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I think faster than light travel is possible [video]
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 440 posts.
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Nuclear power is too safe
If you don't pursue safety in a way that is cost effective, you are killing people.[David Okrent]
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Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird
In April 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in a Berlin disco, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's terrorist camps in Libya. My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the damage our F-111's had inflicted. Qaddafi had established a 'line of death,' a territorial marking…
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Bicycle
Interactive article explaining the physics of a bicycle.
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Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return
Once we emit about 1000 gigatons of carbon, much of the massive ice sheet will melt irreversibly. We’ve emitted 500 gigatons so far.
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Robot Learns to See in 30 Minutes (2022)
TL;DR: Learning to walk from pixels in the real world by using proprioception as supervision.
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GPT-2 as step toward general intelligence (2019)
A machine learning researcher writes me in response to yesterday’s post, saying:I still think GPT-2 is a brute-force statistical pattern matcher which blends up the internet and gives you bac…
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A nasal spray protects against coronavirus including immune-evasive variants
Researchers have developed a molecule that is, when administered nasally, extremely effective in preventing the disease caused by all known variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The molecule can be a key tool in preparing for future pandemics, as it is aimed at preventing both the transmission and spread of the virus.
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Any type of hormonal contraceptive may increase risk of breast cancer
An analysis of data by researchers at Oxford Population Health’s Cancer Epidemiology Unit has shown that use of progestogen-only hormonal contraceptives is associated with a 20-30% higher risk of breast cancer. The results are published in PLOS Medicine.
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Making Steel with Electricity
The Siderwin research project tested a new method of steelmaking that uses direct electrolysis of iron oxide in a pilot plant in France. The steelmaker ArcelorMittal now announced that it wants to commercialize the technology.
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Immune system cells in the gut linked to stress-induced depression
Johns Hopkins Medicine study adds to evidence that T cell-driven changes in the gut may affect brain function associated with depressive symptoms
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What Will Transformers Transform?
Generative Pre-trained Transformer models (GPTs) are now all the rage and have inspired op-eds being written by everyone from Henry Kissinger (WSJ) to Noam Chomsky (NYTimes) in just the last month. That sure is some hype level.
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OpenAI’s policies hinder reproducible research on language models
LLMs have become privately-controlled research infrastructure
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GPT-4 and professional benchmarks: the wrong answer to the wrong question
OpenAI may have tested on the training data. Besides, human benchmarks are meaningless for bots.
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Plane Lands/Takes Off in Only 20 Feet (2013)
I posted a video earlier today of a Super Cub airplane landing on the side of a mountain. Super Cubs are ideal for that undertaking because of their low stall s
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DIY Nitrogen TEA Laser (2020)
Abstract : in the cover image the homebuilt TEA nitrogen laser in use at PhyscsOpenLab. The entire l
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Low-cost open source device can measure air pollution anywhere
Flatburn is an open-source, mobile pollution detector from the MIT Senseable City Lab intended to let people measure air quality cheaply.
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The water technology behind Avatar: The Way of Water
Learn more about the CGI technology created using Unity Wētā Tools to produce the water in Avatar: The Way of Water.
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Knots smaller than human hair make materials unusually tough
A micro-architected material made from tiny knots proves tougher and more durable than unknotted counterparts.
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GNU Octave 8.1
GNU Octave version 8.1.0 has been released and is now available for download. An official Windows binary installer is available. For mac...
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How We Knew Space Was a Vacuum (2021)
Question: At what point during the history of science did we discover outer space was a vacuum? I’m pretty sure it was before we actually went there, but when did we know for certain? — MC, Algoma, WI
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How to start a rocket engine
This article answeres the questions of how to start a rocket engine and takes you on a deep dive into spark plugs, torch ignitors and more.
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There’s no such thing as a tree phylogenetically (2021)
Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization”.) From ‘dendro’, the ancient Greek root for tree.
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The False Promise of Chomskyism
Important Update (March 10): On deeper reflection, I probably don’t need to spend emotional energy refuting people like Chomsky, who believe that Large Language Models are just a laughable fa…