CLIMATEWIRE | The modern world is built on concrete. It holds together driveways, bridges and the buildings in which more than 70 percent of the world’s population makes their home. But the material is also a climate killer. Its production is responsible for 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions — more than the entirety… Continue reading Climate-Friendly Concrete Paves Path to Green Construction
Category: Quantum Stuff
500-Million-Year-Old ‘Alien Fish Taco’ Was among First Creatures with Jaws
500-Million-Year-Old ‘Alien Fish Taco’ Was among First Creatures with Jaws A bizarre fossil of a Cambrian creature that looked like an “alien fish taco” reveals how a single group with jaws came to account for around 90 percent of all animal species on Earth By Ashley Balzer Vigil A life reconstruction of Odaraia, which may… Continue reading 500-Million-Year-Old ‘Alien Fish Taco’ Was among First Creatures with Jaws
‘Groups’ Underpin Modern Math. Here’s How They Work.
Mathematics started with numbers — clear, concrete, intuitive. Over the last two centuries, however, it has become a far more abstract enterprise. One of the first major steps down this road was taken in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It involved a field called group theory, and it changed math — theoretical and… Continue reading ‘Groups’ Underpin Modern Math. Here’s How They Work.
Advanced Meditation Alters Understandings of Consciousness
Rachel Feltman: These days, most of us have at least a passing familiarity with the idea of meditation. Whether it’s something you’ve seen portrayed on TV, something you have a casual go at to cap off an occasional yoga practice, or it’s an integral part of your daily routine, the idea of using mindfulness and… Continue reading Advanced Meditation Alters Understandings of Consciousness
NASA May Spend $800 Million to Not Send This Revolutionary Rover to the Moon
In early June NASA engineers put the finishing touches on a technological marvel years in the making: a golf cart-sized rover designed to drive into the cold and darkness near the moon’s south pole, on the hunt for water ice. If successful, the $450-million rover—called the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER)—would at last provide… Continue reading NASA May Spend $800 Million to Not Send This Revolutionary Rover to the Moon
How Student Athletes Can Avoid Heatstroke
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. High school sports teams start practices soon in what has been an extremely hot summer in much of the country. Now, before they hit the field, is the time for athletes to start slowly and safely building up… Continue reading How Student Athletes Can Avoid Heatstroke
The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea
By the time the molecular part of the project was set to begin, the pandemic had hit. So Winnikoff set up an experiment in his garage. Using a fluorescence spectrometer, he sent rays of ultraviolet light into test tubes filled with small globs of membrane material from the creatures they’d collected. The results puzzled him.… Continue reading The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea
Novel Architecture Makes Neural Networks More Understandable
Tegmark was familiar with Poggio’s paper and thought the effort would lead to another dead end. But Liu was undeterred, and Tegmark soon came around. They recognized that even if the single-value functions generated by the theorem were not smooth, the network could still approximate them with smooth functions. They further understood that most of… Continue reading Novel Architecture Makes Neural Networks More Understandable
Can Thermodynamics Go Quantum? | Quanta Magazine
The principles of thermodynamics are cornerstones of our understanding of physics. But they were discovered in the era of steam-driven technology, long before anyone dreamed of quantum mechanics. In this episode, the theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern talks to host Steven Strogatz about how physicists today are reinterpreting concepts such as work, energy and information… Continue reading Can Thermodynamics Go Quantum? | Quanta Magazine
The Paris Olympics Are a Lesson in Greenwashing
The Summer Olympics will soon begin in Paris against the backdrop of heat waves and drought throughout much of Southern Europe. The organizers of the games say that in light of climate change, they’ve made sustainability a centerpiece of their enterprise. Channeling their inner Greta Thunberg, they promise that the event will be “historic for… Continue reading The Paris Olympics Are a Lesson in Greenwashing