511
mRNA vaccines: let's eradicate herpes, cure cancer, and be sick a whole lot less
Quick, inexpensive, made-to-order treatments
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 2,038 posts.
512
How the Great Green Wall is holding back the Sahara desert
The Great Green Wall being built in Africa to halt the southern progress of the Sahara Desert is a favorite public works project of mine — it’s massive, ambitio
513
Hurried Thoughts: You're Wrong About Tidal-Locking
Space Engine ...
514
"AI will cure cancer" misunderstands both AI and medicine
AI, science, education, & ethics
515
Airfoil
Interactive article explaining the physics of an airfoil and what makes airplanes fly
516
Testing the F-35C Tailhook
Welcome to the blog. As a way to kick things off, here’s a single-page version of my thread on the F-35C tailhook.
517
Why time seems to pass faster as we age
1/ I’ve been mega-obsessed with this feeling. A year as a 36-year-old seems so much shorter as compared to when I was a kid or even as a teen. It seems cosmically unfair – we have fewer years to live, and each year flies by faster. 2/ But, why is that happening? My tentative conclusion is that… Read More
518
An interactive guide to Fourier series (2022)
Drawing with the Fourier Series
519
520
China is building more coal plants but might burn less coal
China is adding more coal capacity, but its plants are running less often.
521
The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering
People are starting to take geoengineering seriously.
522
A look at the Mojo language for bioinformatics
A look at a Mojo benchmark for bioinformatics, and Mojo in general.
523
Physics for Mathematicians – Introduction
A blog about math by Nic Ford
524
Want to build a sequencer? 454.bio opens up their plans
Just as the AGBT hype cycle was firing up (with me contributing multiple sparks), serial entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg's latest sequencing ...
525
Constructing a Four-Point Egg
For reasons beyond the scope of this entry, I have been investigating elliptical and ovoid shapes. The Wikipedia article for Moss’s egg has a link to a tutorial on Euclidean Eggs by Freyja Hreinsdóttir which (amongst other things) describes how to construct the “four point egg”. I think it is a nicer shape than Moss’s…
526
When the "R" goes missing from R&D (2021)
A Cautionary Tale about Too Much Siloing and Not Enough Trust
527
Dana-Farberications at Harvard University
“Imagine what mistakes might be found in the raw data if anyone was allowed to look!” – Sholto David
528
How far could the sun possibly be?
The Greeks found the minimum possible distance to the Sun is a few million miles. Today we'll see how the speed of light can provide a maximum distance.
529
Simulating a minimal cell in the browser
Simulating an entire cell using kinetic parameters of reactions in a well-stirred environment
530
Peer review is an honor-based system (2008)
It would take too long to expose all of the flaws of peer review, here are some: some work is just flat wrong because the reviewers cannot analyze all of the mathematical results, and because they cannot redo the experiments; numerous researchers cheat, sometimes in small ways ("2 out of 3 experiments agree with by ……
531
A vision for the alleviation of water scarcity in the US Southwest
[Edit May 2024: This concept was republished in Asterisk Magazine.] Just a couple of hours drive east of Los Angeles lies the Imperial Valley, home to Palm Springs, some of the most productive agri…
532
The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?
Did the Biggest Loser contestants really damage their metabolism or was something else going on?
533
Heat pumps, more than you wanted to know (2023)
Over the last few months, Baker and I have been digging in deep on Heat Pumps . I'm putting my explorations here on pause but wanted to write up everything we've learned over the last few months.
534
535
What does the cerebellum do?
Hint: It's Not Just Balance
536
Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11
This is how a completely abstract argument about alien germs was taken seriously and mitigated at great effort and expense during the 1969 Apollo landing.
537
What has a 1 in a million chance? (2010)
If you overheard the phrase "1 in a million chance" in someone else's casual conversation, what might they be talking about?
538
Ten Noteworthy AI Research Papers of 2023
This year has felt distinctly different. I've been working in, on, and with machine learning and AI for over a decade, yet I can't recall a time when these fields were as popular and rapidly evolving as they have been this year. To conclude an eventful 2023 in machine learning and AI research, I'm excited to share 10…
539
540