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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 399 posts.
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Low-cost gel film can pluck drinking water from desert air
More than a third of the world’s population lives in drylands, areas that experience significant water shortages. Scientists and engineers at The
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Missing link between Alzheimer’s and vascular disease found?
A gene called FMNL2 may explain why people with hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, or obesity have a greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
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Empirical Notes on Kissing
Before my first kiss, I scoured The Internet (Google Scholar + tracing blog posts back to their underlying studies - this was some time ago so I don’t still have the sources) for every valuable scrap of information available on the topic while trying to stray away from anything opinion-based. This is the result.
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Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
AUSTIN, Texas — An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics
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Solar-powered desalination device wins MIT $100K competition
The winner of the 2022 MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition was Nona Desalination, which is developing a low-cost, portable water desalination and purification device.
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Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)
Age-related declines in stem cell function can be reversed by a 24-hour fast, according to a new study from MIT. Biologists found fasting dramatically improves stem cells’ ability to regenerate, in both aged and young mice.
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Sleep helps process emotions
Researchers at the Department of Neurology of the University of Bern and University Hospital Bern identified how the brain triages emotions during dream sleep to consolidate the storage of positive emotions while dampening the consolidation of negative ones. The work expands the importance of sleep in mental health…
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You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)
The environmental and cognitive factors at play that have people eating more without realising.
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Can we make a black hole? And if we could, what could we do with it?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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T cells block nerve cell regeneration with age, but can be reversed – mice study
New research in mice shows T cells prevent damaged nerve cells from regenerating due to a reversible, ageing-related mechanism.
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Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy
The first images of the supermassive black hole at the heart of Sgr A reveal that this black hole is very different from the one at the heart of M87.
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Oxygen Candles: Providing Emergency Air
Oxygen candles are used as a backup source of breathable air inside refuge chambers, making them ideal for emergency situations underground.
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Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress
Human activity and behaviour is contributing to an increasing number of disasters across the world, putting millions of lives and every social and economic gain in danger, warns a new UN report.
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Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media
While most ghostwriting scandals in science involve physicians, the agrichemical company ran a unique and sophisticated campaign to promote GMO technology and attack critics.
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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.