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What Are the Odds?
An unusual lottery result made the news recently: on October 1, 2022, the PCSO Grand Lotto in the Philippines, which draws six numbers from $latex {1}&fg=000000$ to $latex {55}&fg=000000$ a…
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Mysterious object unlike anything astronomers have seen before
A team mapping radio waves in the Universe has discovered something unusual that releases a giant burst of energy three times an hour, and it’s unlike anything astronomers have seen before. The team who discovered it think it could be a neutron star or a white dwarf—collapsed cores of stars—with an ultra-powerful…
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Ocean plastics: How much do rich countries contribute by shipping their waste?
Many countries ship plastic waste overseas. How much of the world’s waste is traded, and how big is its role in the pollution of our oceans?
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Can we make a black hole? And if we could, what could we do with it?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
277
People took some potassium and lost some weight
In November 2021, we finished our series A Chemical Hunger, where we argue that the obesity epidemic is the result of environmental contaminants, and that one of those contaminants might be lithium…
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Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier? Part III
You’re reading Age of Invention, my newsletter on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution and the history of innovation.
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The Reliability of Optical Disks
How long will burned CDs / DVDs / BluRays last?
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Electrolyser development: 200 times less iridium needed
Researchers at TNO have been the first to develop a method that will require 200 times less iridium for electrolysis.
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New plant-derived composite is tough as bone and hard as aluminum
A new woody composite engineered by an MIT team is tough as bone and hard as aluminum, and might pave way for naturally derived plastics.
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T cells block nerve cell regeneration with age, but can be reversed – mice study
New research in mice shows T cells prevent damaged nerve cells from regenerating due to a reversible, ageing-related mechanism.
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Holography without Lasers: Hand-drawn Holograms (1999)
I've stumbled across a technique for drawing holograms directly upon a plastic plate by hand. It sounds impossible, but I've been sitting on the livingroom sofa making holographic images of floating polyhedra, words, 3D starfields, opaque objects, etc. No laser, no isolation table, no darkroom, no expensive film…
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Alien intelligence and the concept of technology
Learn how alien intelligence connects to human intelligence through science and technology using the Principle of Computational Equivalence, the ruliad, rulial space, tiny spacecraft and the Wolfram Language.
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Scientists discover mechanism of hearing
Discovery made possible by more than 60 million worms and state-of-the-art imaging accessible only at OHSU, two other national cryoEM centers in the U.S.
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Einstein-Bohr debate settled once and for all
In Steven Pinker’s guest post from last week, there’s one bit to which I never replied. Steve wrote: After all, in many areas Einstein was no Einstein. You [Scott] above all could speak…
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Missing link between Alzheimer’s and vascular disease found?
A gene called FMNL2 may explain why people with hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, or obesity have a greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
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Galileo Project now fully funded for expedition to study an interstellar meteor
Wonderful news! We just received full funding for the Galileo Project expedition to scoop the fragments of the first interstellar meteor…
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New study shows highly creative people’s brains work differently from others'
A new study led by UCLA Health scientists shows highly creative people’s brains appear to work differently from others;, with an atypical approach that makes distant connections more quickly by bypassing the “hubs” seen in non-creative brains.
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Oxidation makes tea black
Oxidation radically alters everything we perceive in food. It changes the flavor, aroma, color, and texture of everything we eat and drink. Without oxidation, tea would taste unbearably bitter. Oxidation is what unlocks tea’s hidden flavors by removing bitter compounds and transforming flavorless proteins into…
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Do climate models predict extreme weather?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
294
Busy Beaver Updates: Now Even Busier
Way back in the covid-filled summer of 2020, I wrote a survey article about the ridiculously-rapidly-growing Busy Beaver function. My survey then expanded to nearly twice its original length, with …
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New process allows 3-D printing of microscale metallic parts
Engineers infuse a hydrogel structure with a metal solution and then use heat and chemical reactions to leave only the metal behind.
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Earth might be experiencing 7th mass extinction, not 6th
New research suggests environmental changes caused the first mass extinction event in history, which occurred millions of years earlier than scientists previously realized.
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How to identify and misidentify a brown recluse spider (2005)
How to Identify and Misidentify a Brown Recluse Spider by Rick Vetter Staff Research Associate, UC Riverside Dept. of Entomology
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A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results
Dr. John Taylor treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results, perhaps causing the death of both composers. Did it impact the course of Western music?
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How do palm trees survive hurricanes? (2017)
The destructive force of typhoons and hurricanes are no joking matter. Human structures are torn to shreds and flooded in the blink of an eye. It is devastating to say the least. With all of this destruction, one must wonder how native flora and fauna have coped with such forces over millions of years. The true…
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Physicists discover a “family” of robust, superconducting graphene structures
MIT physicsts identified new multilayered configurations of graphene that can be twisted and stacked to elicit robust superconductivity at low temperatures. The study establishes these configurations as the first known “family” of multilayer magic-angle superconductors.