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Einstein-Bohr debate settled once and for all
In Steven Pinker’s guest post from last week, there’s one bit to which I never replied. Steve wrote: After all, in many areas Einstein was no Einstein. You [Scott] above all could speak…
Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 4,455 posts.
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Oumuamua may be a hydrogen iceberg
The first known interstellar object to pass through Earth’s solar system may be a 900-foot hydrogen iceberg, say researchers.
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Humans 1, Chimps 0: Correcting the Record
Behavioural economics, data science and artificial intelligence.
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Recursive self-improvement through collective intelligence
Self-supervision through better coordination among agents that share one language model.
2975
Intel Delivers 17-Qubit Superconducting Chip
Intel Newsroom delivers the latest news, announcements, and updates. Stay informed on Intel innovations.
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Workers Drilling in Romania Broke into a Cave Sealed for 5.5M Years
Almost everything alive on the surface of this planet runs, ultimately, on sunlight. Plants capture light and turn it into sugar. Animals eat the plants.
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Glyphosate in Organic Hydroponic Food Production
The National Organic Program (NOP) is now allowing the cancer-causing herbicide, glyphosate, in “organic” hydroponic production.
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Missing link between Alzheimer’s and vascular disease found?
A gene called FMNL2 may explain why people with hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, or obesity have a greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
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Income inequality, as seen from space
Last week, I wrote about how urban trees—or the lack thereof—can reveal income inequality. After writing that article, I was curious, could I actually see
2982
Building a supercomputer from 64 Raspberry Pis and Lego
Discover the latest news from the University, including news about our research, enterprise and teaching activities.
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Glymphatic system clears toxins in the brain during sleep (2013)
In findings that give fresh meaning to the old adage that a good night’s sleep clears the mind, a new study shows that a recently discovered system that flushes waste from the brain is primarily active during sleep. This revelation could transform scientists’ understanding of the biological purpose of sleep and point…
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AlphaFold2 at CASP14: “It feels like one’s child has left home.”
The past week was a momentous occasion for protein structure prediction, structural biology at large, and in due time, may prove to be so for the whole of life sciences. CASP14, the conference for …
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Greens: why we eat the leaves that we do (2013)
Jeanne reveals which branches of the evolutionary tree of plants bear edible leaves and speculates about why that is. Most of the 300,000 + plant species have leaves, and the function of all of the…
2986
Drone Physics
Equations governing dynamics and control of a multirotor UAV
2987
The Strangest Book on the Theory of Computation (2009)
Based on the description of the book in the World Scientific Press catalogue, I asked my university library to order a book entitled Automat...
2988
A review on protein language models
Protein “language” is a lot like human language. Given the similarities, researchers have been building and training language models on protein sequence data, replicating the success seen in other domains, with profound implications. In this post, I will explore how transformer models have been applied to protein data…
2989
If I could dissect a sauropod
Luke Horton asked in a comment on a recent post: Given the chance to examine a titanosaur cadaver with your hypothetical army of anatomists, what would you look for first? *FACEPALM* How we’v…
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Bill Thurston has died
Bill Thurston, who made fundamental contributions to our understanding of low-dimensional manifolds and related structures, died on Tuesday, aged 65. Perhaps Thurston’s best known achievement…
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Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)
I just finished Oliver Sacks’ excellent Everything in Its Place. In it, he mentioned as an aside that the Ginkgo biloba tree is hundreds of millions of years old, and its phenotype has been practically frozen since then – a living fossil.
2993
A Chemical Hunger: Mysteries
The study of obesity is the study of mysteries.
2994
The case against geometric algebra (2024)
Every once in a while the internet gets talking about Geometric Algebra (henceforth GA) and how it’s a new theory of math that fixes everything that’s wrong with linear algebra and multivariable calculus. When I come across this stance I am compelled to respond with something like: “wait wait, it’s not true! GA is…
2995
Alcohol, health, and the ruthless logic of the Asian flush
Why did the Asian flush evolve? What does this say about alcoholism? What does this have to do with Odysseus?
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How much does air pollution cost the U.S.?
Damages from air pollution have fallen dramatically in the U.S. in recent years, shows new research. But how different sectors of the economy have contributed to that decline is highly uneven.
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TeraWave Satellite Communications Network
Blue Origin today announced TeraWave, a satellite communications network designed to deliver symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth.
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Polymers capable of killing bacteria without inducing antibiotic resistance
Dr. Quentin Michaudel and his research team have created a new family of polymers capable of killing bacteria without inducing antibiotic resistance — a major step in the fight against superbugs.
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Caltech professor helps solve Hindenburg disaster
Konstantinos Giapis delves into the science of the iconic accident for a PBS special.