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The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 422 posts.
These days, the most common question I get goes something like this: A decade ago, you told people that scalable quantum computing wasn’t imminent. Now, though, you claim it plausibly is immi…
The emerging importance of the find underscores a key truth about archaeology: artifacts often hold secrets that only later generations can unlock.
UH researchers uncovered the tomb of Te K’ab Chaak, founder of Caracol’s royal dynasty. The find includes jadeite treasures, rare pottery and evidence of early ties between the Maya and Teotihuacan, reshaping understanding of Mesoamerican history.
When Mr Lewin began explaining how cartographers addressed the challenge of portraying what is essentially a three dimensional object - the world - on a two dimensional plane - a piece of paper - my eyes lit up!
NYU Langone study shows that oral bacteria and fungi involved in gum disease may also increase risk for pancreatic cancer more than threefold. Learn more.
New findings from studying over two decades of satellite observations reveal that the Earth’s continents have experienced unprecedented freshwater loss since 2002, driven by climate change, unsustainable groundwater use and extreme droughts.
Earth AI is helping enterprises and cities with everything from environmental monitoring to disaster response.
A 2026 Airline Water Study released today by the Center for Food as Medicine and Longevity reveals that the quality of drinking water varies significantly by airline, and many airlines…
AN EXTREMELY RARE “MEGALOGRAPHY” OF THE 1ST CENTURY BC, LIKE THE FAMOUS VILLA OF THE MYSTERIES Over 100 years since the discovery of the Villa of the Mysteries, a large … keep it going
This is a list of Unparalleled Misalignments, pairs of non-synonymous phrases where the words in one phrase are each synonyms of the words in the other. I've maintained this list since 2018; attributions (when known) can be seen on hover.
Don't try to reform science. Not yet. Not in your PhD. In grad school, you'll start complaining about the publishing...
Benchmarks & Tips for Big Data, Hadoop, AWS, Google Cloud, PostgreSQL, Spark, Python & More...
A new study reveals that air pollution, traditional herbal medicines and other environmental exposures are linked to genetic mutations that may contribute to the development of lung cancer in people with no or hardly any history of smoking.
EPFL researchers have developed a new way to design complex, curved three-dimensional shapes using flat materials such as paper, aluminum sheets or plastic, combining creative thinking with a new computational algorithm.
For some time, I’ve argued that a common conception of AI is misguided. This is the idea that AI systems like large language and vision models are individual intelligent agents, analogous to human agents. Instead, I’ve argued that these models are “cultural technologies” like writing, print, pictures, libraries…
New analysis finds tests for new doctors can measure what matters — the life and health of patients
A figure from the study showing rock dripping from the craton. The researchers hypothesize that the dripping is caused by…
In a world first, a team led by researchers at Penn State used two-dimensional materials, which are only an atom thick and retain their properties at that scale, unlike silicon, to develop a computer capable of simple operations. The advancement, published in Nature, represents a major leap toward the realization of…
"As for c , that is the speed of light in vacuum, and if you ask why c , the answer is that it is the initial letter of celeritas , the Latin word meaning speed." Isaac Asimov in "C for Celeritas (1959)" [1]
Moving electricity around the world has huge financial and environmental benefits. Unfortunately, current power transmission systems are both lossy and expensive to build. This post explores an alternative design for cables to make undersea power transmission substantially cheaper.
If DM could form a BH at the center of a planet, wouldn’t that then collapse the planet into that BH, consuming it? Wouldn’t the same apply to stars, extinguishing them?
"...requiring reconductoring of 1.71 miles at a cost of $795,150...limiting output to 3MW..."
In 2023, Meta researchers were able to decode images in thoughts from the brain's magnetic fields. What if that's how the brain coordinates it's own global state?
Getting zapped with millions of volts of electricity may not sound like a healthy activity, but for some trees, it is, according to a new study. Published in New Phytologist, the study finds that some tropical tree species are not only able to tolerate lightning strikes, but benefit from them. The trees may have even…
I have a side project to find the longest line of sight on the planet 1 using a novel Total Viewshed algorithm . At a resolution of 3 arc-seconds (~92m x 92m), the planet contains around 4.5 billion elevation samples 2 . Now obviously we don’t need to calculate the visibility between literally every single one of…
What's the meaning of "numbers" and "arithmetic operations"? We consult Georg Cantor's turtles and look at Giuseppe Peano's code.
Using EEG readings of brain waves to monitor unconsciousness, an anesthesiologist can significantly reduce the amount of the anesthesia administered to safely induce and sustain the anesthetized state of children undergoing surgery.
