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What's the third most common element?
The Universe was 99.999999% Hydrogen and Helium after the Big Bang. Billions of years later, there’s a new contender in town.
Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 2,038 posts.
752
When His SR-71 Blackbird Disintegrated, This Pilot Free Fell from Space
During the early days of testing for the legendary SR-71 Blackbird there were some harrowing mishaps, the details of which have rarely come to light. On January 25, 1966, test pilot Bill Weaver and Lockheed flight test reconnaissance and navigation systems specialist Jim Zwayer experienced their plane vanishing around…
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Bret Victor Redesigns Classic Strogatz Paper (2011)
This page presents a scientific paper that has been redesigned as a sequence of illustrations with captions. This comic-like format, with tightly-coupled pictures and prose, allows the author to depict and describe simultaneously — show and tell.
754
A new kind of fractal?
Experimenting with the "divisibility" of complex numbers, I stumbled across this thingy. It looks like a fractal. Although the formula does not do any iterations. It reminds me of something. But I dont know what. Doing a Google image search brings up a couple of galaxies :) This image shows the region from (-1/-1) to…
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Did the Particle Go Through the Two Slits, or Did the Wave Function?
In the quantum double-slit experiment, did the particle go through the slits or did the wave function? 1920's quantum physics has a simple answer: "NO".
756
Carl Sagan's Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking
Necessary cognitive fortification against propaganda, pseudoscience, and general falsehood.
757
The unnecessary decline of U.S. numerical weather prediction
This blog provides updated forecasts and comments on current weather or other topics
758
Noted study in psychology fails to replicate, crumbles with evidence of fraud
About 80 people pointed me to this post by Uri Simonsohn, Joe Simmons, and Leif Nelson about a 2012 article, “Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end.” Apparently some of the data in that paper were faked; see for example here:
759
Planets evenly spaced on log scale
The distances to the planets are fairly evenly distributed on a logarithmic scale, not only in our solar system but in extrasolar systems as well.
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Wyvern's Open Satellite Feed
Benchmarks & Tips for Big Data, Hadoop, AWS, Google Cloud, PostgreSQL, Spark, Python & More...
761
USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets
Since 2014, the US Dept. of Agriculture has a record of "burying" the science
762
I've said it all before but here we go again
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
763
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…
764
Whatever Happened to Fire Escapes
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] The idea is simple: If there’s a fire in a tall building that blocks the main stairwell, people need an alternative way to evacuate, preferably one that is somewhat protected or at least far away from where the fire is happening
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Feynman's wobbling plate: how to recover from burnout
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance…
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What's Under Your Feet in New York City?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] New York City is unlike any other city in the United States. It’s the most densely populated area in the country by far, absolutely packed with buildings, business, homes, and people. But for all that you can see walking the str
769
Extracting Audio from Pictures of Gramophone Recordings
Three years ago, a survey team identified a staggering 569,148 time-based media objects on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University—that’s over half a million sound recordings, video recordings…
770
Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective
Looking for flashcards for chemistry? Try 21st Night ! It allows you to create and share flashcards with anything on them: images, videos, equations, you name it . Plus, there’s a built-in to-do list!
771
If 1+x is 1, how much is 1-x?
► Versión en Español (The title should be "if (= (+ 1 x) 1), how much is (- 1 x)?", but ...) Toy floating point Mathematically, if we...
772
Study finds memory decline surge in young people
A Large US Study Finds Memory Decline Surge in Young People
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Elon Musk says he will put millions of people on Mars
New Scientist – Musk declared recently that he could put a human on Mars in 10 to 20 years’ time. It is a remarkable claim, yet even more astonishingly Musk tells me that he could do it for $5 billion, and possibly as little as $2 billion – a snip when you consider that the International Space Station (ISS) has cost…
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Sphere Eversion
Topology is the study of the properties of geometric objects which aren’t changed by continuous deformation. A standard low-grade math joke is that toplogists consider a coffee mug and a doughnut equivalent because they’re both torii—(pauses for laughter)—one can be continuously deformed into the other, called a…
777
Gaussian integration is cool
Brief discussion on gaussian quadrature and chebyshev-gauss quadrature
778
Nuclear power is too slow
One common and plausible argument against nuclear power is that it is too slow.
779
Is Ketamine Neurotoxic?
It is clear that ketamine at a sufficient dose & frequency can and does kill neurons through NMDA-driven excitotoxicity. However, what does a sufficient dose & frequency mean? There is a common myth that ketamine is “neurogenetic”. This is mostly false. While it does increase neurogenesis in the only two places in the…
780
Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
It's unsafe and probably ineffective