January 25, 2024 3 min read The mouselike male antechinus goes all out for its first and final mating season By Jack Tamisiea Dusky antechinus marsupial on moss at Mount Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. During the breeding season, time is not on a male antechinus’s side. These carnivorous marsupials, which resemble a mousy shrew,… Continue reading This Tiny Marsupial Gives Up Sleep for Sex, Then Drops Dead
Category: Quantum Stuff
Maze Proof Establishes a ‘Backbone’ for Statistical Mechanics
Imagine that a grid of hexagons, honeycomb-like, stretches before you. Some hexagons are empty; others are filled by a 6-foot tall column of solid concrete. The result is a maze of sorts. For over half a century, mathematicians have posed questions about such randomly generated mazes. How big is the largest web of cleared paths?… Continue reading Maze Proof Establishes a ‘Backbone’ for Statistical Mechanics
Renewable Power Set to Surpass Coal Globally by 2025
CLIMATEWIRE | Global electricity demand will step up its rate of growth over the next three years — but the additional power use will be covered by low-emissions sources, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Energy Agency. The IEA’s Electricity 2024 report forecasts that renewable energy is set to overtake the world’s use of coal… Continue reading Renewable Power Set to Surpass Coal Globally by 2025
Lions Are Changing Their Hunting Strategy because of Ant Invasion
January 25, 2024 4 min read Big-headed ants are invading new territories in Kenya—and the consequences are rippling through the whole ecosystem, scientists have found By Meghan Bartels Young female (left) and male lions stalk prey within a “pristine” (uninvaded) savanna. The whistling-thorn trees in the foreground provide cover used by lions to stalk and… Continue reading Lions Are Changing Their Hunting Strategy because of Ant Invasion
64,000 Pregnancies Caused by Rape Have Occurred in States with a Total Abortion Ban, New Study Estimates
January 25, 2024 4 min read Researchers calculated the number of pregnancies resulting from rape in states where abortion was banned throughout pregnancy after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision By Tanya Lewis Abortion rights protesters rally outside of the Texas State Capital in 2022. A new study estimates the number of rape-related pregnancies in states with abortion… Continue reading 64,000 Pregnancies Caused by Rape Have Occurred in States with a Total Abortion Ban, New Study Estimates
Scientists Find Optimal Balance of Data Storage and Time
The team built their hash table in two parts. They had a primary data structure, in which the items are stored without any wasted bits at all, and a secondary data structure, which helps a query request find the item it’s looking for. While the group did not invent the notion of a secondary data… Continue reading Scientists Find Optimal Balance of Data Storage and Time
NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Ends Mission on the Red Planet after 3 Years
January 25, 2024 4 min read NASA’s enterprising Mars helicopter and its remarkable 72 flights offered a new vision of planetary exploration By Meghan Bartels NASA’s Perseverance rover checks out Ingenuity on August 2, 2023. After nearly three years soaring through the red skies of Mars, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is permanently grounded. The agency launched… Continue reading NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Ends Mission on the Red Planet after 3 Years
To See Black Holes in Detail, She Uses ‘Echoes’ Like a Bat
And on the flip side, which black holes stand out to you as particularly extreme or particularly weird? I like to study the normal guys, and then I like to crank things up and see where things break. What’s also really fun are the oddball systems that just keep you up at night wondering: How… Continue reading To See Black Holes in Detail, She Uses ‘Echoes’ Like a Bat
How Quickly Do Large Language Models Learn Unexpected Skills?
Two years ago, in a project called the Beyond the Imitation Game benchmark, or BIG-bench, 450 researchers compiled a list of 204 tasks designed to test the capabilities of large language models, which power chatbots like ChatGPT. On most tasks, performance improved predictably and smoothly as the models scaled up — the larger the model,… Continue reading How Quickly Do Large Language Models Learn Unexpected Skills?
How Far Away Is the Horizon?
When most of us go to the beach, we like to play in the sand, frolic in the surf and people watch. I like all those things, too. But I am also a massive science nerd, and that means that despite the distractions, I cannot tear my attention away from the horizon. Oh, that line… Continue reading How Far Away Is the Horizon?