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Global deforestation peaked in the 1980s
There was a marked acceleration in deforestation in the 20th century. But, global deforestation peaked in the 1980s. Since then, it has slowed.
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 409 posts.
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Neuroscientists discover molecular mechanism that allows memories to form (2020)
Encoding memories in engram cells is controlled by large-scale remodeling of the proteins and DNA that make up cells’ chromatin, according to an MIT study. This chromatin remodeling, which allows specific genes involved in storing memories to become more active, takes place in multiple stages spread out over several…
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Why are our brains shrinking?
As promised, here is the first post in our “The Student of Life” series. This essay, focusing on the fascinating subject of the shrinkage of our brain over the last 70,000 years, was masterfully penned by USF student Savannah Robison during the Fall 2017 semester of BIOL100. It is a wonderful example of student…
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California Megafires Are Solvable
The basics on how we got to now, why it matters for all Americans, and how we can fix it together.
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Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air (Revised, Community Edition)
A community edition of David MacKay's book — the original text, opened up so it can be updated.
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Engineer Who Won the Nobel Prize Twice in Physics
American scientist John Bardeen is famous for the invention of transistor and the theory of superconductivity. Who will win Nobel Prize in 2022?
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The physics anomaly no one talks about: What’s up with those neutrinos?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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Soil bacteria could improve crop yields, via fungi
The findings from Boyce Thompson Institute researchers could point the way to cost-effective, eco-friendly ways of enriching soil and reducing reliance on conventional fertilizers.
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Imaging Cygnus a at 8.45 GHz with ATA
Earlier this year, I published a post showing our results of the interferometric imaging of Cassiopeia A and Cygnus A at 4.9 GHz with the Allen Telescope Array . Near the end of July, I decided to perform more interferometric observations of Cygnus A at a higher frequency, in order to obtain better resolution. I chose…
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2,050-year-old Roman tomb offers insights on ancient concrete resilience
The unique mineral composition of the 2,050-year-old Roman tomb of Caecilia Metella could point the way toward more resilient and sustainable modern concrete structures.
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The Greedy Doctor Problem
TL;DR: How to reason about people who are smarter than you. A few proposals, interspersed with reinforcement learning and humorous fiction. Ending on a surprising connection to logical inductors.
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Wav2vec Overview: Semi and Unsupervised Speech Recognition
A mid-depth cap with classic style for any occasion, this Nike Club Cap comes in smooth cotton twill that's been softly washed for casual, daily comfort. Soft and unstructured, the precurved bill makes for easy styling, and the adjustable back-strap lets you find the right fit. Nike Hat Size 6 1/2 6 5/8 6 3/4 6 7/8 7…
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Groundhog: Addressing the Threat That R Poses to Reproducible Research
R, the free and open source program for statistical computing, poses a substantial threat to the reproducibility of published research. This post explains the problem and introduces a solution. The…
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Plunge in lithium-ion battery costs
The cost of lithium-ion batteries for phones, laptops, and cars has plunged over the years, and an MIT study shows just how dramatic that drop has been. The change is akin to that of solar and wind energy, and further declines may yet be possible, the researchers say.
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Sustainable coffee grown in Finland with cellular agriculture
VTT has successfully produced coffee cells in a bioreactor through cellular agriculture. The innovation can help to make the production of coffee more sustainable. The first batches produced by VTT in a laboratory in Finland smell and taste like conventional coffee.
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Evidence of fraud in an influential field experiment about dishonesty
This post is co-authored with a team of researchers who have chosen to remain anonymous. They uncovered most of the evidence reported in this post. These researchers are not connected in any way to…
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First Ever Image of a Multi-Planet System Around a Sun-Like Star (2020)
The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has taken the first ever image of a young, Sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets. Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely rare, and — until now — astronomers had never directly observed more than one planet orbiting a…
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Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
Texts on this and that.
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Scientists discover a highly potent antibody against SARS-CoV-2
Scientists at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and EPFL have discovered a highly potent monoclonal antibody that targets the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and is effective at neutralizing all variants of concern identified to date, including the delta variant. Their findings are published in the prestigious journal Cell…
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Intermittent fasting in mice improves long-term memory retention
Intermittent Fasting is an effective means of improving long term memory retention and generating new adult hippocampal neurons in mice
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The agony and the ecstasy of deep brain stimulation surgery
What deep brain stimulation surgery feels like.
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Ultra-high-density hard drives made with graphene store ten times more data
Graphene can be used for ultra-high density hard disk drives (HDD), with up to a tenfold jump compared to current technologies, researchers at the Cambridge Graphene Centre have shown.
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Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain
Researchers at Princeton University and the University of Washington have developed an ultracompact camera the size of a coarse grain of salt. The new system can produce crisp, full-color images on par with a conventional compound camera lens 500,000 times larger in volume.
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Mealworms can compost styrofoam
Within our living systems, we have been raising several types of mealworms in order to compost polystyrene (styrofoam). We recently came across the study by 2015 Standard University that confirms our suspicions that they are indeed turning styrofoam into usable organic matter! Their notes are not m
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Mouse studies show gene therapy can cause big drop in latent herpes infections
Improved gene therapy techniques cleared up to 95 percent of latent herpes virus in mice. Human trials? At least 3 years away. Fred Hutch virologist Dr. Keith Jerome hopes this study "opens up the idea that we can start thinking about cure, rather than just control of the virus."
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A long-lasting, stable solid-state lithium battery
Researchers demonstrate a solution to a 40-year problem