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Science is political, and that's a bad thing
People who say “science is political” usually aren’t just stating facts - they’re trying to push something on you. Don’t let them
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 399 posts.
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Why have I never heard of the Ene-Farm? (2017)
While reading up on architecture in Japan recently, I came across a technology that I hadn’t heard of before: the Ene-Farm. It’s a domestic energy system that is being used in Japan and…
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FAA approves unleaded fuel for piston fleet
The FAA delivered September 1 the long-sought approval of an unleaded fuel now cleared to power every spark-ignition engine on any airframe in the general aviation fleet.
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Busy Beaver Updates: Now Even Busier
Way back in the covid-filled summer of 2020, I wrote a survey article about the ridiculously-rapidly-growing Busy Beaver function. My survey then expanded to nearly twice its original length, with …
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An extrasolar world covered in water?
With the help of instruments designed partly in Canada, a team of Université de Montréal astronomers have discovered an exoplanet that could be completely covered in water.
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Why are D-sharp and E-flat considered to be two different notes?
Why do the black keys on the piano each have two different names? If the posts on r/musictheory are any indication, this is a persistent point of confusion, especially when music theory teachers ge…
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We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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Researcher finds a new method for recycling polystyrene
In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by Virginia Tech researchers presents a new method for recycling the material that also offers economic viability.
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My black body story (it's physics)
I studied physics in university, and at one point asked a professor if I should learn German, because it seemed all the key texts of early ...
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Outdoor Sound Propagation in the U.S. Civil War (1999)
Students of military history know that acoustic refraction and unusual audibility have often played significant roles in the outcome of battles. Before electrical and wireless communications became common on the tactical level, the sound of battle was often the quickest and most efficient method by which a commander…
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How to identify and misidentify a brown recluse spider (2005)
How to Identify and Misidentify a Brown Recluse Spider by Rick Vetter Staff Research Associate, UC Riverside Dept. of Entomology
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It’s raining PFAS: rainwater is unsafe to drink even in Antarctica and Tibet
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are man-made hazardous chemicals that are spread globally in the atmosphere and as a result they can be found in the rainwater and snow in even the most remote locations on Earth. During the last 20 years, guideline values for PFAS in drinking water, surface waters and soils…
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Split Brain Psychology
The strange interactions of Selfhood and Multiplicity
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A new method boosts wind farms’ energy output, without new equipment
MIT engineers have developed a method to increase wind farms’ energy output. Whereas individual turbines are typically controlled separately, the new approach models the wind flow of the entire collection of turbines and optimizes the control of individual units.
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Why does anything exist?
Why does anything exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Would it not have been easier for there to be nothing at all?
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Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)
Explore past press releases and news by The Nature Conservancy in the United States and around the globe.
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Noether's Theorem in a Nutshell (2020)
Noether's theorem is an amazing result which lets physicists get conserved quantities from symmetries of the laws of nature. Time translation symmetry gives conservation of energy; space translation symmetry gives conservation of momentum; rotation symmetry gives conservation of angular momentum, and so on.
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Hydroponics: Growing an appreciation for plants
I once heard a saying – “Don’t feel pity on plants because they can’t move. Feel pity on us, because we have to”. I really didn’t have an appreciation for what this meant until the COVID pandemic hit, which restricted my movement for a couple of years, and I decided to spend some of my new-found time at home learning…
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How do palm trees survive hurricanes? (2017)
The destructive force of typhoons and hurricanes are no joking matter. Human structures are torn to shreds and flooded in the blink of an eye. It is devastating to say the least. With all of this destruction, one must wonder how native flora and fauna have coped with such forces over millions of years. The true…
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Our brain is a prediction machine that is always active
This is in line with a recent theory on how our brain works: it is a prediction machine, which continuously compares sensory information that we pick up (such as images, sounds and language) with internal predictions. "This theoretical idea is extremely popular in neuroscience, but the existing evidence for it is…
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The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring
Procter & Gamble has driven research on TMAO and heart disease since 2015
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Using grape harvest dates to estimate summer temperature over 650 years
It’s hot these days, it’s unusually hot, even dangerously hot, in a lot of places a lot of the time. While America has been hit hard this summer, it seems that Europe has been hit even …
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Toward a Better Music Theory (2013)
Update: a version of this post appeared on Slate.com. I seem to have touched a nerve with my rant about the conventional teaching of music theory and how poorly it serves practicing musicians. I th…
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Elizabeth Cotton’s Fingerstyle Ragtime
Dust-to-digital posted this lovely performance of “Washington Blues” by Elizabeth Cotten. It reminded me that she is the greatest and that I should write more about her. If you are a gu…
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Quaise Energy is working to create geothermal wells
MIT spinout Quaise Energy is working to create geothermal wells made from the world’s deepest holes in order to repurpose coal and gas plants.
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Bumblebees kept in isolation make up for it by being more social later
Princeton researchers studied the Common Eastern Bumblebee to learn how social isolation impacts behavior and brain development.