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Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 4,455 posts.
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Trust Science
Well, of course we all do trust science. We trust Bernoulli's Principle every time we get on a plane; we trust celestial mechanics when we take the kids outside to watch a scheduled lunar eclipse ; we trust subatomic physics when we relax with an iPod; we trust the laws of chemistry every time we strike a match; we…
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Energy Is Not Conserved (2010)
I’ve been meaning to link to this post at the arXiv blog , which is a great source of quirky and interesting new papers. In this case they are pointing to a speculative but interesting paper by Martin Perl and Holger Mueller, which suggests an experimental search for gradients in dark energy by way of atom…
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Face Masks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know
There’s been recent controversy about the use of face masks for protection against coronavirus. Mainstream sources, including the CDC and most of the media say masks are likely useless and no…
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Safety of Nuclear Energy
Explore global data on nuclear energy production and the safety of nuclear technologies.
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Tim Ferris: Beginner's Guide to Lucid Dreaming
From 1994-1995 I had the great pleasure of training with wrestling legend John Smith, 2-time gold medalist and 4-time world champion (domestic freestyle record of 80-0; international freestyle record of 100-5).
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How Depressions Work
On Capitol Hill sit many powerful people — Congressmen, Senators, Justices — but also numerous others who do the daily work of keeping government running. And, like anyone with such a weighty responsibility, they sometimes want a break: a chance to see a movie or eat out with their spouse.
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Extreme poverty: How far have we come, and how far do we still have to go?
The world has made immense progress against extreme poverty, but it is still the reality for almost one in ten people worldwide.
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Per capita CO₂ emissions Over Time
An interactive visualization from Our World in Data.
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Deaths per TWh for all energy sources: Rooftop solar power relatively dangerous
Update: I have written a fairly comprehensive article about steps to lower deaths per terawatt hour . Primary focus on pollution mitigation. Air pollution causes 3.1 million deaths per year
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Nicholas Wade: Origin of Covid – Following the Clues
“” is published by Nicholas Wade.
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For a Quick Exit, Just Block the Fire Door
Learn about public engagement activities from the American Physical Society
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Why Cryonics Makes Sense (2016)
The more I read about cryonics—i.e. freezing yourself after death—the more I realized it's something we should all be talking about.
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Nature's Decline Unprecedented; Species Extinction Rates Accelerating (2019)
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - Time for Global Action for People and Planet
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Deaths per TWH by energy source
I wrote this back in 2008 and with one new death that is somewhat nuclear energy related (a death at one of the japanese nuclear plants following the 8.9 earthquake) the statistics are not changed. Japan should have had sealed backup diesel generators or updated some of their designs. However, nuclear still compares…
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Top Ten Things that Math Probability Says about the Real World
Talk given at Cornell University, April 14 2008. Like most scientists, I habitually just write slides and extemporize the actual spoken words. For this one talk I wrote the following script, though (being hard to break the habits of 30 years) I didn't stick closely to the script. Each link is one slide.
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Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? (2003)
The original paper that introduced the simulation argument
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Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
I. From Identity, Personal Identity, and the Self by John Perry:”There is something about practical things that knocks us off our philosophical high horses. Perhaps Heraclitus really thought …
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Why rats can't vomit, and why humans do
Rats can't vomit. They can't burp either, and they don't experience heartburn. Rats can't vomit for several related reasons: (1) Rats have a powerful barrier between the stomach and the esophagus. They don't have the esophageal muscle strength to overcome and open this barrier by force, which is necessary for…
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Safe to swim in nuclear spent fuel pool?
What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface?