4381
Hunger and Undernourishment
What are the consequences of undernourishment and how can we make progress against hunger and undernourishment?
Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 4,455 posts.
4382
Cardiologists and Chinese Robbers
I. It takes a special sort of person to be a cardiologist. This is not always a good thing. You may have read about one or another of the “cardiologist caught falsifying test results and perf…
4383
Two-Thirds of Americans Think Government Should Do More on Climate
There is bipartisan support for several proposals to reduce the effects of climate change, especially for large scale tree-plantings to help absorb carbon emissions and offering tax credits to businesses that capture carbon emissions.
4384
Environmental Impacts of Food Production
What are the environmental impacts of food production? How do we reduce the impacts of agriculture on the environment?
4385
Orbital Speed
What if a spacecraft slowed down on re-entry to just a few miles per hour using rocket boosters like the Mars-sky-crane? Would it negate the need for a heat shield?
4386
Nuclear Power in China
China has become largely self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. The strong impetus for nuclear power in China is increasingly due to air pollution from coal-fired plants.
4387
Molecular Expressions: The Silicon Zoo
This page contains a photomicrograph of the surface of a Digital VAX microprocessor containing a phrase written in Russian.
4388
The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it
Very few think the world is making progress. In this article, we look at the history of global living conditions and show that the world has made immense progress in important aspects.
4389
You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local
“Eat local” is a common recommendation to reduce your diet's carbon footprint. How does the impact of what you eat compare to where it comes from?
4390
U.S. Public Views on Climate and Energy
A majority of U.S. adults say they are taking at least some specific action in their daily lives to protect the environment, though Democrats and Republicans remain at ideological odds over the causes of climate change and the effects of policies to address it.
4391
Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels were key to industrialization and rising prosperity, but their impact on health and the climate means that we should transition away from them.
4392
What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?
Fossil fuels are the dirtiest and most dangerous energy sources, while nuclear and modern renewable energy sources are vastly safer and cleaner.
4393
Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due To Offensive Attitudes
[This post has mostly been replaced/supplanted with a more thorough analysis in Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences] I. One idea that kept coming up in the comments to the thread on signal-boos…
4394
Laser Pointer
If every person on Earth aimed a laser pointer at the Moon at the same time, would it change color?
4395
Guns and suicide: A fatal link
In the United States, suicides outnumber homicides almost two to one. Perhaps the real tragedy behind suicide deaths—about 30,000 a year, one for every 45
4396
Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything
Batteries are now cheap enough to unleash solar energy’s full potential, getting as close as 97% of the way to delivering constant electricity supply 24 hours across 365 days cost-effectively in the sunniest places.
4397
Society Is Fixed, Biology Is Mutable
Today during an otherwise terrible lecture on ADHD I realized something important we get sort of backwards. There’s this stereotype that the Left believes that human characteristics are socia…
4398
The China Study: Fact or Fallacy?
Disclaimer: This blog post covers only a fraction of what’s sketchy with “The China Study.” In the years since I wrote it, I’ve added a number of additional articles expandi…
4399
Galactic-Scale Energy
[ An updated treatment of this material appears in Chapter 1 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook , and also appears as part of an article in Nature Physics in 2022.]
4400
Around 90% of all river-borne plastic that ends up in the ocean comes from just 10 rivers
The world has become increasingly alarmed at the amount of plastic in its oceans. But where does all this plastic waste come from?
4401
Mortality Risk of COVID-19
Explore data on the mortality risk of COVID-19 across the world.
4402
Plans For New Reactors Worldwide
Nuclear power capacity worldwide is increasing steadily. Most reactors under construction are in the Asian region. Significant further capacity is being created by plant uprating.
4403
My visit to D-Wave: Beyond the roast-beef sandwich
Last week I was in Vancouver, to give talks at the University of British Columbia and at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting. As part of that visit, on Friday af…
4404
PHYS771 Quantum Computing Since Democritus
University of Waterloo, Fall 2006 Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00-2:30pm BFG Building, 2nd floor seminar room (BFG2125)
4405
War and Peace
How common are armed conflict and peace between and within countries? How is this changing over time? Explore research and data on war and peace.
4406
Viral Loads Similar Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated People
A new study from the University of California, Davis, Genome Center, UC San Francisco and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub shows no significant difference in viral load between vaccinated and unvaccinated people who tested positive for the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. It also found no significant difference between infected…
4407
The Relativistic Rocket
Thanks to Alan R. Wilson for correcting a two-word typo involving GPS satellites. Thanks to Aron Yoffe for suggesting the newtonian comparison. Thanks to Tom Fuchs for suggesting the analogy to the stone thrown upwards. Fuel numbers added by Don Koks, 2004. Updated by Phil Gibbs, 1998. Thanks to Bill Woods for…
4408
Formal Theory of Creativity and Fun and Intrinsic Motivation Explains Science, Art, Music, Humor (Juergen Schmidhuber). Artificial Scientists, Artificial Artists, Developmental Robotics, Curiosity, Attention, Surprise, Novelty, Discovery, Open-Ended Learning, Formal Theory of Beauty, Creating Novel…
Formal Theory of Creativity & Fun & Intrinsic Motivation (1990-2010) by Jürgen Schmidhuber
4409
Child and Infant Mortality
Child mortality remains one of the world’s largest problems and is a painful reminder of work yet to be done. With global data on where, when, and how child deaths occur, we can accelerate efforts to prevent them.
4410
Impact of fluoride on neurological development in children
July 25, 2012 -- For years health experts have been unable to agree on whether fluoride in the drinking water may be toxic to the developing human brain.