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Fake Physics
2016 so far wins my lifetime award for most depressing and disturbing year ever (on the front of the larger world one reads about in the newspaper and elsewhere, personally things are fine, thanks)…
Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 4,455 posts.
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Unexpected patterns in historical astronomical observations
Researchers at Nordita at Stockholm University have analyzed flashes of light on astronomical plates from the early 1950s and found statistical connections between the times of these flashes, nuclear weapons tests and reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The results are presented in two studies published…
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Discovery could extend battery life by replacing tape that causes self‑discharge
Thanks to a discovery in a Dal lab, manufacturers of laptops and other tech devices now have an explanation for why the batteries that power their gadgets tend to lose some of their charge over time and a path forward to fixing the problem..
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Deep sea mining could be worse for the climate than land ores
As decisions over the future viability of deep sea mining are under review, Planet Tracker’s latest report ‘The Climate Myth of Deep Sea Mining’ examines deep sea mining companies’ claim that mining polymetallic nodules could be a low carbon alternative to mining on land.
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Alien Signals
Memories of long-ago Sunday nights on the road.
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Sound waves enhance deep sleep and memory
Pink noise synced to brain waves deepens sleep and boosts memory in older adults
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Samsung demonstrates 3D stacked FETs with triple nanosheet channels at 42nm
Samsung Electronics' Semiconductor Research Center presented the paper “First Demonstration of 3D Stacked FETs at Gate Pitch of 42 nm Featuring Triple Stacked Nanosheet Channels for Advanced Logic Applications” at the 2026 VLSI Symposium, held from June 14–18.
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Neurons that fire together, wire together, but how?
Neurons that fire together, wire together... Ok, but how? One of my little pet projects is a neurology book for psychologists, coaches and the like. What most people in these fields imagine about the brain is somewhere between perplexing, preposterous and potentially poisonous. (Seriously, I could tell you stories...)…
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Arthritis drug spurs hair growth in man with alopecia universalis
A 25-year-old man with almost no hair on his body has grown a full head of it after a novel treatment by doctors at Yale University.
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Machu Picchu older than expected, study reveals
The first science-based estimation of the site’s founding and occupation, the Yale-led study has implications for our wider understanding of Inca history.
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3D printing with cellulose
Researchers at MIT have invented a 3-D printing process for cellulose, the world’s most abundant polymer.
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Shannon’s Source Coding Theorem (2020)
The mathematical field of information theory attempts to mathematically describe the concept of “information”. In the first two posts, we discussed the concepts of self-information and information entropy. In this post, we step through Shannon’s Source Coding Theorem to see how the information entropy of a probability…
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New Particle Discovered at CERN
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A Browsable Petascale Reconstruction of the Human Cortex
Posted by Tim Blakely, Software Engineer and Michał Januszewski, Research Scientist, Connectomics at Google In January 2020 we released the fly “he...
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Reconfigured Tesla coil aligns, electrifies materials from a distance
Rice University researchers use a modified Tesla coil to assemble nanoparticles into a wire from a distance. Their process, “Teslaphoresis,” may be used for the self-assembly of nano- and macro-scale materials.
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Measuring abstract reasoning in neural networks
Neural network-based models continue to achieve impressive results on longstanding machine learning problems, but establishing their capacity to reason about abstract concepts has proven difficult. Building on previous efforts to solve this important feature of general-purpose learning systems, our latest paper sets…
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Solving methane mysteries with satellite imagery
By combining two types of remote sensing data, we can see hidden leaks from ships
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After 100 Years, Ramanujan Gap Filled (2013)
History of mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan’s lost notebooks and an exploration of solutions to those equations using Mathematica.
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Don’t stage off Starship
Part of my series on countering misconceptions in space journalism. The SpaceX Starship is a game changer for space exploration. It is intended to be far bigger, cheaper, versatile, and available t…
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Perceptual distortions in late-teens predict psychotic symptoms in mid-life
Are there early indicators that could help predict which individuals will go on to develop this serious mental illness? New research by Distinguished Professor Mark F. Lenzenweger could point the way.
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What did Einstein mean by “spooky action at a distance”?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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ZEUS – A new two-petawatt laser facility at the University of Michigan
Hitting 2 petawatts, the NSF-funded ZEUS facility at U-M enables research that could improve medicine, national security, materials science and more.
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Pilot study shows ketogenic diet improves mental illness
A small clinical trial led by Stanford Medicine found that the metabolic effects of a ketogenic diet may help stabilize the brain.
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The two cultures of mathematics and biology
I’m a (50%) professor of mathematics and (50%) professor of molecular & cell biology at UC Berkeley. There have been plenty of days when I have spent the working hours with biologists and…
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Do We Need a Theory of Everything?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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Quantum computers: amazing progress, but probably false supremacy claims
A 2017 cartoon from this post. After the embargo update (Oct 25): Now that I have some answers from the people involved let me make a quick update: 1) I still find the paper unconvincing, specific…