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Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 2,419 posts.
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Scientists document two separate reservoirs of latent HIV in patients
This research, led by UNC School of Medicine scientists Laura Kincer, Sarah Joseph,and Ron Swanstrom with international collaborators, shows that in addition to HIV’s ability to lay dormant in the blood/lymphoid system, the virus may also lay dormant in the central nervous system, delineating another challenge in…
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Open-Sourcing Our Reactor Design, and the Future of Transatomic
When Mark Massie and I started Transatomic in April 2011, the future of nuclear power was uncertain. In the wake of Fukushima, all bets for a nuclear renaissance were off, and starting a venture-funded advanced nuclear technology startup seemed like an unusual path, to say the very least. At the time, there were only…
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Predicting Properties of Molecules with Machine Learning
Posted by George Dahl, Research Scientist, Google Brain TeamRecently there have been many exciting applications of machine learning (ML) to chemist...
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The origins of the steam engine (2023)
An essay with interactive animated diagrams
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Rotating molecules enable near 100% efficient OLEDs
Scientists have discovered a group of materials which could pave the way for a new generation of high-efficiency lighting, solving a quandary which has inhibited the performance of display technology for decades. The development of energy saving concepts in display and lighting applications is a major focus of…
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Can optical illusions fool AI too?
Deep neural networks (DNN) have made the news recently for their application as a predictive software used to create convincing fake videos of politicians and celebrities. You may not be aware, however, that you have most likely already used the same technology in a much less controversial form: the translation app on…
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Edward C. Stone, 1936-2024
Caltech mourns the loss of Edward C. Stone, leader of humanity’s first foray into interstellar space.
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Squawk bots: Can generative AI lead us to understanding animals?
The Earth Species Project is using large language models to develop tools to decipher animal communication.
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Any type of hormonal contraceptive may increase risk of breast cancer
An analysis of data by researchers at Oxford Population Health’s Cancer Epidemiology Unit has shown that use of progestogen-only hormonal contraceptives is associated with a 20-30% higher risk of breast cancer. The results are published in PLOS Medicine.
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SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others
UC Berkeley’s SETI@home, one of the most popular crowd-sourced research projects ever, turned up some 12 billion signals of interest. A lengthy analysis found 100 worth another look.
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Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built
Being able to feel empathy and to take in the other person's perspective – these are two abilities through which we understand what is going on in the other person's mind. Although both terms are in constant circulation, it is still unclear what exactly they describe and constitute. Scientists at the Max Planck…
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MIT and newly formed company launch effort to build compact tokamak pilot plant
Development of fusion power, a carbon-free, combustion-free source of energy, is now on a faster track toward realization, thanks to a collaboration between MIT and a new private company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems. CFS will join with MIT to carry out rapid, staged research leading to a new generation of fusion…
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Link between quantum physics and game theory found
A deep link between two seemingly unconnected areas of modern science - quantum physics and game theory - is described by researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Geneva in a paper published in Nature Communications.
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Spiders eat astronomical numbers of insects
With a portfolio of over 2,700 journals and 220,000 books, Springer is a global leader in academic and scientific publishing.
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In Colorado, self-harm is leading cause of death in new mothers
Read the latest news stories from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Discover breakthroughs, events, and campus updates.
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Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?
A new randomized control trial tested personalized vitamin D supplementation based on blood test results.
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Artificial photosynthesis can produce food without sunshine
Scientists are developing artificial photosynthesis to help make food production more energy-efficient here on Earth, and one day possibly on Mars
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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.
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UNSW researchers set record in solar energy efficiency
Solar engineers from UNSW's Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics have set a new world-record in solar energy efficiency, achieving an electricity conversion rate of over 40%.
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A young Venus had water for 2B years, habitable for longer than Mars
Venus hosts brutal conditions today, but the planet may have once been more hospitable to life.