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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,455 posts.
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How many radioactive bananas would you need to power a house?
I heard that bananas are radioactive. If they are radioactive, then they radiate energy. How many bananas would you need to power a house?
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Endemic Pathogens Are Making You Crazy and Then Killing You
In February 2022, Jim Keller organized a scientific anarchism event in Woodside, California. Scientific anarchism, a term borrowed from the controversial philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, concerns the way science is performed in the laboratory and the way that ideas are generated, refuted, and incorporated into…
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Mechanical Watch
Interactive article explaining how a mechanical watch works.
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A single memory is stored across many connected brain regions
The mammalian brain stores a single memory across a widely distributed, functionally connected complex spanning many brain regions, rather than in just one or even a few places.
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Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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How do you power a rocket engine?
This article discusses different types of rocket engine cycles, from pressure-fed through gas generator, to full-flow staged combustion.
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I finally understand methane lifetimes
How to arrive at a number you can trust
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From seawater to drinking water, with the push of a button
MIT researchers created a portable desalination unit that can remove particles and salts simultaneously to generate drinking water. The user-friendly unit, which weighs less than 10 kilograms and does not require filters, can be powered by a small, portable solar panel.
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MIT researchers develop a paper thin loudspeaker
MIT researchers created an ultrathin loudspeaker that can turn any rigid surface into a high-quality, active audio source. The fabrication process can enable the thin-film devices to be produced at scale.
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Against Bayesianism – David Deutsch
Bayesianism, the doctrine that it's always rational to represent our beliefs in terms of probabilities, dominates the intellectual world, from decision theory to the philosophy of science. But does it make sense to quantify our beliefs about such ineffable things as scientific theories or the future? And what separates
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Some of the forces blocking new ideas in science
Some of the forces blocking really new ideas in science
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I stopped working on black hole information loss
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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Got food cravings? What’s living in your gut may be responsible
A new Pitt study shows that the gut microbiome of mice influences their preferred diet. The results, researchers say, could apply to humans, too.
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Turning scrap copper into beautiful crystals
To grow copper acetate crystals, first prepare a saturated solution by reacting 10 g of scrap copper with 400 mL of white vinegar.
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The swimming of a dead fish (2018)
When I was a child, my father would take me trout fishing, and I spent hours marveling from the riverbank at the trouts’ ability to, seemingly effortlessly, h
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Everyone gets numbers wrong, even the New York Times
It's a shortcut to understanding, and there are no shortcuts
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Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off
The ultimate Trip To The Seaside Where Everything Went Wrong.
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The 'Batman Effect': How having an alter ego empowers you (2020)
Thinking of yourself as a separate entity can reduce anxiety, while also kicking up some major benefits for your confidence and determination.
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A drug that cures alcoholism may be the next anti-anxiety medication
A new study found that disulfiram, a drug used to treat chronic alcoholism, can safely reduce anxiety levels in rodents ...
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Psychedelics and mental illness
The science of psychedelics is everywhere – but we should treat it with serious scepticism
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Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy
The MIT spinout Frequency Therapeutics uses a new kind of druggable regenerative therapy that targets progenitor cells to create hair cells of the inner ear and reverse hearing loss.
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5-min breathing workout lowers blood pressure as much as exercise, drugs (2021)
Strength training for your breathing muscles? Daily High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training lowers blood pressure and improves vascular health as
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New Covid nasal spray outperforms current antibody treatments in mice
A new protein-based antiviral nasal spray is being advanced to Phase I human clinical trials to treat COVID-19. It works by blocking the spike protein's ability to infect cells.
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A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine
Engineers at MIT and NREL have developed a heat engine with no moving parts that is as efficient as a steam turbine.
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