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There are now more people over sixty-four than children younger than five
What is the age profile of populations around the world? How did it change and what will the age structure of populations look like in the future?
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 323 posts.
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Open-Sourcing Our Reactor Design, and the Future of Transatomic
When Mark Massie and I started Transatomic in April 2011, the future of nuclear power was uncertain. In the wake of Fukushima, all bets for a nuclear renaissance were off, and starting a venture-funded advanced nuclear technology startup seemed like an unusual path, to say the very least. At the time, there were only…
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Interview on ”Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way”
Lambdaclass's blog about distributed systems, machine learning, compilers, operating systems, security and cryptography.
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Urbanization
Around 80% of the world’s population lives in cities, towns, and suburbs rather than rural settlements. How has this changed, and what does urbanization look like across the world today?
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A Visual Introduction to Morse Theory
In a previous article , I already introduced manifolds and their, ahem, manifold ways. Among the many interesting comments I received about this article, some were dealing with a basic question, namely how to measure the properties of a manifold. In this article, I want to present a few concepts from Morse theory …
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Remembering Murray Gell-Mann
Stephen Wolfram shares his memories of Murray Gell-Mann, leader in particle physics and Nobel Prize winner. Observations from years together in Caltech’s physics department and a selection of Gell-Mann’s contributions to physics.
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Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)
[ An updated treatment of some of this material appears in Chapter 2 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook, also mirrors a 2022 article in Nature Physics . . ]
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CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Human emissions of greenhouse gases are the primary driver of climate change. The world needs to decarbonize to reduce them.
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Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels were key to industrialization and rising prosperity, but their impact on health and the climate means that we should transition away from them.
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If the number of children is not growing, why is the population still increasing
50 years ago, the total fertility rate was five. This figure has more than halved. Yet the global population is still rising — why?
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New Causes of Autism Found in Noncoding DNA
Leveraging artificial intelligence techniques, researchers have demonstrated that mutations in so-called ‘junk’ DNA can cause autism. The study, published May 27 in Nature Genetics, is the first to…
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SpaceX Raptor: Methane fueled full-flow staged combustion cycle engine
SpaceX's new raptor engine is a methane fueled full flow staged combustion cycle engine and its so hard to develop, no engine like this has ever flown before!Now this topic can be really intimidating so in order to bring the Raptor engine into context, we’re going to do an overview of a few common types of rocket…
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What's the difference between 0/0 and 1/0?
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
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The geometry of an electron determined for the first time
Physicists at the University of Basel are able to show for the first time how a single electron looks in an artificial atom. A newly developed method enables them to show the probability of an electron being present in a space. This allows improved control of electron spins, which could serve as the smallest…
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An old artifact kept in a vault outside Paris is no longer the standard kilogram
The international standard measurement of the kilogram is being officially changed on May 20, for the first time making all standard units defined in terms of basic physical principles instead of particular human-made objects. MIT professor and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Ketterle explains the change.
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Public's Dread of Nuclear Power Limits Its Deployment
In the ongoing effort to decarbonize U.S. energy production, one energy source often attracts great controversy.
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What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?
When we think of nuclear safety, two accidents often come to mind: Chernobyl and Fukushima. What was the death toll and impact of these disasters?
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Death rates from energy production per TWh
Death rates are measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour of electricity.
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Going Critical
Learn how things spread with playable simulations
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Adults learn language to fluency nearly as well as children: study
Scott Chacon is CEO of the online language learning company Chatterbug.
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Training the Brain to Eat Less Sugar
A recent study led by Evan Forman, PhD, a psychology professor in Drexel University's College of Arts and Sciences, shows that a computer game can be used to train its players to eat less sugar, as way of reducing their weight and improving their health.
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Fasting Affects the Brain
Mark Mattson reveals the surprising brain benefits of fasting.
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5-HTTLPR: A Pointed Review
In 1996, some researchers discovered that depressed people often had an unusual version of the serotonin transporter gene 5-HTTLPR. The study became a psychiatric sensation, getting thousands of ci…
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The Relationship Between Profanity and Honesty (2017)
There are two conflicting perspectives regarding the relationship between profanity and dishonesty. These two forms of norm-violating behavior share common causes, and are often considered to be positively related. On the other hand, however, profanity is often used to express one’s genuine feelings, and could…