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There is one, and only one strain of SARS-CoV-2
The moment a preprint emerges describing a new patient isolate of SARS-CoV-2, with a change in the genome sequence, the world seems to explode with concern ...
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 4,455 posts.
542
The Inconsistency of Arithmetic (2011)
Note: These pages make extensive use of the latest XHTML and CSS Standards . They ought to look great in any standards-compliant modern browser. Unfortunately, they will probably look horrible in older browsers, like Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x. Moreover, many posts use MathML, which is, currently only supported in…
543
Raytracing a Black Hole
It's now clear I'm on a Black Hole binge (I can stop when I want, by the way). They're endlessly fascinating. My recent interest was in particular focused on simulating visualizations of the Schwarzschild geometry. I was preoccupied by the problem of generating a decent accurate representation of how the curvature of…
544
Managing Kitchen Fruit Flies with a Little Shop of Horrors
I live in Seattle on a fairly wooded property. Every summer since we’ve moved here, we end up with swarms of fruit flies in the kitchen. They congregate around the compost bin and the fruit bowl (where there are always lots of bananas). We aren’t slobbish - I do the dishes and wipe down the counters every night, take…
545
AI in my plasma physics research didn’t go the way I expected
I used AI in my plasma physics research and it didn’t go the way I expected.
546
Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning
Estimates suggest that around every third child in the world suffers from lead poisoning. What can we do to reduce this?
547
2+1=4, by quinoa
I was struck the other day by the following: The cooking instructions on my Bob’s tri-colored quinoa package said to combine 2 cups of water with 1 cup of dried quinoa, which would ultimately create 4 cups of cooked quinoa. See image above. My first reaction was to believe …
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This map is not upside down
While conventional and commonplace today, maps have not always had north at the top. And they don't need to.
550
To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language
MIT neuroscientists have found reading computer code does not rely on the regions of the brain involved in language processing. Instead, it activates the “multiple demand network,” which is also recruited for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.
551
Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination
A new paper in Psychological Science (.htm) reports a failure to replicate Study 2 of Ariely and Wertenbroch’s influential article entitled, “Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Contr…
552
Old vs. new growth trees and the wood products they make
Dedicated to the craft of architectural millwork, residential construction, & historic restoration.
553
‘Diamond-age’ of power generation as nuclear batteries developed
New technology has been developed that uses nuclear waste to generate electricity in a nuclear-powered battery. A team of physicists and chemists from the University of Bristol have grown a man-made diamond that, when placed in a radioactive field, is able to generate a small electrical current.
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Illegal Production and Use of Banned CFC-11 in China's Foam Blowing Industry
We investigate and campaign against environmental crime and abuse
556
Age Reduction Breakthrough?
If you eschew hyperbole and hang in for the long haul, maintaining a discipline of understatement in the midst of a flashy neon world, you may be offered a modicum of credence when you make an extraordinary announcement.
557
Peer-reviewed papers are getting increasingly boring
The number of researchers and peer-review publications is growing exponentially. It has been estimated that the number of researchers in the world doubles every 16 years and the number of research outputs is increasing even faster. If you accept that published research papers are an accurate measure of our scientific…
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Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)
When the central heating takes effect I'll get up and make myself some tea and porridge to which I'll add some nuts and fruit. I'll switch on The World Service to hear the news, and then make a few phone calls about damp-proofing. And I'll probably plant the daffodil bulbs for Spring (it says on the packet they should…
560
Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens
Stanford Medicine researchers and their colleagues invented a new vaccine that protects mice from respiratory viruses, bacteria and allergens — the closest yet to a universal vaccine.
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Why was it so hard to take a picture of a black hole?
Physicist: Black holes and space are both black, so there’s that. But while black holes tend to be very small, space is bonkers big and filled with just enough stuff to give astronomers thin…
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Images Created from Prime Numbers
Inspired by James McKee’s Trinity Hall prime, physics researcher Gilles Esposito-Farese (of the self-descriptive pangram) has worked out that this 2,258-digit prime number: 53084469288402965415857953902888840109250315594591772197851275320 59910735745658243457138160802170063601085186072703319516241231606…
565
Building a rocket engine from scratch
How I learned to stop worrying and love the burn.
566
CERN and Mistral sign a statement of intent to establish a strategic partnership
CERN and Mistral sign a statement of intent to advance AI for science and strengthen Europe’s scientific and technological capabilities
567
Beginner's guide to longevity research
A beginner's guide to longevity research
568
On the Nature of Time
Stephen Wolfram takes a computational view of time, defining it abstractly, and the implications from computational irreducibility.
569
Home-Built Scanning Tunneling Microscope (2015)
Scan Head STM Tips Vibration Isolation Electronics Software Scans Image Gallery Useful Links This project is my attempt to build a low-cost scanning tunneling microscope (STM) capable of atomic res…
570