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Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 208 posts.
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A Pragmatic Introduction to Signal Processing
A retirement project created and maintained by Tom O'Haver , Professor Emeritus , Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
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Scientists make huge dataset of nearby stars available to public
Members of the public can search a newly released database of 1,600 stars to find signs of undiscovered exoplanets. The dataset, taken over two decades by the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, comes with an open-source software package and an online tutorial.
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Reasons blog posts can be of higher scientific quality than journal articles
The Dutch toilet cleaner ‘WC-EEND’ (literally: 'Toilet Duck') aired a famous commercial in 1989 that had the slogan ‘We from WC-EEND a...
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Freshwater from salt water using only solar energy
A federally funded research effort to revolutionize water treatment has yielded a direct solar desalination technology that uses energy from sunlight alone to heat salt water for membrane distillation. The technology could provide off-grid water treatment for some of the 1 billion people who lack access to clean water.
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Satellites Taking Pictures of Rockets Carrying More Satellites
In the hours leading up to our recent Soyuz launch we determined that a Dove would be near enough to Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to get a shot of our newest flock launching.
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Oculus Research to Present Focal Surface Display Discovery at SIGGRAPH
Oculus Research will present a paper on focal surface displays at the annual SIGGRAPH Conference in Los Angeles July 30 – August 3. This groundbreaking work demonstrates the potential ability to improve image clarity and depth of focus in VR for a better, more natural visual experience.
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Hacking DNA: CRISPR, Ken Thompson, and the Gene Drive
The very nature of the human race is about to change. This change will be radical and rapid beyond anything in our species’ history. A chapter of our story just ended and the next chapter has begun. This revolution in what it means to be human will be enabled by a new genetic technology that goes by the innocuous…
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Cheating on a string theory exam
You and your friend have watches which are synchronized to the second, and the proctors are used to him often finishing exams quickly and won't be suspicious if he leaves early. What is the largest value N such that you can guarantee that you answer at least N out of the 23 questions correctly?
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Wind energy used to mine cryptocurrency to fund climate research
Wind energy used to mine cryptocurrency to fund climate research Oliver 2017
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Why Do DMT Users See Insects from a Parallel Universe?
The molecule DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine) is a psychoactive chemical that causes intense visions and can induce its users to quickly enter a completely different "environment" that some have likened to an alien or parallel universe. The transition from our world to theirs occurs with no cessation of consciousness or…
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Closest Temperate World Orbiting Quiet Star Discovered
A temperate Earth-sized planet has been discovered only 11 light-years from the Solar System by a team using ESO’s unique planet-hunting HARPS instrument. The new world has the designation Ross 128 b and is now the second-closest temperate planet to be detected after Proxima b. It is also the closest planet to be…
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The hippocampus as a 'predictive map'
Think about how you choose a route to work, where to move house, or even which move to make in a game like Go. All of these scenarios require you to estimate the likely future reward of your decision. This is tricky because the number of possible scenarios explodes as one peers farther and farther into the future…
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Origami-inspired soft artificial muscles
By Lindsay Brownell (CAMBRIDGE, Mass.) — Soft robotics has made leaps and bounds over the last decade as researchers around the world have experimented with different materials and designs to allow once rigid, jerky machines to bend and flex in ways that mimic and can interact more naturally with living organisms…
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Can a Human See a Single Photon? (1996)
The human eye is very sensitive; but can we see a single photon? The answer is yes: sensors in the retina can respond to a single photon. But neural filters only allow a signal to pass to the brain to trigger a conscious response when at least about five to nine arrive within less than 100 ms. If we could consciously…
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Planets in Google Maps
Now you can visit many planets and moons in Google Maps right from your computer.
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The Dangerous Irrelevance of String Theory
Eva Silverstein has a new preprint out, entitled The Dangerous Irrelevance of String Theory. The title is I guess intended to be playful, not referring to its accurate description of the current st…
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Worldbuilding
There is a grand tradition of scientifically minded science fiction authors creating not just the characters in their novels but also the brass tacks scientific details of the planets they reside on. This is the art and science of Worldbuilding .
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IBM Q system in development with working 50 qubit processor
Learn about IBM's performance and progress to become a more innovative and focused company.
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Making math more Lego-like
A trio of Harvard researchers has developed a new 3-D pictorial language for mathematics with potential as a tool across a wide spectrum, from pure math to physics.
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2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the molecular mechanisms of circadian rhythm
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017 was awarded jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm"