because it challenges how we ask and answer scientific...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
This is a great scientific question because it challenges how we ask and answer scientific questions. Are animals conscious? This is a question discussed in a recent BBC article that peaked my interest. They eventually get to a question that they should have opened with – how do...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Potential of AI + CRISPR In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
In my book, which I will now shamelessly promote – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I discuss the incredible potential of information-based technologies. As we increasingly transition to digital technology, we can leverage the increasing power of computer...
NeuroLogica Blog
World Events and the Conspiracy Instinct By now most people have heard that on Saturday there was a failed assassination attempt on candidate...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
By now most people have heard that on Saturday there was a failed assassination attempt on candidate Trump at a rally. While it has only been a few days, preliminary investigation has found that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, using a AR style rifle purchased legally by his...
NeuroLogica Blog
Should You Get a Heat Pump? Starting around 1550 and lasting through the 1600s, England had an energy crisis. They were running...
a year ago
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a year ago
Starting around 1550 and lasting through the 1600s, England had an energy crisis. They were running out of wood, which was the main source of fuel for residential and commercial heating. England also needed a lot of wood for their massive navy – it took about 2,000 trees to build...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Companions – Good or Bad? Often times the answer to a binary question is “yes”. Is artificial intelligence (AI) a powerful and...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
Often times the answer to a binary question is “yes”. Is artificial intelligence (AI) a powerful and quickly advancing tool or is it overhyped? Yes. Are opiates useful medicines or dangerous drugs? Yes. Is Elon Musk a technological visionary or an eccentric opportunist? This is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Choosing our Representatives As we are in an election year in the US, there seems to be only one thing on which there is broad...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
As we are in an election year in the US, there seems to be only one thing on which there is broad agreement – this upcoming election will be consequential. So allow me to share some of my musings about the process of electing our political representatives. Let me start by laying...
NeuroLogica Blog
How Were the Pyramids Built? The Egyptian pyramids, and especially the Pyramids at Giza, have fascinated people probably since...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
The Egyptian pyramids, and especially the Pyramids at Giza, have fascinated people probably since their construction between 4700 and 3700 years ago. They are massive structures, and it boggles the mind that an ancient culture, without the benefit of any industrial technology,...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Hardware Demands of AI I am of the generation that essentially lived through the introduction and evolution of the personal...
a year ago
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a year ago
I am of the generation that essentially lived through the introduction and evolution of the personal computer. I have decades of experience as an active user and enthusiast, so I have been able to notice some patterns. One pattern is the relationship between the power of...
NeuroLogica Blog
England Allows Gene-Edited Crops This has been somewhat of a quiet revolution, but a new law in England may bring it to the...
a year ago
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a year ago
This has been somewhat of a quiet revolution, but a new law in England may bring it to the foreground. The Precision Breeding Act will now allow gene-edited plants to be developed and marketed in England (not Northern Ireland, Wales, or Scotland). The innovation is that the law...
NeuroLogica Blog
Grief Tech In the awesome show, Black Mirror, one episode features a young woman who lost her husband. In her...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
In the awesome show, Black Mirror, one episode features a young woman who lost her husband. In her grief she turns to a company that promises to give her at least a partial experience of her husband. They sift through every picture, video, comment, and other online trace of the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Luminescent Solar Concentrators for Solar Power Solar power is on the upswing. In 2023, 407–446 GW of solar power was installed globally, bringing...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Solar power is on the upswing. In 2023, 407–446 GW of solar power was installed globally, bringing the total to 1.6 TWdc. To put this into perspective, this was 55% of new power capacity added to energy production. For the first time, a renewable energy source contributed the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Woman with Catatonia for Years Wakes After Treatment The story of a woman, in a severe state of catatonia for years and “waking up” after being treated...
a year ago
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a year ago
The story of a woman, in a severe state of catatonia for years and “waking up” after being treated for an autoimmune disease, is making the rounds and deserves a little bit of context. April Burrell was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia resulting in catatonia, and has...
NeuroLogica Blog
GMOs – Ask a Farmer The topic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a great target for science communication...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
The topic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a great target for science communication because public attitudes have largely been shaped by deliberate misinformation, and the research suggests that those attitudes can change in response to more accurate information. It is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Cities on Fire Most major cities in the US experienced a major fire sometime between 1860 and 1920. Actually these...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Most major cities in the US experienced a major fire sometime between 1860 and 1920. Actually these fires, called conflagrations, have been occurring since colonial times and into the middle of the 20th century, but saw a peak in the late 19th and early 20th century. Many cities...
NeuroLogica Blog
Frozen Embryos Are Not People Amid much controversy, the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children. They...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Amid much controversy, the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children. They did not support their decision with compelling logic, with cited precedence (their decision is literally unprecedented), with practical considerations, or with sound ethical...
NeuroLogica Blog
What Happened to the Atmosphere on Mars Of every world known to humans outside the Earth, Mars is likely the most habitable. We have not...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Of every world known to humans outside the Earth, Mars is likely the most habitable. We have not found any genuinely Earth-like exoplanets. They are almost sure to exist, but we just haven’t found any yet. The closest so far is Kepler 452-b, which is a super Earth, specifically...
NeuroLogica Blog
DNA Nanorobot Kill Switch for Cancer How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
How’s that for a provocative title? But it is technically accurate. The title of the paper in question is: “A DNA robotic switch with regulated autonomous display of cytotoxic ligand nanopatterns.” The study is a proof of concept in an animal model, so we are still years away...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI and User Manuals About half of Americans, when asked, report that they don’t read the user manual for new technical...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
About half of Americans, when asked, report that they don’t read the user manual for new technical devices they acquire. Although I suspect that many people are like me – I read them sometimes, and then only partly. If there is a “quick user guide” I will often look at that....
NeuroLogica Blog
Collapsars and Gravitational Waves The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that people like to spread around. Gravitational waves have opened up an entirely new type of astronomy, a way to explore the universe through very subtle ripples in spacetime produce by...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Copilots Are Coming I’m going to do something I rarely do and make a straight-up prediction – I think we are close to...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
I’m going to do something I rarely do and make a straight-up prediction – I think we are close to having AI apps that will function as our all-purpose digital assistants. That’s not really a tough call, we already have digital assistants and they are progressing rapidly. So I am...
NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Robotic Muscles By now we have all seen the impressive robot videos, such as the ones from Boston Dynamics, in which...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
By now we have all seen the impressive robot videos, such as the ones from Boston Dynamics, in which robots show incredible flexibility and agility. These are amazing, but I understand they are a bit like trick-shot videos – we are being shown the ones that worked, which may not...
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence of Ancient Solar Flares From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or...
a year ago
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a year ago
From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or even coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In 1859 a large CME hit Earth (known as the Carrington Event), shorting out telegraphs, brightening the sky, and causing aurora deep into...
NeuroLogica Blog
Reading The Mind with fMRI and AI This is pretty exciting neuroscience news – Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from...
a year ago
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a year ago
This is pretty exciting neuroscience news – Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings. What this means is that researchers have been able to, sort of, decode the words that subjects were thinking of simply by reading their fMRI scan. They...
NeuroLogica Blog
Tesla Demonstrated its Optimus Robot At a recent event Tesla showcased the capabilities of its humanoid autonomous robot, Optimus. The...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
At a recent event Tesla showcased the capabilities of its humanoid autonomous robot, Optimus. The demonstration has come under some criticism, however, for not being fully transparent about the nature of the demonstration. We interviewed robotics expert, Christian Hubicki, on the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Subjective Neurological Experience On the SGU we recently talked about aphantasia, the condition in which some people have a decreased...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
On the SGU we recently talked about aphantasia, the condition in which some people have a decreased or entirely absent ability to imagine things. The term was coined recently, in 2015, by neurologist Adam Zeman, who described the condition of “congenital aphantasia,” that he...
NeuroLogica Blog
Deepfake Doctor Endorsements This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
This kind of abuse of deepfake endorsements was entirely predictable, so it’s not surprising that a recent BMJ study documents the scale of this fraud. The study focused on the UK, detailing instances of deepfakes of celebrity doctors endorsing dubious products. For example,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Latest Gallup Creationism Poll Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
Surveys are always tricky because how you ask a question can have a dramatic impact on how people answer. But it is useful to ask the exact same question over a long period of time, because that can indicate how public attitudes are changing. This is one of the benefits of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Was Jesus a Con Artist? Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Let me start out by saying that I think the answer to that question is no – but this requires lots of clarification. This was, however, the discussion here, while although poorly informed, does raise some interesting questions. This is a Tik Tok video of a popular podcast which...
NeuroLogica Blog
Meteostat-12 Meets Flat Earthers I know this wasn’t the purpose of sending up a €4.3bn satellite into geostationary orbit, but...
a year ago
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a year ago
I know this wasn’t the purpose of sending up a €4.3bn satellite into geostationary orbit, but tweaking flat earthers is a fun side effect. European countries have collaborated on this project, having weather satellites in orbit since 1977. The latest iteration is Meteostat-12,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Let’s Talk About Cement Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Industry is responsible for 23% of carbon emissions, close to the amount of electricity production (25%) and transportation (28%). We talk a lot about transportation and energy, but industrial carbon is a harder nut to crack. Also, the 23% is direct carbon release from industrial...
NeuroLogica Blog
Nuclear Microreactors The first nuclear powered vessel was completed in 1959. Since then there have been nuclear powered...
a year ago
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a year ago
The first nuclear powered vessel was completed in 1959. Since then there have been nuclear powered vessels in the oceans, including many nuclear submarines. The obvious advantage is that is such vessels can stay at see for long periods of time without refueling. These ships use...
NeuroLogica Blog
Student Attitudes Toward AI in the Class Researchers recently published an extensive survey of almost 6,000 students across academic...
a year ago
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a year ago
Researchers recently published an extensive survey of almost 6,000 students across academic institution in Sweden. The results are not surprising, but they do give a snapshot of where we are with the recent introduction of large language model AIs. Most students, 56%, reported...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is AI Sentient – Revisited This happened sooner than I thought. Last June I wrote about Google employee, Blake Lemoine, who...
a year ago
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a year ago
This happened sooner than I thought. Last June I wrote about Google employee, Blake Lemoine, who claimed that the LaMDA  chatbot he was working on was probably sentient. I didn’t buy it then and I still don’t, but Lemoine is not backing away from his claims. In an interview on H3...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is The Boring Company Useful? Elon Musk has a complicated legacy. Most people I encounter who bother to express an opinion tend to...
a year ago
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a year ago
Elon Musk has a complicated legacy. Most people I encounter who bother to express an opinion tend to be either a fan or hater. I am neither. He’s a complicated and flawed person who has accomplished some interesting things, but also has had some epic failures. People like a clean...
NeuroLogica Blog
MOBE – A New Gene Editing System Have you memorized yet what CRISPR stands for – clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Have you memorized yet what CRISPR stands for – clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats? Well, now you can add MOBE to the list – multiplexed orthogonal base editor. Base editors are not new, they are basically enzymes that will change one base – C (cytosine), T...
NeuroLogica Blog
Nadir Crater – A Double Tap for Dinosaurs? It is now generally accepted that 66 million years ago a large asteroid smacked into the Earth,...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
It is now generally accepted that 66 million years ago a large asteroid smacked into the Earth, causing the large Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico. This was a catastrophic event, affecting the entire globe. Fire rained down causing forest fires across much of the globe,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Elizabeth Holmes Going to Prison I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it...
a year ago
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a year ago
I first wrote about the Theranos scandal in 2016, and I guess it should not be surprising that it took 7 years to follow this story through to the end. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the company Theranos, was  convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to 11 years in prison....
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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Factory Farming is Better Than Organic Farming Some narratives are simply ubiquitous in our culture (every culture has its universal narratives)....
a month ago
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a month 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
How Humans Can Adapt to Space My recent article on settling Mars has generated a lot of discussion, some of it around the basic...
a year ago
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a year ago
My recent article on settling Mars has generated a lot of discussion, some of it around the basic concept of how difficult it is for humans to live anywhere but a thin envelope of air hugging the surface of the Earth. This is undoubtedly true, as I have discussed before – we...
NeuroLogica Blog
Solution Aversion Fallacy I like to think deeply about informal logical fallacies. I write about them a lot, and even have an...
a year ago
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a year ago
I like to think deeply about informal logical fallacies. I write about them a lot, and even have an occasional segment of the SGU dedicated to them. They are a great way to crystalize our thinking about the many ways in which logic can go wrong. Formal logic deals with arguments...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fruit Fly Connectome Completed Scientists have just published in Nature that they have completed the entire connectome of a fruit...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Scientists have just published in Nature that they have completed the entire connectome of a fruit fly: Network statistics of the whole-brain connectome of Drosophila. The map includes 140,000 neurons and more than 50 million connections. This is an incredible achievement that...
NeuroLogica Blog
Superconducting Kagome Metals Superconductivity is an extremely interesting, and potentially extremely useful, physical...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Superconductivity is an extremely interesting, and potentially extremely useful, physical phenomenon. It refers to a state in which current flows through a material without resistance, and therefore without any loss of energy or waste heat. As our civilization is increasingly run...
NeuroLogica Blog
Checkup on Climate Change There is good evidence that if you want to lose weight, you need to weigh yourself at least weekly....
a year ago
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a year ago
There is good evidence that if you want to lose weight, you need to weigh yourself at least weekly. You need the constant feedback of the scale to adjust your behavior. This is a good general principle – having outcome feedback to measure the effect of what you are doing so you...
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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Marmosets Call Each Other By Name Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has only been identified in a few other species, dolphins, elephants, and some parrots. Interestingly, it has never been documented in our closest relatives, non-human primates – that...
NeuroLogica Blog
Living a Hybrid Life The cultural effects of the COVID pandemic can still be felt reverberating through society. One of...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
The cultural effects of the COVID pandemic can still be felt reverberating through society. One of the positive effects, in my opinion, was the sudden boost to remote technology – connecting remotely for meetings and other uses through Zoom or a similar application. This...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Physics of Flocks Most people have watched large flocks of birds. They are fascinating, and have interested scientists...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Most people have watched large flocks of birds. They are fascinating, and have interested scientists for a long time. How, exactly, do so many birds maintain their cohesion as a flock? It’s obviously a dynamic process, but what are the mechanisms? When I was young I was taught...
NeuroLogica Blog
Framing and Global Warming When we talk publicly about the effects of human activity on the climate should we refer to “global...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
When we talk publicly about the effects of human activity on the climate should we refer to “global warming”, “climate change”, the “climate crisis” or to “climate justice”? Perhaps we should also be more technical and say specifically, “anthropogenic climate change”. This kind...
NeuroLogica Blog
Will Apple’s Vision Pro Change Anything? For the first time in over a decade, Apple has announced a new product designed to change computing....
a year ago
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a year ago
For the first time in over a decade, Apple has announced a new product designed to change computing. There was the transition to personal computing with the Apple computer, then to portable computing with the iPhone, and now they hope to usher in the transition to virtual...
NeuroLogica Blog
AC vs DC and other Power Questions I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
I was away last week, first at CSICON and then at a conference in Dubai. I was invited to give a 9 hour seminar on scientific skepticism for the Dubai Future Foundation. That sounds like a lot of time, but it isn’t. It was a good reminder of the vast body of knowledge that is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Problems with the Institute Of Noetic Sciences I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of...
a year ago
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a year ago
I was interviewed recently for a Daily Beast article on recent research involving the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Overall the article is very good, and author Maddie Bender was fair and reasonable in how I was quoted. I can’t always take that as a given. No matter how...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Discussion about Biological Sex At CSICON this year I gave talk about topics over which skeptics have and continue to disagree with...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
At CSICON this year I gave talk about topics over which skeptics have and continue to disagree with each other. My core theme was that these are the topics we absolutely should be discussing with each other, especially at skeptical conferences. Nothing should be taboo or too...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Speed of Gravity I recently received an e-mail question from an SGU listener about the speed of gravity. They were...
a year ago
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a year ago
I recently received an e-mail question from an SGU listener about the speed of gravity. They were questioning a statement they heard by Neil DeGrasse Tyson that if the sun were magically plucked from existence, the Earth would not feel the effects for 8 minutes and 20 seconds –...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Gender Boxing Hubub Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at the 2024 Olympics. This has caused a controversy because both boxers, according to reports, have some form of DSD – difference of sex development. This means they have been caught...
NeuroLogica Blog
What Is Orbitronics You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
You have definitely heard of electronics. You may (if you are a tech nerd like me) have heard of spintronics and photonics. Now there is also the possibility of orbitronics. What do these cool-sounding words mean? Electronic technology is one of those core technologies that has...
NeuroLogica Blog
Coal vs Natural Gas In the last 18 years, since 2005, the US has decreased our CO2 emissions due to electricity...
a year ago
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a year ago
In the last 18 years, since 2005, the US has decreased our CO2 emissions due to electricity generation by 32%, 819 million metric tons of CO2 per year. Thirty percent of this decline can be attributed to renewable energy generation. But 65% is attributed to essentially replacing...
NeuroLogica Blog
Decarbonizing Aviation and Agriculture When we talk about reducing carbon release in order to slow down and hopefully stop anthropogenic...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
When we talk about reducing carbon release in order to slow down and hopefully stop anthropogenic global warming much of the focus is on the energy and transportation sectors. There is a good reason for this – the energy sector is responsible for 25% of greenhouse gas (GHG)...
NeuroLogica Blog
Dog Soundboards I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have been. They pick up on subtle body language and non-verbal cues, they seem to understand specific words, and they are capable of successfully communicating their wants and desires....
NeuroLogica Blog
What Is a Grand Conspiracy? Ah, the categorization question again. This is an endless, but much needed, endeavor within human...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
Ah, the categorization question again. This is an endless, but much needed, endeavor within human intellectual activity. We have the need to categorize things, if for no other reason than we need to communicate with each other about them. Often skeptics, like myself, talk about...
NeuroLogica Blog
Living Under the Sea One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of my favorite recent video games is Subnautica, in which you have to survive almost entirely under a vast alien ocean. You have the advantage of advanced technology, but even then you are under constant threat of running out of oxygen, or having your habitat implode because...
NeuroLogica Blog
Robots and a Sense of Self Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption)...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Humans (assuming you all experience roughly what I experience, which is a reasonable assumption) have a sense of self. This sense has several components – we feel as if we occupy our physical bodies, that our bodies are distinct entities separate from the rest of the universe,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Science Communication About Controversial Issues The world of science communication has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and it’s...
2 months ago
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2 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
How Much Carbon do Living Things Store? Since we are in a “all hands on deck” situation when it comes to climate change, we need to take a...
a year ago
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a year ago
Since we are in a “all hands on deck” situation when it comes to climate change, we need to take a look at all potential strategies for delaying and blunting global warming. The game at this point is all about peak warming – how much will the Earth warm before temperatures peak...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Clipper Europa Mission I wrote earlier this week about the latest successful test of Starship and the capture of the Super...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
I wrote earlier this week about the latest successful test of Starship and the capture of the Super Heavy booster by grabbing arms of the landing tower. This was quite a feat, but it should not eclipse what was perhaps even bigger space news this week – the launch of NASAs...
NeuroLogica Blog
Electronic Noses I am always sniffing around (pun intended) for new and interesting technology, especially anything...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
I am always sniffing around (pun intended) for new and interesting technology, especially anything that I think is currently flying under the radar of public awareness but has the potential to transform our world in some way. I think electronic nose technology fits into this...
NeuroLogica Blog
Roleplaying Games May Help Autistic People Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic people“. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game where a small group of people each play characters adventuring in an imaginary world run by the dungeon master (DM)....
NeuroLogica Blog
AI-Fueled Scams Digital life is getting more dangerous.  Literally every day I have to fend off attempts at scamming...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Digital life is getting more dangerous.  Literally every day I have to fend off attempts at scamming me in one way or another. I get texts trying to lure me into responding. I get e-mails hoping I will click a malicious link on a reflex. I get phone calls from people warning me...
NeuroLogica Blog
Ripples in Spacetime It’s always exciting when a scientific institution announces that they are going to make an...
a year ago
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a year ago
It’s always exciting when a scientific institution announces that they are going to make an announcement. Earlier this week we were told that there was going to be a major announcement today (June 29th) regarding a gravitational wave discovery. The goal of the pre-announcement is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Accusation of Mental Illness as a Political Strategy I am not the first to say this but it bears repeating – it is wrong to use the accusation of a...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
I am not the first to say this but it bears repeating – it is wrong to use the accusation of a mental illness as a political strategy. It is unfair, stigmatizing, and dismissive. Thomas Szasz (let me say straight up – I am not a Szaszian) was a psychiatrist who made it his...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Climate Change Trends and Thoughts Climate change is a challenging issue on multiple levels – it’s challenging for scientists to...
a month ago
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a month 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Confidently Wrong How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
How certain are you of anything that you believe? Do you even think about your confidence level, and do you have a process for determining what your confidence level should be or do you just follow your gut feelings? Thinking about confidence is a form of metacognition – thinking...
NeuroLogica Blog
Diamond Batteries Again Why does news reporting of science and technology have to be so terrible at baseline? I know the...
a month ago
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a month ago
Why does news reporting of science and technology have to be so terrible at baseline? I know the answers to this question – lack of expertise, lack of a business model to support dedicated science news infrastructure, the desire for click-bait and sensationalism – but it is still...
NeuroLogica Blog
Flooding is Increasing Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm was intense enough to cause flash flooding, which washed out roads and bridges and shut down traffic in many areas. The epicenter of the rainfall was in Oxford, CT (where my...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI As Legal Entities Should an artificial intelligence (AI) be treated like a legal “subject” or agent? That is the...
a year ago
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a year ago
Should an artificial intelligence (AI) be treated like a legal “subject” or agent? That is the question discussed in a new paper by legal scholars. They recognize that this question is a bit ahead of the technology, but argue that we should work out the legal ramifications before...
NeuroLogica Blog
Podcast Pseudoscience A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for...
a month ago
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a month 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Coaching with Empathy The show Ted Lasso is about to wrap up its final season. I am one of the many people who really...
a year ago
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a year ago
The show Ted Lasso is about to wrap up its final season. I am one of the many people who really enjoy the show, which turns on a group of likable people helping each other through various life challenges with care and empathy. Lasso is an American college football coach who was...
NeuroLogica Blog
UK Building More Nuclear The nuclear debate seems never-ending, which I guess is to be expected. Every large technology has...
a year ago
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a year ago
The nuclear debate seems never-ending, which I guess is to be expected. Every large technology has tradeoffs. But the need to transition our energy infrastructure to carbon neutral has shifted the equation, and it is now arguable that we cannot afford to ignore the option of...
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,...
a month ago
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a month 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part I This is the first entry in an exchange between me and Scott Hastings, who requested the exchange....
a year ago
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a year ago
This is the first entry in an exchange between me and Scott Hastings, who requested the exchange. This is his opening arguments. My response will be tomorrow’s post.   Part I: Hi Steven, first of all, I am tremendously grateful to you for taking time to engage with me on this...
NeuroLogica Blog
Latest Starship Launch SpaceX has conducted their most successful test launch of a Starship system to date. The system they...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
SpaceX has conducted their most successful test launch of a Starship system to date. The system they tested has three basic components – the Super Heavy first stage rocket booster, the Starship second stage (which is the actual space ship that will go places), and the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Biofrequency Gadgets are a Total Scam I was recently asked what I thought about the Solex AO Scan. The website for the product includes...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
I was recently asked what I thought about the Solex AO Scan. The website for the product includes this claim: AO Scan Technology by Solex is an elegant, yet simple-to-use frequency technology based on Tesla, Einstein, and other prominent scientists’ discoveries. It uses delicate...
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printing Superalloys This is a cool material science development that nicely illustrates recent technological...
a year ago
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a year ago
This is a cool material science development that nicely illustrates recent technological advancements. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have created a superalloy using additive manufacturing (3D printing). That may not sound that impressive at first, but consider the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Flow Batteries – Now With Nanofluids Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable incremental increase in energy density, charging time, stability, and lifecycle. We now have lithium-ion batteries with a specific energy of 296 Wh/kg – these are in use in existing...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Circular CO2 Economy Big picture time – as I have discussed before, we have just passed 8 billion people on this planet...
a year ago
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a year ago
Big picture time – as I have discussed before, we have just passed 8 billion people on this planet and will likely top 10 billion before populations stabilize (which is quite possible, but that’s another story).  What this means is that anything we collectively do is big. It...
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...
a month ago
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a month 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Mach Effect Thrusters Fail When thinking about potential future technology, one way to divide possible future tech is into...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
When thinking about potential future technology, one way to divide possible future tech is into probable and speculative. Probable future technology involves extrapolating existing technology into the future, such as imaging what advanced computers might be like. This category...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Designed Drugs On a recent SGU live streaming discussion someone in the chat asked – aren’t frivolous AI...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
On a recent SGU live streaming discussion someone in the chat asked – aren’t frivolous AI applications just toys without any useful output? The question was meant to downplay recent advances in generative AI. I pointed out that the question is a bit circular – aren’t frivolous...
NeuroLogica Blog
Germany and Nuclear Power Germany has been thrown around a lot as an example of both what to do and what not to do in terms of...
a year ago
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a year ago
Germany has been thrown around a lot as an example of both what to do and what not to do in terms of addressing global warming by embracing green energy technology. It’s possible to look back now and review the numbers, to see what the effect was of its decision to embrace...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Experience Machine Thought Experiment In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
In 1974 Robert Nozick published the book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he posed the following thought experiment: If you could be plugged into an “experience machine” (what we would likely call today a virtual reality or “Matrix”) that could perfectly replicate real-life...
NeuroLogica Blog
Anxiety Biomarkers Psychiatry, psychology, and all aspects of mental health are a challenging area because the clinical...
a year ago
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a year ago
Psychiatry, psychology, and all aspects of mental health are a challenging area because the clinical entities we are dealing with are complex and mostly subjective. Diagnoses are perhaps best understood as clinical constructs – a way of identifying and understanding a mental...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is AI Sentient Revisited On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s...
a year ago
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a year ago
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s LaMDA may be sentient, based on his interactions with it. This was a fascinating discussion, and even though I think we did a pretty deep dive in the time we had, it also felt...
NeuroLogica Blog
Virtual Walking When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
When I use my virtual reality gear I do practical zero virtual walking – meaning that I don’t have my avatar walk while I am not walking. I general play standing up which means I can move around the space in my office mapped by my VR software – so I am physically walking to...
NeuroLogica Blog
Wood Vaulting for Carbon Sequestration I can’t resist a good science story involving technology that we can possibly use to stabilize our...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
I can’t resist a good science story involving technology that we can possibly use to stabilize our climate in the face of anthropogenic global warming. This one is a fun story and an interesting, and potentially useful, idea. As we map out potential carbon pathways into the...
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 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
How close are we to having fusion reactors actually sending electric power to the grid? This is a huge and complicated question, and one with massive implications for our civilization. I think we are still at the point where we cannot count on fusion reactors coming online...
NeuroLogica Blog
Climate Sensitivity and Confirmation Bias I love to follow kerfuffles between different experts and deep thinkers. It’s great for revealing...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
I love to follow kerfuffles between different experts and deep thinkers. It’s great for revealing the subtleties of logic, science, and evidence. Recently there has been an interesting online exchange between a physicists science communicator (Sabine Hossenfelder) and some...
NeuroLogica Blog
Energy Demand Increasing For the last two decades electricity demand in the US has been fairly flat. While it has been...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
For the last two decades electricity demand in the US has been fairly flat. While it has been increasing overall, the increase has been very low. This has been largely attributed to the fact that as the use of electrical devices has increased, the efficiency of those devices has...
NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Diamond Boom The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us...
a year ago
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a year ago
The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us something about a post-scarcity world. Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. However, it like to form with other elements and therefore it was very difficulty to...
NeuroLogica Blog
Another UFO Whistleblower How seriously should we take the claims of David Grusch? He is an airforce veteran and former member...
a year ago
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a year ago
How seriously should we take the claims of David Grusch? He is an airforce veteran and former member of the UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) task force, which is enough to at least hear him out. He gave an exclusive interview to journalist Ross Coulthart from NewsNation, part...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using CRISPR To Treat HIV CRISPR has been big scientific news since it was introduced in 2012. The science actually goes back...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
CRISPR has been big scientific news since it was introduced in 2012. The science actually goes back to 1987, but the CRISPR/Cas9 system was patented in 2012, and the developers won the Noble Prize in Chemistry in 2020. The system gives researchers the ability to quickly and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Pentagon Report – No UFOs In response to a recent surge in interest in alien phenomena and claims that the US government is...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
In response to a recent surge in interest in alien phenomena and claims that the US government is hiding what it knows about extraterrestrials, the Pentagon established a committee to investigate the question – the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). They have recently...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is Music Getting Simpler I don’t think I know anyone personally who doesn’t have strong opinions about music – which genres...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
I don’t think I know anyone personally who doesn’t have strong opinions about music – which genres they like, and how the quality of music may have changed over time. My own sense is that music as a cultural phenomenon is incredibly complex, no one (in my social group) really...
NeuroLogica Blog
Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Ready for Testing It was six years ago that I first wrote about NASA’s X-59 QueSST project, contracted to Lockheed...
a year ago
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a year ago
It was six years ago that I first wrote about NASA’s X-59 QueSST project, contracted to Lockheed Martin. Now the plane has finally been built and is ready for testing. At the time it was reported that NASA “had a design” for a quiet supersonic jet, one that would not create a...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part III Part 3 Hi Steve, and thank you for your timely response, and for even considering hosting this...
a year ago
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a year ago
Part 3 Hi Steve, and thank you for your timely response, and for even considering hosting this debate. There has been, and continues to be a “blackout” on almost all discussion regarding the science behind climate change. If “The science” is truly “settled”, it is a pretty shaky...
NeuroLogica Blog
Why Do Species Evolve to Get Bigger or Smaller Have you heard of Cope’s Rule or Foster’s Rule? American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope first...
a year ago
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a year ago
Have you heard of Cope’s Rule or Foster’s Rule? American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope first noticed a trend in the fossil record that certain animal lineages tend to get bigger over evolutionary time. Most famously this was noticed in the horse lineage, beginning with small...
NeuroLogica Blog
Multipurpose Superconducting Highway When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very...
a year ago
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a year ago
When it comes to technology (and also probably many things) there is a pyramid of ideas. At the very bottom of the pyramid is pure speculation, just throwing out “what if” ideas to feed the conceptual pipeline. A subset of these ideas will pass the sniff test enough to justify...
NeuroLogica Blog
Spider-Man’s Web Shooter I have to admit that my favorite superhero as a kid, and still today, is Spider-Man (and yes, that’s...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
I have to admit that my favorite superhero as a kid, and still today, is Spider-Man (and yes, that’s the correct spelling). There are a number of narrative reasons for this that I grew to appreciate more as I aged. First, Spider-Man is in the sweet spot of super abilities – he is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Magnetohydrodynamic Drive – Silent Water Propulsion DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now working on developing a...
a year ago
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a year ago
DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now working on developing a magnet-driven silent water propulsion system – the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) drive. The primary reason is to develop silent military naval craft. Imagine a nuclear submarine with an MHD drive,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Deep Sea Mining for Minerals Could Harm Environment It is an unfortunate reality that with over 8 billion people on the planet almost anything we...
a year ago
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a year ago
It is an unfortunate reality that with over 8 billion people on the planet almost anything we collectively do has the potential to have huge environmental impacts. When the human population was in the mere millions we could treat the planet as an essentially unlimited resource....
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Plants as Biofactories When you think about it, plants are self-reproducing solar-powered biological factories. They are...
a year ago
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a year ago
When you think about it, plants are self-reproducing solar-powered biological factories. They are powered by the sun, extract raw material from the air and soil, and make all sorts of useful molecules. Mostly we use them to make edible molecules (food), but also to make textiles,...
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printed Rocket Launches This is one of those technology news stories where the implications of the technology is greater...
a year ago
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a year ago
This is one of those technology news stories where the implications of the technology is greater than the thing itself. Relativity Space, a rocket company based in California, launched their first Terran-1 rocket. The launch ultimately failed when the second stage failed to...
NeuroLogica Blog
Carbon Fiber Structural Battery I have written previously about the concept of structural batteries, such as this recent post on a...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
I have written previously about the concept of structural batteries, such as this recent post on a concrete battery. The basic idea is a battery made out of material that is strong enough that it can bare a load. Essentially we’re asking the material to do two things at once – be...
NeuroLogica Blog
Big Ring Challenges Cosmological Principle University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) PhD student Alexia Lopez, who two years ago discovered a...
a year ago
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a year ago
University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) PhD student Alexia Lopez, who two years ago discovered a giant arc of galaxy clusters in the distant universe, has now discovered a Big Ring. This (if real) is one of the largest structures in the observable universe at 1.3 billion light...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Video Recently OpenAI launched a website showcasing their latest AI application, Sora. This app, based on...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Recently OpenAI launched a website showcasing their latest AI application, Sora. This app, based on prompts similar to what you would use for ChatGPT or the image creation applications, like Midjourney or Dalle-2, creates a one minute photorealistic video without sound. Take a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI and Social Media to Measure Climate Change Denial A recent study finds that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in global climate change. This number is...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
A recent study finds that 14.8% of Americans do not believe in global climate change. This number is roughly in line with what recent survey have found, such as this 2024 Yale study which put the figure at 16%. In 2009, by comparison, the figure was at 33% (although this was a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Pledge to Triple Nuclear by 2050 It’s interesting that there isn’t much discussion about this in the mainstream media, but the Biden...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
It’s interesting that there isn’t much discussion about this in the mainstream media, but the Biden administration recently pledged to triple US nuclear power capacity by 2050. At COP28 last year the US was among 25 signatories who also pledged to triple world nuclear power...
NeuroLogica Blog
Dwarf Planet Ring Mystery Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence...
a year ago
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a year ago
Scientists love mysteries, because that is where new discoveries lay. It is nice to find evidence consistent with existing theories, providing further confirmation, but it’s exciting to find evidence that cannot be explained with existing theories. Astronomers may have found such...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI – Is It Time to Panic? I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential...
a year ago
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a year ago
I’m really excited about the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and their potential as powerful tools. I am also concerned about unintended consequences. As with any really powerful tool, there is the potential for abuse and also disruption. But I also think that...
NeuroLogica Blog
911 Conspiracy Theories Persist On September 11, 2001, as part of a planned terrorist attack, commercial planes were hijacked and...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
On September 11, 2001, as part of a planned terrorist attack, commercial planes were hijacked and flown into each of the two towers at the World Trade Center in New York. A third plane was flown into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed after the passengers fought back. This, of...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Asteroid Probably Won’t Hit Earth NASA recently discovered a 50 meter wide asteroid whose orbit will come close to Earth. They...
a year ago
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a year ago
NASA recently discovered a 50 meter wide asteroid whose orbit will come close to Earth. They estimate a close approach in 2046, which will likely bring the asteroid within 1.1 million miles of the Earth, about four times the distance of the moon. However, there is always...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Debate Regarding Health Effects – Part II Yesterday’s post was the first in an exchange about the effects of climate change on public health....
a year ago
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a year ago
Yesterday’s post was the first in an exchange about the effects of climate change on public health. Today’s post is my response. Part II Climate change is a critically important topic for society today, and it’s important that the public have a working knowledge of the facts,...
NeuroLogica Blog
3D Printing With Metallic Gel One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the futuristic technologies that I find most promising is 3D printing (additive manufacturing). 3D printing has already created a revolution in manufacturing, but I think the general public does not have a high awareness of this technology because it is not yet at the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Managing Plastic Waste The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
The world produces 350-400 million metric tons of plastic waste. Less than 10% of this waste is recycled, while 25% is mismanaged or littered. About 1.7 million tons ends up in the ocean. This is not sustainable, but whose responsibility is it to deal with this issue? The debate...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Social Media Dilemma Australia is planning a total ban on social media for children under 16 years old. Prime Minister...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Australia is planning a total ban on social media for children under 16 years old. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese argues that it is the only way to protect vulnerable children from the demonstrable harm that social media can do. This has sparked another round of debates about...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using AI for Neuroforecasting I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies...
a year ago
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a year ago
I’ve been following AI (artificial intelligence) news very closely, including all the controversies and concerns. I tend to fall on the side of – AI is a powerful tool, we should continue to develop it and use it responsibly. We don’t need to panic, and highly restrictive laws...
NeuroLogica Blog
AI Humor It’s been less than two years (November 2022) since ChatGPT launched. In some ways the new large...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
It’s been less than two years (November 2022) since ChatGPT launched. In some ways the new large language model (LLM) type of artificial intelligence (AI) applications have been on the steep part of the improvement curve. And yet, they are still LLMs with the same limitations. In...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fake Fossils In 1931 a fossil lizard was recovered from the Italian Alps, believed to be a 280 million year old...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
In 1931 a fossil lizard was recovered from the Italian Alps, believed to be a 280 million year old specimen. The fossil was also rare in that it appeared to have some preserved soft tissue. It was given the species designation Tridentinosaurus antiquus and was thought to be part...
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on Quantum Computers There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still...
a year ago
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a year ago
There has been a lot of quantum computer news since I last wrote about the topic. But this is still a technology that is slowly advancing in the background, while actual applications have been limited. There is a threshold effect at play – at some point, quantum computers will be...
NeuroLogica Blog
Apologizing for Uri Geller A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed...
a year ago
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a year ago
A recent New York Times article tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Uri Geller, famed spoon-bending magician, by simply telling a one-sided narrative. From my perspective as a skeptic, this was a terrible article that missed the real issue, glossed over glaring defects in...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Climate Rebuttal The climate change discussion would benefit most from good-faith evidence and science-based...
a year ago
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a year ago
The climate change discussion would benefit most from good-faith evidence and science-based discussion. Unfortunately, humans tend to prefer emotion, ideology, motivated reasoning, and confirmation bias. As an example, I was sent an excerpt from a climate change podcast as a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Regret After Transitioning In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was...
a year ago
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a year ago
In my last post I noted that even mentioning general vague support for the LGBTQ community was enough to trigger very specific feedback, often making erroneous scientific claims. Each claim requires a deep dive and article-length discussion. Even though the discussion that...
NeuroLogica Blog
Serial Dependence Bias As I have discussed numerous times on this blog, our brains did not evolve to be optimal precise...
a year ago
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a year ago
As I have discussed numerous times on this blog, our brains did not evolve to be optimal precise perceivers and processors of information. Here is an infographic showing 188 documents cognitive biases. These biases are not all bad – they are tradeoffs. Evolutionary forces care...
NeuroLogica Blog
Building A Robotic Hand Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of...
a year ago
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a year ago
Roboticists are often engaged in a process of reinventing the wheel – duplicating the function of biological bodies in rubber, metal, and plastic. This is a difficult task because biological organisms are often wondrous machines. The human hand, in particular, is a feat of...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Future of (Unpaid) Work If we think of the top inventions that had a positive impact on human society and our quality of...
a year ago
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a year ago
If we think of the top inventions that had a positive impact on human society and our quality of life most lists would contain things like the printing press, the wheel, or the computer. One invention that should be on everyone’s list but is easy to overlook is – the washing...
NeuroLogica Blog
Starship Explodes in Successful Launch A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The...
a year ago
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a year ago
A common joke in the medical world is, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” The irony comes from how we might define “success”. On April 20th SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of the fully assembled Starship, including a Starship rocket on top of a super heavy...
NeuroLogica Blog
2023 Hottest Year on Record What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we...
a year ago
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a year ago
What everyone knew was coming is now official – 2023 was the warmest year on record. This means we can also say that the last 10 years are the hottest decade on record. 2023 dethrones 2016 as the previous warmest year and bumps 2010 out of the top 10. Further, in the last half of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Odysseus Lands on the Moon December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 soft landed on the lunar surface, carrying astronauts Gene Cernan and...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 soft landed on the lunar surface, carrying astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. This was the last time anything American soft landed on the moon, over 50 years ago. It seems amazing that it’s been that long. On February 22, 2024, the Odysseus...
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
a year ago
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a year ago
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional wisdom, but I’m not so sure. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted that AI would “make paid work redundant.” I encountered the same opinion watching the latest season of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Titan Disaster and Risk vs Benefit There has been a lot of discussion regarding the recent disaster of the Titan submersible. Was the...
a year ago
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a year ago
There has been a lot of discussion regarding the recent disaster of the Titan submersible. Was the risk justified? Who should be responsible for the safety issues? Who should be on the hook for the millions of dollars the rescue effort took? And why did this tragedy garner more...
NeuroLogica Blog
ChatGPT Almost Passes Medical Licensure Exams The emergence of several AI applications for public use, such as Dalle-2, Midjourney, and ChatGPT,...
a year ago
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a year ago
The emergence of several AI applications for public use, such as Dalle-2, Midjourney, and ChatGPT, had made AI one of the biggest science news items of the past year. I have written about it here extensively myself, and have been using these applications extensively to get a feel...
NeuroLogica Blog
RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, and Vaccines RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will...
a year ago
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a year ago
RFK Jr., who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is anti-vaccine. He will vehemently deny this, but I don’t buy it for a second. He is simply playing the, “I’m not anti-vaccine, I am pro-safe vaccine” gambit, which is disingenuous and always has been. We...
NeuroLogica Blog
JET Fusion Experiment Sets New Record Don’t get excited. It’s always nice to see incremental progress being made with the various fusion...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Don’t get excited. It’s always nice to see incremental progress being made with the various fusion experiments happening around the world, but we are still a long way off from commercial fusion power, and this experiment doesn’t really bring us any close, despite the headlines....
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on AI Art It’s been a while since I discussed artificial intelligence (AI) generated art here. What I have...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
It’s been a while since I discussed artificial intelligence (AI) generated art here. What I have said in the past is that AI art appears a bit soulless and there are details it has difficulty creating without bizarre distortions (hands are particularly difficult). But I also...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hybrid Biopolymer Transistors – Implications for Brain Machine Interface There are several technologies which seem likely to be transformative in the coming decades. Genetic...
a year ago
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a year ago
There are several technologies which seem likely to be transformative in the coming decades. Genetic bioengineering gives us the ability to control the basic machinery of life, including ourselves. Artificial intelligence is a suite of active, learning, information tools....
NeuroLogica Blog
It’s Not Possible – Until Suddenly It Is There are a couple of recent stories that remind me that perhaps the most powerful thing in the...
a year ago
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a year ago
There are a couple of recent stories that remind me that perhaps the most powerful thing in the world is political will. Often politicians and motivational speakers will say something along the lines of, “We can do anything, if we put our minds to it.” While this sounds like...
NeuroLogica Blog
Immune Cells to Fight Cancer There is a recent medical advance that you may not have heard about unless you are a healthcare...
a year ago
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a year ago
There is a recent medical advance that you may not have heard about unless you are a healthcare professional or encountered it from the patient side – CAR-T cell therapy. A recent study shows the potential for continued incremental advance of this technology, but already it is a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence and the Nanny State One side benefit of our federalist system is that the US essentially has 50 experiments in...
a year ago
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a year ago
One side benefit of our federalist system is that the US essentially has 50 experiments in democracy. States hold a lot of power, which provides an opportunity to compare the effects of different public policies. There are lots of other variables at play, such as economics, rural...
NeuroLogica Blog
Controlling the Narrative with AI There is an ongoing battle in our society to control the narrative, to influence the flow of...
12 months ago
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12 months ago
There is an ongoing battle in our society to control the narrative, to influence the flow of information, and thereby move the needle on what people think and how they behave. This is nothing new, but the mechanisms for controlling the narrative are evolving as our communication...
NeuroLogica Blog
How To Prove Prevention Works Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Thank you, dear. Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. Homer: Oh, how does it work? Lisa: It doesn’t work. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa:...
NeuroLogica Blog
DNA Directed Assembly of Nanomaterials Arguably the type of advance that has the greatest impact on technology is material science....
a year ago
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a year ago
Arguably the type of advance that has the greatest impact on technology is material science. Technology can advance by doing more with the materials we have, but new materials can change the game entirely. It is no coincidence that we mark different technological ages by the...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Exoplanet Radius Gap As of this writing, there are 5,573 confirmed exoplanets in 4,146 planetary systems. That is enough...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
As of this writing, there are 5,573 confirmed exoplanets in 4,146 planetary systems. That is enough exoplanets, planets around stars other than our own sun, that we can do some statistics to describe what’s out there. One curious pattern that has emerged is a relative gap in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Is Mars the New Frontier? In the excellent sci fi show, The Expanse, which takes place a couple hundred years in the future,...
a year ago
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a year ago
In the excellent sci fi show, The Expanse, which takes place a couple hundred years in the future, Mars has been settled and is an independent self-sustaining society. In fact, Mars is presented as the most scientifically and technologically advanced society of humans in the...
NeuroLogica Blog
SpaceX Tests Super Heavy Booster Last Thursday SpaceX successfully conducted the most significant test firing of its Heavy Booster...
a year ago
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a year ago
Last Thursday SpaceX successfully conducted the most significant test firing of its Heavy Booster rocket to date. The rocket sports 33 Raptor 2 engines. During the test, 31 of them fired. One engine failed, and one was shut down. According to SpaceX, even with 31 engines the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Cement for Energy Storage Imagine if every house, every building, came with 1-2 days (or possibly more) of energy storage....
a year ago
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a year ago
Imagine if every house, every building, came with 1-2 days (or possibly more) of energy storage. What if every wind turbine could store a day’s worth of the energy it produces on average? How beneficial would it be if the most common building material the world could be used to...
NeuroLogica Blog
UFOs and the Pandemic Did UFO reporting increase during the pandemic? A group of researchers set out to answer that...
a year ago
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a year ago
Did UFO reporting increase during the pandemic? A group of researchers set out to answer that question, and recently published their results. Their hypothesis was two-fold, including the notion that people had more free time during the shutdown and perhaps spent more time out...
NeuroLogica Blog
Did They Find Amelia Earhart’s Plane Is this sonar image taken at 16,000 feet below the surface about 100 miles from Howland island, that...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
Is this sonar image taken at 16,000 feet below the surface about 100 miles from Howland island, that of a downed Lockheed Model 10-E Electra plane? Tony Romeo hopes it is. He spent $9 million to purchase an underwater drone, the Hugan 6000, then hired a crew and scoured 5,200...
NeuroLogica Blog
Some Future Tech Possibilities It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see...
12 months ago
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12 months ago
It’s difficult to pick winners and losers in the future tech game. In reality you just have to see what happens when you try out a new technology in the real world with actual people. Many technologies that look good on paper run into logistical problems, difficulty scaling, fall...
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 weeks ago
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2 weeks 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Betavoltaic Batteries In 1964 Isaac Asimov, asked to imagine the world 50 years in the future, wrote: “The appliances of...
a year ago
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a year ago
In 1964 Isaac Asimov, asked to imagine the world 50 years in the future, wrote: “The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes. The isotopes will not be expensive for they will be by-...
NeuroLogica Blog
Localizing Hidden Consciousness What’s going on in the minds of people who appear to be comatose? This has been an enduring...
a year ago
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a year ago
What’s going on in the minds of people who appear to be comatose? This has been an enduring neurological question from the beginning of neurology as a discipline. Recent technological advances have completely changed the game in terms of evaluating comatose patients, and now a...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunger Circuitry One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature of being alive – maintaining homeostatic equilibrium both internally and externally. Homeostatic systems usually involve multiple feedback loops that maintain some physiological...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Hubble Tension Hubbub There really is a significant mystery in the world of cosmology. This, in my opinion, is a good...
6 days ago
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6 days 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Converting CO2 to Carbon Nanofibers One of the dreams of a green economy where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is stable, and not...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the dreams of a green economy where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is stable, and not slowly increasing, is the ability to draw CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it to a solid form. Often referred to as carbon capture, some form of this is going to be necessary...
NeuroLogica Blog
More On Electric Vehicles I recently wrote about electric vehicles, which sparked a lively discussion in the comments. There...
a year ago
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a year ago
I recently wrote about electric vehicles, which sparked a lively discussion in the comments. There was enough discussion that I wanted to pull my responses together into a new post. Before I get to the details, some general observations. The conversation, in my opinion, nicely...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Lifecycle Analysis of Electric Vehicles This article is part of my informal series on EVs, sorting through the claims, reality, and...
a year ago
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a year ago
This article is part of my informal series on EVs, sorting through the claims, reality, and propaganda. There are many complicated factors to sort through, but overall, in my opinion, most concerns about EVs are outdated or overblown. There are definitely locations and use...
NeuroLogica Blog
GMOs and Butterflies Are attitudes towards genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our agriculture softening? Back in...
a year ago
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a year ago
Are attitudes towards genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our agriculture softening? Back in 2015 a Pew survey found that the gap between public opinion and that of scientists was greatest on acceptance of GMOs (more than any other topic surveyed), with a 51% gap. But more...
NeuroLogica Blog
About Those Lab Leak Documents It was recently revealed that the House subcommittee probing the origins of COVID-19 accidentally...
a year ago
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a year ago
It was recently revealed that the House subcommittee probing the origins of COVID-19 accidentally released a “trove” of documents related to their investigations. The documents include e-mails and internal communications among the scientists and experts who put together the first...
NeuroLogica Blog
Oxygen As A Technosignature This is one of the biggest thought experiments in science today – as we look for life elsewhere in...
a year ago
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a year ago
This is one of the biggest thought experiments in science today – as we look for life elsewhere in the universe, what should we be looking for, exactly? Other stellar systems are too far away to examine directly, and even our most powerful telescopes can only resolve points of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Microbes Aboard the ISS As I have written many times, including in yesterday’s post, people occupying space is hard. The...
a year ago
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a year ago
As I have written many times, including in yesterday’s post, people occupying space is hard. The environment of space, or really anywhere not on Earth, is harsh and unforgiving. One of the issues, for example, rarely addressed in science fiction or even discussions of space...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Material for Nanoconductors One of the things I have come to understand from following technology news for decades is that...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks 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,...
NeuroLogica Blog
What Policies Affect Climate Change? What is the potential for climate change policy to affect climate change? I often discuss, here and...
a year ago
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a year ago
What is the potential for climate change policy to affect climate change? I often discuss, here and on the SGU, the science of climate change, and specifically focus on what we can do about it, mostly by reducing our CO2 emissions. Often I get push back explicitly promoting the...
NeuroLogica Blog
Panspermia Again Recently I was asked what I thought about this video, which suggests it is possible that life formed...
a year ago
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a year ago
Recently I was asked what I thought about this video, which suggests it is possible that life formed in the early universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Although no mentioned specifically in the video, the ideas presents are essentially panspermia – the idea that life formed in...
NeuroLogica Blog
First Mission To Remove Space Debris I know you don’t need one more thing to worry about, but I have already written about the growing...
a year ago
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a year ago
I know you don’t need one more thing to worry about, but I have already written about the growing problem of space debris. At least this update is about a mission to help clear some of that debris – ClearSpace-1. This is an ESA mission which they contracted out to a Swiss...
NeuroLogica Blog
Artificial Diamond Boom The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us...
a year ago
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a year ago
The history of aluminum, and what is now happening in the artificial diamond market, may tell us something about a post-scarcity world. Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. However, it like to form with other elements and therefore it was very difficulty to...
NeuroLogica Blog
Virtual Reality for Mice Scientists have developed virtual reality goggles for mice. Why would they do this? For research....
a year ago
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a year ago
Scientists have developed virtual reality goggles for mice. Why would they do this? For research. The fact that it’s also adorable is just a side effect. One type of neuroscience research is to expose mice in a laboratory setting to specific tasks or stimuli while recording their...
NeuroLogica Blog
Should the US Ban TikTok? My recent article on social media has fostered good social media engagement, so I thought I would...
a week ago
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a week 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...
NeuroLogica Blog
Are Electric Vehicles Worth It One of the key components of the plan to get our civilization to net zero by 2050 is to transform...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the key components of the plan to get our civilization to net zero by 2050 is to transform the motor vehicle fleet into all electric vehicles (EVs). This is a worthy goal, as it would eliminate burning gasoline for transportation. In fact it’s necessary if we want to get...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Bit of Energy Pseudoscience Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age...
a year ago
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a year ago
Remember the 1980 film, The Formula? Probably not, because it was a mediocre film that did not age well. The basic plot is that Nazi chemists during WWII developed a formula for synthetic gasoline. A detective investigating a murder gets embroiled in a conspiracy to cover up the...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Theory Unites Gravity and Quantum Mechanics One of the greatest mysteries of modern science is how to unite the two overarching theories of...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the greatest mysteries of modern science is how to unite the two overarching theories of physics – quantum mechanics and general relativity. If physicists could somehow unite these two theories, which currently do not play well together, then we might get to a deeper “one...
NeuroLogica Blog
Deep South – A Neuromorphic Supercomputer Australian researchers at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney...
a year ago
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a year ago
Australian researchers at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney University have announced they are building what they are calling Deep South (based on IBM’s Deep Blue). This will be the world’s largest neuromorphic supercomputer, with 228...
NeuroLogica Blog
Gradient Nanostructured Steel Science fiction writers, who have to think deeply about the possible nature of future technology,...
a year ago
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a year ago
Science fiction writers, who have to think deeply about the possible nature of future technology, often invent new sci-fi materials in order to make their future technology seem plausible. They seem to understand the critical role that material science plays in advancing...
NeuroLogica Blog
Using Genetic Engineering To Fight Malaria Despite robust efforts to fight it, malaria remains one of the most significant infectious diseases...
a year ago
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a year ago
Despite robust efforts to fight it, malaria remains one of the most significant infectious diseases affecting humans. According to UNICEF – ” In 2021, there were 247 million malaria cases globally that led to 619,000 deaths in total. Of these deaths, 77 per cent were children...
NeuroLogica Blog
Age of the Moon Revised There are a few interesting stories lurking in this news item, but lets start with the top level – a...
a year ago
15
a year ago
There are a few interesting stories lurking in this news item, but lets start with the top level – a new study revises the minimum age of the Moon to 4.46 billion years, 40 million years older than the previous estimate. That in itself is interesting, but not game-changing. It’s...
NeuroLogica Blog
Categorization and What’s In a Name Categorization is critical in science, but it is also very tricky, often deceptively so. We need to...
a year ago
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a year ago
Categorization is critical in science, but it is also very tricky, often deceptively so. We need to categorize things to help us organize our knowledge, to understand how things work and relate to each other, and to communicate efficiently and precisely. But categorization can...
NeuroLogica Blog
Science News in 2023 This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are...
a year ago
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a year ago
This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are what I consider to be the most impactful science news stories of 2023 (or at least the ones that caught by biased attention). This was a big year for medical breakthroughs. We are...
NeuroLogica Blog
An Earth-like Climate is Fragile One of the biggest questions of exoplanet astronomy is how many potentially habitable planets are...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the biggest questions of exoplanet astronomy is how many potentially habitable planets are out there in the galaxy. By one estimate the answer is 6 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way. But of course we have to set parameters and make estimates, so this number can...
NeuroLogica Blog
Cultural Blindness One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the recognition that while the human brain is a powerful information processing machine, it also has many frailties. One of those frailties is perception – we do not perceive the world in...
NeuroLogica Blog
How We Determine What to Believe as True Psychologists have been studying a very basic cognitive function that appears to be of increasing...
a year ago
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a year ago
Psychologists have been studying a very basic cognitive function that appears to be of increasing importance – how do we choose what to believe as true or false? We live in a world awash in information, and access to essentially the world’s store of knowledge is now a trivial...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunter-Gatherers and Childcare What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused...
a year ago
15
a year ago
What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused concept. Primarily this is because humans are adaptable – we adapt to our environment, our situation, and our culture. So it is “natural” for us not to have a natural state. But this...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Conversation Gets it Wrong on GMOs Even high quality media outlets will get it wrong from time to time. I notice this tends to happen...
a year ago
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a year ago
Even high quality media outlets will get it wrong from time to time. I notice this tends to happen when there is a mature and sophisticated propaganda campaign that has had enough time and reach to essentially gaslight a major portion of the public, and further where a particular...
NeuroLogica Blog
ChatGPT Performs At University Level We are still sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of the new crop of artificial intelligence...
a year ago
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a year ago
We are still sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of the new crop of artificial intelligence (AI) applications, the poster-child of which is ChatGPT. This is a so-called large language model application using a “generative pre-trained transformer”. Essentially these types of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Should Japan Release Radioactive Water Into The Pacific? Japan is planning on releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into...
a year ago
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a year ago
Japan is planning on releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear accident into the ocean. They claim this will be completely safe, but there are protests going on in both Japan and South Korea, and China has just placed a ban on seafood from Japan. In a perfect...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hybrid Biopolymer Transistors – Implications for Brain Machine Interface There are several technologies which seem likely to be transformative in the coming decades. Genetic...
a year ago
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a year ago
There are several technologies which seem likely to be transformative in the coming decades. Genetic bioengineering gives us the ability to control the basic machinery of life, including ourselves. Artificial intelligence is a suite of active, learning, information tools....
NeuroLogica Blog
Journalists Fail on UAP Story Nothing about the recent resurgence in interest in UFOs (now called UAPs for unidentified anomalous...
a year ago
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a year ago
Nothing about the recent resurgence in interest in UFOs (now called UAPs for unidentified anomalous phenomena) is really new. It’s basically the same stories with the same level of completely unconvincing evidence. But what is somewhat new is the level of credulity and outright...
NeuroLogica Blog
A Galaxy Without Dark Matter Dark matter is one of the greatest current scientific mysteries. It’s a fascinating story playing...
a year ago
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a year ago
Dark matter is one of the greatest current scientific mysteries. It’s a fascinating story playing out in real time, although over years, so you have to be patient. Future generations might be able to binge the dark matter show, but not us. We have to wait for each episode to...
NeuroLogica Blog
For Movies – Animals Don’t Sound Real Enough What does a majestic eagle sound like, or the hoot of a spider monkey, or the roar of a bear? Unless...
a year ago
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a year ago
What does a majestic eagle sound like, or the hoot of a spider monkey, or the roar of a bear? Unless you have an interest in movie tropes, or listen regularly to the SGU, you may have a complete misconception about the sounds these and many other animals make. Eagles, for...
NeuroLogica Blog
Finding Common Ground on Democracy How is American democracy doing, and what can we do to improve it, if necessary? This is clearly a...
a year ago
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a year ago
How is American democracy doing, and what can we do to improve it, if necessary? This is clearly a question of political science, and I am not a political scientist, and this is not a political blog. But there are some basic principles of critical thinking that might apply, and...
NeuroLogica Blog
Evidence and the Nanny State Part II In Part I of this post I outlined some basic considerations in deciding how much the state should...
a year ago
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a year ago
In Part I of this post I outlined some basic considerations in deciding how much the state should impose regulations on people and institutions in order to engineer positive outcomes. In the end the best approach, it seems to me, is a balanced one, where we consider the burden of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fossil Fuels – Reduce Demand or Supply? This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a...
a year ago
13
a year ago
This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a somewhat of a dilemma. Is the optimal path to reductions and eventual elimination of fossil fuel burning through reduced demand or supply? There are some interesting tradeoffs...
NeuroLogica Blog
Will AI Make Work Redundant? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional...
a year ago
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a year ago
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. This, at least, is increasingly conventional wisdom, but I’m not so sure. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted that AI would “make paid work redundant.” I encountered the same opinion watching the latest season of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Oldest Evidence of Humans In Americas Exactly when Homo sapiens came to the Americas has not been firmly established, and new evidence has...
a year ago
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a year ago
Exactly when Homo sapiens came to the Americas has not been firmly established, and new evidence has just thrown another curve ball into the controversy. There is evidence of a large culture of humans throughout North America from 12-13,000 years ago, called the Clovis Culture....
NeuroLogica Blog
Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers as Fuel The press release for a recent study declares: “New catalyst could provide liquid hydrogen fuel of...
a year ago
13
a year ago
The press release for a recent study declares: “New catalyst could provide liquid hydrogen fuel of the future.” But don’t get excited – the optimism is more than a bit gratuitous. I have written about hydrogen fuel before, and the reasons I am not optimistic about hydrogen as a...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Next Step in Space Travel The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space...
a year ago
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a year ago
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space capsule. This will be used initially for cargo, but then eventually for crew as well. They anticipate a maiden voyage in 2028. I think this is a positive development. It seems we are...
NeuroLogica Blog
Possible Sign of Life on Exoplanet The James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopic analysis of K2-18b, an exoplanet 124 light years from...
a year ago
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a year ago
The James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopic analysis of K2-18b, an exoplanet 124 light years from Earth, shows signs that the atmosphere may contain dimethyl sulphide (DMS). This finding is more impressive when you know that DMS on Earth is only produced by living organisms, not...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Next Step in Space Travel The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space...
a year ago
12
a year ago
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced they are developing their own commercial space capsule. This will be used initially for cargo, but then eventually for crew as well. They anticipate a maiden voyage in 2028. I think this is a positive development. It seems we are...
NeuroLogica Blog
Tandem Perovskite Silicon Solar Panels Are Coming It’s pretty clear that we are at an inflection point with adoption of solar power. For the last 18...
a year ago
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a year ago
It’s pretty clear that we are at an inflection point with adoption of solar power. For the last 18 years in a row, solar PV electricity capacity has increased more (as a percentage increase) than any power source. Solar now accounts for 4.5% of global power generation. Wind...
NeuroLogica Blog
Do We Have Free Will? Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free...
a year ago
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a year ago
Let’s dive head first into one of the internet’s most contentious questions – do we have true free will? This comes up not infrequently whenever I write here about neuroscience, most recently when I wrote about hunger circuitry, because the notion of the brain as a physical...
NeuroLogica Blog
How Substance Abuse Affects the Brain I will acknowledge up front that I never drink, ever. The concept of deliberately consuming a known...
a year ago
12
a year ago
I will acknowledge up front that I never drink, ever. The concept of deliberately consuming a known poison to impair the functioning of your brain never appealed to me. Also, I am a bit of a supertaster, and the taste of alcohol to me is horrible – it overwhelms any other...
NeuroLogica Blog
Tong Test for Artificial General Intelligence Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing...
a year ago
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a year ago
Most readers are probably familiar with the Turing Test – a concept proposed by early computing expert Alan Turing in 1950, and originally called “The Imitation Game”. The original paper is enlightening to read. Turing was not trying to answer the question “can machines think”....
NeuroLogica Blog
The Alzheimer’s Revolution Decades of complex research and persevering through repeated disappointment appears to be finally...
a year ago
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a year ago
Decades of complex research and persevering through repeated disappointment appears to be finally paying off for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s  disease (AD). In 2021 Aduhelm was the first drug approved by the FDA (granted contingent accelerated approval) that is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Gene Editing Chickens to Resist Bird Flu There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat....
a year ago
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a year ago
There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat. They are a high efficiency source of high quality protein. It’s the kind of thing we need to do if we want to feed 8 billion people. Similarly we have planted 4.62 billion acres of...
NeuroLogica Blog
Passive Solar Water Desalination I know we are supposed to be worried about the world supply of fresh water. I have been hearing that...
a year ago
11
a year ago
I know we are supposed to be worried about the world supply of fresh water. I have been hearing that at least for the last 40 years, and the statistics are alarming. According to the Global Commission on the Economics of Water: “We are seeing the consequences not of freak events,...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Science of Gift Giving There is a lot of social psychology out there providing information that can inform our everyday...
a year ago
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a year ago
There is a lot of social psychology out there providing information that can inform our everyday lives, and most people are completely unaware of the research. Richard Wiseman makes this point in his book, 59 Seconds – we actually have useful scientific information, and yet we...
NeuroLogica Blog
New Whale Fossil – Possibly Heaviest Animal Ever The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
The largest and heaviest animal to ever live on the Earth, as far as we know, is the blue whale, which is extant today. The blue whale is larger than any dinosaur, even the giant sauropods. The average weight of a blue whale is 160 tons, with the largest specimen being 190 tons,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Ghosts Are Not Real It’s Halloween, so there are a lot of fluff pieces about ghosts and similar phenomena circulating in...
a year ago
10
a year ago
It’s Halloween, so there are a lot of fluff pieces about ghosts and similar phenomena circulating in the media. There are some good skeptical pieces as well, which is always nice to see. For this piece I did not want to frame the headline as a question, which I think is...
NeuroLogica Blog
Eating Methane Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Methane is the forgotten greenhouse gas (sort of). Often, when discussing how best to reduce anthropogenic climate change, we talk about decarbonizing our electrical and transport sectors, and carbon removal. But methane is also a greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming,...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunger Circuitry One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the organizing principles that govern living organisms is homeostasis. This is a key feature of being alive – maintaining homeostatic equilibrium both internally and externally. Homeostatic systems usually involve multiple feedback loops that maintain some physiological...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Threat of Technology In my second book (shameless plug alert) – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I...
a year ago
10
a year ago
In my second book (shameless plug alert) – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I try to imagine both the utopian and dystopian versions of the future, brought about by technology, either individually or collectively. This topic has come up multiple times recently...
NeuroLogica Blog
Trust in Science How much does the public trust in science and scientists? Well, there’s some good news and some bad...
a year ago
10
a year ago
How much does the public trust in science and scientists? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Let’s start with the bad news – a recent Pew survey finds that trust in scientist has been in decline for the last few years. From its recent peak in 2019, those who answered...
NeuroLogica Blog
Giant Eels, Loch Ness, and Probability At this point it is pretty clear that the Loch Ness Monster (Nessie) does not exist. I know,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
At this point it is pretty clear that the Loch Ness Monster (Nessie) does not exist. I know, logically it is impossible to prove a negative, so if we want to be technical we can say that the probability of a large creature similar to that believed to be Nessie approaches zero....
NeuroLogica Blog
Making Computers More Efficient An analysis in 2021 found that 10% of the world’s electricity production is used by computers,...
a year ago
9
a year ago
An analysis in 2021 found that 10% of the world’s electricity production is used by computers, including personal use, data centers, the internet and communication centers. The same analysis projected that this was likely to increase to 20% by 2025. This may have been an...
NeuroLogica Blog
Nobel Prize for Attosecond Physics One attosecond (as) is 1×10−18 seconds. An attosecond is to one second what one second is to the age...
a year ago
9
a year ago
One attosecond (as) is 1×10−18 seconds. An attosecond is to one second what one second is to the age of the universe. It is an extremely tiny slice of time. This year’s Nobel Prize in physics goes to three scientists, Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier, whose...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Superconductor Flap of 2023 If you are at all interested in science and technology news, you have probably heard that a team...
a year ago
9
a year ago
If you are at all interested in science and technology news, you have probably heard that a team from South Korea claims to have developed a material that is a superconductor at room temperature and ambient pressure. Interestingly, if you are someone who does not follow such...
NeuroLogica Blog
The Threat of Technology In my second book (shameless plug alert) – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I...
a year ago
9
a year ago
In my second book (shameless plug alert) – The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future – my coauthors and I try to imagine both the utopian and dystopian versions of the future, brought about by technology, either individually or collectively. This topic has come up multiple times recently...
NeuroLogica Blog
Fossil Fuels – Reduce Demand or Supply? This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a...
a year ago
9
a year ago
This is a bit of a false choice – we can do both, or neither – but it is an important question and a somewhat of a dilemma. Is the optimal path to reductions and eventual elimination of fossil fuel burning through reduced demand or supply? There are some interesting tradeoffs...
NeuroLogica Blog
Update on Self-Driving Cars The story has become a classic of failed futurism – driverless or self-driving cars were supposed...
a year ago
9
a year ago
The story has become a classic of failed futurism – driverless or self-driving cars were supposed start taking over the roads as early as 2020. But that didn’t happen – it turned that the last 5% of capability was about as difficult to develop as the first 95%. Around 2015 I...
NeuroLogica Blog
Hunter-Gatherers and Childcare What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused...
a year ago
8
a year ago
What is “natural” for humans? It’s often hard to say, and in my opinion this is a highly overused concept. Primarily this is because humans are adaptable – we adapt to our environment, our situation, and our culture. So it is “natural” for us not to have a natural state. But this...
NeuroLogica Blog
Trust in Science How much does the public trust in science and scientists? Well, there’s some good news and some bad...
a year ago
8
a year ago
How much does the public trust in science and scientists? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Let’s start with the bad news – a recent Pew survey finds that trust in scientist has been in decline for the last few years. From its recent peak in 2019, those who answered...
NeuroLogica Blog
Ghosts Are Not Real It’s Halloween, so there are a lot of fluff pieces about ghosts and similar phenomena circulating in...
a year ago
6
a year ago
It’s Halloween, so there are a lot of fluff pieces about ghosts and similar phenomena circulating in the media. There are some good skeptical pieces as well, which is always nice to see. For this piece I did not want to frame the headline as a question, which I think is...