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Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 4,457 posts.
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The Coin Flip: A Fundamentally Unfair Proposition? (2009)
Douglas G. Steigerwald joined the faculty of the Department of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara after completing an M.A. in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching focus on frontier econometric methods at the intersection of…
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“American Scientist” Understands Nothing about the Traveling Salesman Problem
I like to think there are some solid foundations to my life. I will be able to do the Monday New York Times crossword and I will not be able to do the Thursday version. My dental hygienist will not be satisfied with the amount of flossing I do. I will get my favorite spaghetti meal served on my birthday.
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Coanda Effect: Understanding Why Wings Work
"In aerodynamics, theory is what makes the invisible plain. Trying to fly an airplane without theory is like getting into a fistfight with a poltergeist." --David Thornburg [1992].
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Losing 58.3 Lbs for Science
This morning was my final data collection for a randomized diet experiment I have been participating in for the last year. Here is a graph of my near-daily weigh-ins on Withings: ...
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Accidental release of 45L of polio virus solution into the environment – Belgium
See the latest news and media contact details
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Does the LHC collide protons at twice the speed of light?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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Aging-related inflammation is not universal across human populations
Inflammation may not be a universal human experience, but a byproduct of industrialized lifestyles.
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The discovery that changed how scientists think about memory
UC Irvine neuroscientist Oswald Steward received the 2026 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for discoveries that helped explain how the brain forms and stores memories.
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Group averages obscure how an individual's brain controls behavior: study
Studying brain scan data from individuals — not group averages — reveals key brain-function differences in children who struggle with goal-oriented tasks, a Stanford Medicine study found.
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Those correction notices, in full
In light of our recent discussion of the unwillingness of authors of published papers to acknowledge their mistakes, I thought I’d post the four correction notices that I’ve felt the need to issue.
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Stanford Medicine COVID-19 test now in use
The Stanford Clinical Virology Laboratory has deployed an in-house diagnostic test for the virus that causes COVID-19. Rapid identification of infected people could help limit the spread of the virus.
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Turtle visual cortex is non-retinotopic
Most of the visual cortex studies I’ve read have been about mammalian vision. But mammals are not the only organisms with cortex, or at least tissue resembling cortex. This paper explores turtle visual cortex, in an area known as dCx. This dorsal region plays the role of the turtle primary vision center — as close as…
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ESA Sentinel-1D delivers first high-resolution images
The first high-resolution images have been received from Copernicus Sentinel-1D and were shared publicly for the first time at the European Space Agency’s Ministerial Council, held today in Bremen, Germany. Glaciers in Antarctica, the tip of South America, as well as the city of Bremen, are visible in these stunning…
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Infra-Red, in Situ (Iris) Inspection of Silicon
Cryptography tells us how to make a chain of trust rooted in special-purpose chips known as secure elements. But how do we come to trust our secure elements? I have been searching for solutions to this thorny supply chain problem . Ideally, one can directly inspect the construction of a chip, but any viable inspection…
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MIT scientists find weird quantum effects over hundreds of miles
MIT scientists have discovered strange quantum effects hold, even over hundreds of miles. In longest test of quantum mechanics, researchers find neutrinos, traveling over 450 miles at close to speed of light, have no single identity.
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Agora-1: The Multi-Agent World Model
Agora-1, a multi-agent world model, enables multiple participants—human or AI—to share and interact within the same world simulation in real-time.
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Ten Noteworthy AI Research Papers of 2023
This year has felt distinctly different. I've been working in, on, and with machine learning and AI for over a decade, yet I can't recall a time when these fields were as popular and rapidly evolving as they have been this year. To conclude an eventful 2023 in machine learning and AI research, I'm excited to share 10…
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Death by vegetable oil: What the studies say (2020)
In a world without vegetable oil, we may be twenty pounds lighter, have half the amount of heart disease and cancer, live longer, think clearer, feel better, and be happier and less depressed.
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Has the lead-crime hypothesis been debunked?
A couple of months ago a new paper was released that examined the lead-crime hypothesis. Its conclusion is that there's little evidence for an association, and if there is one it's pretty small. I haven't commented on it, but not because of its negative conclusion. It's because the paper is a meta-analysis. I'm fairly…
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Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade
Access the latest perspectives on the energy transition with samples of research reports and data-driven analysis from BNEF experts.
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Black holes ruled out as universe’s missing dark matter
A statistical analysis says that black holes can make up no more than 40 percent of dark matter, the strongest limit yet
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What Is Life? (2019)
What is life? This question keeps many people awake at night and has led to rafts of definitions, some involving features (procreation, metabolism and so forth), some involving chemistry, entropy or energy flux and some are of a more philosophical bent. A BBC article noted there are over 100 definitions of life and it…