1
Degenerate matter: How reality deals with uncertainty
Casual introduction to the uncertainty principle from quantum mechanics and how it leads to neutron stars and superfluids
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 399 posts.
2
First TV Image of Mars: Interplanetary color by numbers (2016)
For the longest time I had seen this framed image entitled “The First TV Image of Mars” in an out of the way place at JPL. I loved taking people there showing them this low res image and how it had been made by coloring numbers that were stapled to a wall. When I got to curate an exhibition about data and art, I had…
3
Discovering which parts of the brain are engaged when coding
Researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) found that the Multiple Demand and Language brain systems encode specific code properties and uniquely align with machine-learned representations of code.
4
Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)
Is 98.6˚ F still the norm for body temperature? Data collected over almost 160 years show that the normal body temperature has been declining and is now roughly one degree lower....
5
A seamstress who solved the ancient mystery of the Argonaut
“I armed myself with patience and courage, and only after several months managed to dissolve my doubts and see my research crowned with happy confirmation.”
6
7
Holography without Lasers: Hand-drawn Holograms (1999)
I've stumbled across a technique for drawing holograms directly upon a plastic plate by hand. It sounds impossible, but I've been sitting on the livingroom sofa making holographic images of floating polyhedra, words, 3D starfields, opaque objects, etc. No laser, no isolation table, no darkroom, no expensive film…
8
Eight studies reveal a bias in human imagination
Eight studies reveal a (possibly universal) bias in human imagination
9
Picture This: The Periodic Table
Philip Ball on the visual ordering of all the elements known to humankind—and how we might order them differently.
10
How “See a Satellite Tonight” Works
See A Satellite Tonight is my most successful side project so far, with 5 million users since launch in 2019. It's been entirely a solo project, and I've used it as a proving ground for a bunch of tech that I wanted to learn. It took dozens of APIs and services to put together the experience I wanted: The front page…
11
People took some potassium and lost some weight
In November 2021, we finished our series A Chemical Hunger, where we argue that the obesity epidemic is the result of environmental contaminants, and that one of those contaminants might be lithium…
12
Wild mammals are making a comeback in Europe
Hunting and habitat loss drove many large mammals in Europe close to extinction. New data shows us that many of the continent’s mammal populations are flourishing again.
13
14
Astronomical Calculations for Hard SF in Common Lisp
Hard SF worldbuilding with the HYG database, Dijkstra's algorithm, and Lisp.
15
Tandem solar cell achieves 32.5 percent efficiency
The tandem solar cell converts 32.5% of the incident solar radiation into electrical energy. This value is now officially certified and included in the NREL chart.
16
Special Relativity and Middle-Earth
This post is an unofficial sequel to one of my first blog posts from 2007, which was entitled “Quantum mechanics and Tomb Raider”. One of the oldest and most famous allegories is Plato&…
17
Pollution cleanup method destroys toxic “forever chemicals”
An insidious category of carcinogenic pollutants known as “forever chemicals” may not be so permanent after all. University of California, Riverside, chemical engineering and environmental scientists recently published new methods to chemically break up these harmful substances found in drinking water into smaller…
18
Why fusion will never happen (2012)
I like fusion, really. I’ve talked to some of luminaries that work in the field, they’re great people. I love the technology and the physics behind it. But fusion as a power source is n…
19
Nuclear power is too slow
One common and plausible argument against nuclear power is that it is too slow.
20
Research reveals ways lead and cadmium in chocolate may be reduced
Chocolate Industry and As You Sow release three-year, collaborative study BERKELEY, CA –A new report released today by As You Sow and the National Confectioners Association is the result of a three-year effort by a multi-disciplinary panel of four experts...
21
Na-S Battery: Low-cost with four times the capacity of lithium
Researchers are hoping that a new, low-cost battery which holds four times the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries and is far cheaper to produce will significantly reduce the cost of transitioning to a decarbonised economy.
22
The rise and fall of peer review
Why the greatest scientific experiment in history failed, and why that's a great thing
23
24
25
26
What comes up when you flush
Germophobes, brace yourselves. A team of CU Boulder engineers has revealed how tiny water droplets, invisible to the naked eye, are rapidly ejected into the air
27
Soil in Midwestern US is eroding 10 to 1k times faster than it forms
In a discovery that has repercussions for everything from domestic agricultural policy to global food security and the plans to mitigate climate change, researchers at UMass Amherst recently announced that the rate of soil erosion in the Midwestern US is 10 to 1,000 times greater than pre-agricultural erosion rates.
28
100 Gbps achieved from space to Earth
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, in partnership with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, built and designed a communications payload, TBIRD, which is demonstrating space-to-ground laser communications at unprecedented data rates.
29
What is a black start of the power grid?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] November 1965 saw one of the most widespread power outages in North American history. On the freezing cold evening of the 9th, the grid was operating at maximum capacity as people tried to stay warm when a misconfigured relay tr
30
New process allows 3-D printing of microscale metallic parts
Engineers infuse a hydrogel structure with a metal solution and then use heat and chemical reactions to leave only the metal behind.