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When volcanoes go bang, submarine cables do what?
Guest Post: Insights and lessons from Tonga in the last five weeks.
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 399 posts.
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Solar-powered system offers a route to inexpensive desalination
MIT researchers developed a desalination system that is more efficient and less expensive than previous methods. In addition to providing fresh water, the process could be used to treat contaminated wastewater or generate steam for sterilizing medical instruments, all without requiring a power source other than…
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How to grow crystals at home with fertilizer
Growing crystals is easy. It's both a fun family activity and a cool science experiment. You can even dye your crystals with food coloring.
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The claimed effect size is about a zillion times higher than is plausible
Some years ago, you blogged about a research article by Hasan and colleagues (2013) .
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Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)
Soybean oil is linked to metabolic and neurological changes in mice in new research.
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Feynman’s advice to W&M student resonates 45 years later (2020)
Early in her career as a William & Mary student, Beulah Elizabeth Cox turned in a physics exam that contained what became one of the most famous incorrect answers in science.
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Why I Am Not An Integrated Information Theorist (or, The Unconscious Expander)
Happy birthday to me! Recently, lots of people have been asking me what I think about IIT—no, not the Indian Institutes of Technology, but Integrated Information Theory, a widely-discussed &#…
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Controlling the nuclear fusion plasma in a tokamak with reinforcement learning
Successfully controlling the nuclear fusion plasma in a tokamak with deep reinforcement learning
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Some neurons are active when adding, others when subtracting
Most elementary school children probably already know that three apples plus two apples add up to five apples. However, what happens in the brain during such calculations is still largely unknown. The current study by the Universities of Bonn and Tübingen now sheds light on this issue.
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I used Benford’s law to analyze Covid-19 in 113 countries (2020)
Spoiler alert: I found some intriguing patterns…
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Perl Saved the Human Genome Project (1996)
The human genome project was inaugurated at the beginning of the decade as an ambitious international effort to determine the complete DNA sequence of human beings and several experimental animals. The justification for this undertaking is both scientific and medical. By understanding the genetic makeup of an organism…
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Corrected identification of object about to hit the moon
Note : I keep getting questions that cause me to realize I should explain something else, or that I explained something poorly. Click here for a list of recent changes. Last modified 2015 Mar 05 16:00 UTC. Here's the original story about this object .
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Marijuana accelerates growth of HPV-related head and neck cancer (2020)
University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers identified how THC from marijuana accelerates cancer growth in patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive head and neck cancer.
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The Scientific Virtues: Stupidity, Arrogance, Laziness
Science education usually starts with teaching students different tools and techniques, methods for conducting research. This is wrong. Science education should begin with the scientific virt…
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New plant-derived composite is tough as bone and hard as aluminum
A new woody composite engineered by an MIT team is tough as bone and hard as aluminum, and might pave way for naturally derived plastics.
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Ice Spikes: Strange things you can find in your freezer
Temperature is certainly a factor when growing ice spikes, and we have done experiments that show that spikes are more likely to form when the temperature is just below freezing (see the graphs below). I'm not entirely sure why this is so, but I suspect that the ice tube freezes shut before the tube gets very long if…
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First images of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain during sleep (2019)
A new study from Boston University is the first to illustrate that the brain’s cerebrospinal fluid pulses during sleep, and that these motions are closely tied with brain wave activity and blood flow. It may confirm the hypothesis that CSF flow and slow-wave activity both help flush toxic, memory-impairing proteins…
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Protons are probably smaller than long thought
Our office chair, the air we breathe, the stars in the night sky: they are all made of atoms, which in turn are composed of electrons, protons and neutrons. Electrons are negatively charged; according to current knowledge, they have no expansion, but are point-like. The positively charged protons are different …
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Why isn't there a replication crisis in math?
The replication crisis is a major problem in medicine and social science; we know that a huge fraction of the published literature is outright wrong. But in math we don't seem to have a similar crisis, despite reasonably frequent minor errors in published papers. Why not, and what can this tell us about the fields…
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New lightweight material is stronger than steel
MIT chemical engineers have created a new material that is stronger than steel, as light as plastic, and can be easily manufactured in large quantities.
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Nearly 1k mysterious strands revealed in Milky Way’s center
More than 35 years ago, a Northwestern astrophysicist discovered mysterious, giant filaments in the center of the Milky Way. Now, he uncovered 10 times more than previously known.
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Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis
If you’ve ever been given a can of Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi and it tastes a little off, or way off, you probably just toss it out. Why does this happen and what can you do about it? Many diet soft d…
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Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
The Online Information Environment report discusses how to limit the harm of scientific misinformation online
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Simulation of a 2B-atom cell that metabolizes and grows like a living cell
Researchers from the University of Illinois developed GPU-accelerated software to simulate a cell that metabolizes and grows like a living cell.
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United flies passenger flight on sustainable aviation fuel supplying one engine
United Flies World’s First Passenger Flight On 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel Supplying One Of Its Engines