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The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 323 posts.
Last time we talked about free will, superintelligent predictors, and Dr. Evil planning to destroy the earth from his moon base. Today I'd like to talk about a more down-to-earth topic: time travel. The first point I have to make is one that Carl Sagan made: we're all time travelers—at the rate of one second per…
In 1996, some researchers discovered that depressed people often had an unusual version of the serotonin transporter gene 5-HTTLPR. The study became a psychiatric sensation, getting thousands of ci…
Rochester researchers have created a metallic structure so water repellent, it refuses to sink—no matter how often it is forced into water.
On a Sunday morning in 2006, Cecilia Wu was mugged after leaving church. The pain became unbearable. Discouraged with her treatment options, Wu opted to participate in a pilot study at an orthopedics lab for patients with a full-thickness rotator cuff tear. “It was better than surgery,” Wu said.
A recent University of Cambridge spin-out company, Paragraf, has started producing graphene – a sheet of carbon just one atomic layer thick – at up to eight inches (20cm) in diameter, large enough for commercial electronic devices.
Interactive article explaining alpha compositing concepts.
Today’s carbon dioxide emissions may trigger a reflex in the carbon cycle with devastating consequences, according to a new MIT study.
Stephen Wolfram shares his memories of Murray Gell-Mann, leader in particle physics and Nobel Prize winner. Observations from years together in Caltech’s physics department and a selection of Gell-Mann’s contributions to physics.
Note: These pages make extensive use of the latest XHTML and CSS Standards . They ought to look great in any standards-compliant modern browser. Unfortunately, they will probably look horrible in older browsers, like Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x. Moreover, many posts use MathML, which is, currently only supported in…
From Medieval sword-fighters to Broca’s brains, or why the hand may hold the key to the link between creativity and mental illness.
Jacob Collier is the internet’s favorite musical virtuoso. Here’s his mostly acapella arrangement of a Christmas carol called “In The Bleak Midwinter.” The most remarkable p…
To mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, we revisit a first-hand account of designing the Lunar Module digital autopilot, and compare the approach used then with the way it could be done today.
Human emissions of greenhouse gases are the primary driver of climate change. The world needs to decarbonize to reduce them.
Awesome plan! But, how frequently are suitable targets expected to inter the inner solar system that would also be able to be reached from Earth’s L2 point?
There was an article on Hacker News the other day by David Richeson entitled Make Your Own Pythagorean Cup . A Pythagorean cup is a cup with a built-in siphon. Supposedly invented by Pythagoras, the cup functions just like an ordinary cup as long as it is only filled to a certain level. If anyone gets greedy and tries…
Cross Laminated Timber (or CLT for short) is a structural building material that can replace concrete and steel in new building construction. I wrote about CLT back in April and mentioned that the Gotham Gal and I are in the process of making two CLT buildings right now. The paper version of the New York […]
See also other posts tagged Single Rotation . In the previous post I have presented the Reversible Cellular Automata simulator , along ...
Mice fed a ketogenic — or very low-carb — diet were better able to combat the flu virus than mice fed food high in carbohydrates, according to a new Yale study.
The graph on the left shows a third example, taken from analytical chemistry: a straight-line calibration data set where X = concentration and Y = instrument reading (Y = a + b X). Click to download that data . The blue dots are the data points. They don't all fall in a perfect straight line because of random noise…
Nominations for fields that are not being researched as much as they should be
Above you can see photos of Garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) male falling asleep on a spike of lavander flower. I took the photograph in the evening, just as sunset was over and the temperature w…
Botanist Lincoln Taiz and colleagues argue against the suggestion that plants have neurobiology or consciousness.
Note: These pages make extensive use of the latest XHTML and CSS Standards . They ought to look great in any standards-compliant modern browser. Unfortunately, they will probably look horrible in older browsers, like Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x. Moreover, many posts use MathML, which is, currently only supported in…
This content is currently in the process of being archived and integrated into the CERN Library collections.
Global population grew rapidly over the past century, but this period of fast growth is coming to an end.
How can you be in two places at once When you’re not anywhere at all — Firesign Theater [Note: this is NOT original research. I just read the right book] The famous double slit experime…
I am writing to request 5 corrections to the article on ancient DNA that appeared in this week’s The New York Times Magazine.
