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The Joy of Condensed Matter
I published a slightly different version of this article in Nautilus on February 24, 2021. Everyone seems to be talking about the problems with physics: Woit’s book Not Even Wrong, SmolinR…
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 409 posts.
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Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previously thought
The latest public health news delivered right to your inbox.
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Milky Way, 12 years, 1250 hours of exposures and 125 x 22 degrees of sky
This blog is all about astrophotography and it works mainly as an imaging diary. J-P Metsavainio is a Finnish astrophotographer,
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AstraZeneca vaccine doesn't prevent B1351 Covid in early trial
Two doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine were ineffective against mild-to-moderate infections with the B1351 variant first identified in South Africa, according to a phase 1b-2 clinical trial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine .
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Loss of myelin is one of the major factors of age-related brain deterioration
A new study led by the University of Portsmouth has identified that one of the major factors of age-related brain deterioration is the loss of a substance called myelin.
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If the world adopted a plant-based diet, we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
We could reduce the amount of land used for grazing and croplands used to grow animal feed.
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Reprojecting the Perseverance landing footage onto satellite imagery
The landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover last month amazed the world. The stunning footage of the descent shows each stage of the sequence. If you have not seen it already you can watch it here .
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Why are most climate models in Fortran?
An examination of the software that powers modern Climate simulations.
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Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts
Can the current crop of vaccines get us to herd immunity even if variants become widespread? A Harvard immunologist says yes.
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Humble tokamak physicist owns generations of cosmological wankers
It’s not often I get excited about papers from the physics community. The field I used to love has turned into a dreary ghetto of noodle-theory wankers, experimental particle physics bureaucr…
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IceCube detection of a high-energy particle proves 60-year-old theory
On December 8, 2016,* a high-energy particle called an electron antineutrino hurtled to Earth from outer space at close to the speed of light carrying 6.3 petaelectronvolts (PeV) of energy. Deep inside the ice sheet at the South Pole, it smashed into an electron and produced a particle that quickly decayed into a…
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Julia receives DARPA award to accelerate electronics simulation
Julia Computing wins DARPA award to accelerate electronics simulation 1,000x with AI & ML. Discover how Julia's unique capabilities boost US semiconductor competitiveness.
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Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)
Read about the Irish teenager who won the Google Science award for the magnetic liquid trap that could clean an ocean of microplastics.
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Energy Mix
Explore global data on where our energy comes from, and how this is changing.
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The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
Much of climate research is focused on implausible scenarios of the future, but implementing a course correction will be difficult
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Over 140k virus species in the human gut, half of which are new to science
Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) explored and catalogued the biodiversity of the viral species found in 28,060 public human gut metagenomes and 2,898 bacterial isolate genomes cultured from the human gut
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Divorce rate cut in half for couples who discussed relationship movies (2014)
A new study finds that watching and discussing movies about relationships is as effective in lowering divorce rates as other, more intensive early marriage counseling programs.
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How to Operate an Airport in Antarctica
Troll Research Station maintains one of the southernmost airports in the world. See how the Norwegian Polar Institute operates an airport in Antarctica.
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Why does an A note sound different across instruments?
If you pull up a tuner app on your phone and play an A note on a piano, the tuner will say ~440 hz. Do the same thing on a violin's A note and you'll also get 440 hz.
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Rocket Lab Unveils Plans for New 8-Ton Class Reusable Rocket
Rocket Lab Unveils Plans for New 8-Ton Class Reusable Rocket for Mega-Constellation Deployment
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In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)
examines claims that the big five personality traits is more scientifically valid than the myers briggs personality indicator
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The Cuboid: A DIY air purifier that's better than a box fan
Designs for a quieter, more energy efficient purifier, and data proving it really works.
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Scientists begin building highly accurate digital twin of our planet
A digital twin of our planet is to simulate the Earth system in future. It is intended to support policy-makers in taking appropriate measures to better prepare for extreme events. A new strategy paper by European scientists and ETH Zurich computer scientists shows how this can be achieved.
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Is soy a key driver of deforestation?
The world loses 5 million hectares of forest each year. What activities are driving this?
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Complexity No Bar to AI
Critics of AI risk suggest diminishing returns to computing (formalized asymptotically) means AI will be weak; this argument relies on a large number of questionable premises and ignoring additional resources, constant factors, and nonlinear returns to small intelligence advantages, and is highly unlikely.
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How to Destroy the Earth (2006)
Preamble Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe. You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing...
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Radio Amateur Copies Signal from Mars-Orbiting Satellite
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national association for amateur radio, connecting hams around the U.S. with news, information and resources.
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Functioning ‘mechanical gears’ seen in nature for the first time (2013)
Previously believed to be only man-made, a natural example of a functioning gear mechanism has been discovered in a common insect - showing that evolution developed interlocking cogs long before we did.