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Starship is still not understood
Another entry into my blog series on countering misconceptions in space journalism. I discussed this post on The Space Show on November 5 2021. It has been exactly two years since my initial posts …
Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 169 posts.
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2021 Williams F1 Computational Fluid Dynamics
Thanks to some clever people I was able to get a CAD model of the current 2021 Williams F1 car — that’s not something that happens every day, so of course I had to run CFD on it. CAD Ge…
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Delta Variant
Cases are growing exponentially across the world. Again. If you don’t know where this is going, a historical refresher might help. India has suffered about two million COVID deaths, the majority of them during its latest surge caused by Delta.Victims of COVID-19 are cremated in funeral pyres in New Delhi.
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DNA seen through the eyes of a coder
Updates: 12th of September 2021: I’m writing a book on DNA! If you want to become a beta reader, or have suggestions, I’d love to hear from you! 8th of January 2021: This article has been revised and updated, scientifically and in terms of dead links. Revision made by Tomás Simões (@putadagravidade /…
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How to Destroy the Earth (2006)
Preamble Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe. You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing...
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Organ transplant patients may not get dementia
When I was in college, I applied for an internship at the Huffington Post, that venerable bastion of journalism. Before my interview, I was given a spreadsheet of articles and associated view counts. I was asked to formulate and present a hypothesis about which types of articles generate the most views.
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Decoding James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope probably needs no introduction, since it is perhaps the most important and well-known mission of the last years. It was launched on Christmas day from Kourou, French Guiana , into a direct transfer orbit to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point . JWST uses S-band at 2270.5 MHz to transmit…
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Is my cat Turing-complete?
This article is an adaptation of a Lightning Talk I gave at CppCon2021. Link here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtqTGSOdmBo
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America Had an Atomic Mecha Warrior Robot
"REAL stories. REAL history."
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SoME1 results
Reflections on the Summer of Math Exposition
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The big alcohol study that didn't happen
Why did a huge alcohol RCT get cancelled? A strange story of science, academia, bureaucratic maneuvering, ambition, politics, capitalism, the deep state, secret emails, and slippery ethical slopes.
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How SpaceX lands Starship (sort of)
aka: how I “accidentally” discovered what I already suspected: optimization methods are at the heart of landing rockets.
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If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999
Shane Frederick points us to this article from 1999 , “Stereotype susceptibility: Identity salience and shifts in quantitative performance,” about which he writes:
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Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2018)
[I am not a sleep specialist. Please consult with one before making any drastic changes or trying to treat anything serious.] Van Geiklswijk et al describe supplemental melatonin as “a chrono…
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Ancient secrets of computer vision
This class is a general introduction to computer vision. It covers standard techniques in image processing like filtering, edge detection, stereo, flow, etc. (old-school vision), as well as newer, machine-learning based computer vision. It was originally offered in the spring of 2018 at the University of Washington .
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Hiding Images in Plain Sight: The Physics of Magic Windows
I recently made a physical object that defies all intuition. It’s a square of acrylic, smooth on both sides, totally transparent. A tiny window.
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Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
I should state from the very beginning that the title of this post is a bit of a tease. I don’t know why nothing can go faster than the speed of light. No one does. It is a fundamental pos…
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Why Retaining Walls Collapse
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]
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The Overview Effect – William Shatner's Words After Returning from Space
William Shatner's profound words about his experience in space after returning on Blue Origin NS-18:
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The Entire History of Soviet Rocket Engines
Soviet rocket engines - this article is about their history, their development, their use and their rockets.
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The Orbit of Planet Nine
Five and a half years after our proposal of the existence of Planet Nine, we have finally accomplished what is perhaps the most important t...
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What if I were 1% charged? (2013)
In case you hadn’t heard, the universe is governed by four fundamental forces. But when it comes to understanding nature at almost any level larger than a nucleus and smaller than a planet, …
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This Can’t Go On
The long view of economic history says we're in the midst of a huge, unsustainable acceleration. What happens next?
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New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529
I hope everyone in the States had a fantastic Thanksgiving (even if you’re a Dallas Cowboys football fan).
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The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
Since around 2009, methamphetamines have been made with phenylacetone (P2P). Is there a chemical different causing schizophrenia?
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The Cuboid: A DIY air purifier that's better than a box fan
Designs for a quieter, more energy efficient purifier, and data proving it really works.
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