This talk was given during the display of the exhibit “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World by Blessed Carlo Acutis” at Saint Mary-Saint Andrew Church, Ellenville, New York on May 3, 2023 Christian friendship is so important and is so often taken for granted. Mutual friends can become part of each other’s lives so much… Continue reading Blessed Carlo Acutis and Friendship with Jesus in the Eucharist
A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics
Seiberg and his colleagues imagined the one-dimensional string as being surrounded by a surface, a two-dimensional plane, so that it looked like a line drawn on a sheet of paper. Instead of measuring charge along the string, they described a method for measuring the total charge across the surface surrounding the string. “The really new… Continue reading A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics
Juggled Plan for McCarthy-Tsai Meeting Does Taiwan No Favors
Last July, as Beijing stewed about then–U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plans to travel to Taiwan, then–House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he would also lead a delegation to the island if he succeeded Pelosi as speaker. But now that he is speaker, McCarthy is abiding by the advice of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to… Continue reading Juggled Plan for McCarthy-Tsai Meeting Does Taiwan No Favors
Loving God and Our Neighbor
Love of God The more we love God, the more we will grow in holiness. And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” (Luke 1:46) Greatest Virtue and Commandment As we grow in the theological virtues, we grow in sanctifying grace. Having covered the virtues of faith and hope in the last chapter, we now… Continue reading Loving God and Our Neighbor
How Can Some Infinities Be Bigger Than Others?
The idea of infinity is probably about as old as numbers themselves, going back to whenever people first realized that they could keep counting forever. But even though we have a sign for infinity and can refer to the concept in casual conversation, infinity remains profoundly mysterious, even to mathematicians. In this episode, Steven Strogatz… Continue reading How Can Some Infinities Be Bigger Than Others?
Japan’s New Security Policies: A Long Road to Full Implementation
On December 16, 2022, Japan’s government released a new national security strategy, national defense strategy, and defense buildup program. In mid-January, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and key Cabinet officials visited Washington to jointly highlight these documents and discuss the next steps for the U.S.-Japan alliance with the Biden administration. At the time, much commentary… Continue reading Japan’s New Security Policies: A Long Road to Full Implementation
Proteins Never Seen in Nature Are Designed Using AI to Address Biomedical and Industrial Problems Unsolved by Evolution
Machine learning (ML) and other AI- based computational tools have proven their prowess at predicting real-world protein structures. AlphaFold 2, an algorithm developed by scientists at DeepMind that can confidently predict protein structure purely on the basis of an amino acid sequence, has become almost a household name since its launch in July 2021. Today,… Continue reading Proteins Never Seen in Nature Are Designed Using AI to Address Biomedical and Industrial Problems Unsolved by Evolution
Can Grade Retention Help with COVID-19 Learning Recovery in Schools?
Requiring low-performing students to repeat a grade has been a long-standing and highly debated intervention in the United States. Calls to end social promotion in schools in the 1990s, along with the increasing popularity of educational accountability and standardized testing, led to test-based retention policies in many states and school districts. As of 2020, for… Continue reading Can Grade Retention Help with COVID-19 Learning Recovery in Schools?
How Magnetic Fields Control Galactic Growth
The Milky Way’s rotating disk of gas and dust gives rise to graceful spiral arms, which make up the galaxy’s most active star formation sites. Now researchers using an airplane-borne telescope high in Earth’s atmosphere have found a mechanism for how magnetic fields shape star birth in the dense filaments, or “bones,” that wind their… Continue reading How Magnetic Fields Control Galactic Growth
Why U.S. Military Interventions Fail and What to Do About It
American soldiers have been deployed abroad almost continuously since the end of World War II. The best-known foreign interventions—in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq—were large, long, and costly. But there have been dozens of other such deployments, many smaller or shorter, for purposes ranging from deterrence to training. Taken as a whole, these operations have had… Continue reading Why U.S. Military Interventions Fail and What to Do About It