January 24, 2024 3 min read Groundwater Is Declining Globally, but There Are Hopeful Exceptions The most detailed global look at groundwater yet shows a lot of loss but also stories of success in restoring some aquifers By Stephanie Pappas Groundwater-fed irrigation of maize in Kabwe, Zambia. In 1997 Union County in southern Arkansas faced… Continue reading Groundwater Is Declining Globally, but There Are Hopeful Exceptions
TikTok Paranoia, Brought To You By the Architects of the Corona-Lockdowns
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Ben Franklin As of May of 2020, more than 40 million Americans had filed for unemployment. The 40 million represented one quarter of the U.S. workforce. There’s a tendency even now for people to say that… Continue reading TikTok Paranoia, Brought To You By the Architects of the Corona-Lockdowns
New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal
That’s where Strassen’s laser method finally comes into play. “The laser method typically works very well and generally finds a good way to kill a subset of blocks to remove the overlap,” Le Gall said. After the laser has eliminated, or “burned away,” all the overlaps, you can construct the final product matrix, C. Putting… Continue reading New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal
Tiny Tweaks to Neurons Can Rewire Animal Motion
It was as if this ion channel were a dial that could twist one neuron type into the other. But what was actually different about this protein in the snake’s body and rattle? At first, the researchers thought that rattle motor neurons must have extra KV72/3 potassium channels. If the rattle neurons had more channels,… Continue reading Tiny Tweaks to Neurons Can Rewire Animal Motion
Bidenomics Versus the American Family
The President may be proud of “Bidenomics,” with its massive, seismic transformation in the size and scope of government, but to voters, it is raw pain. Like a runaway train that has smashed into a small town’s railyard, everywhere you look, no part of the life we knew remains as it was before. Our life… Continue reading Bidenomics Versus the American Family
A Multitalented Scientist Seeks the Origins of Multicellularity
You did your postdoc with the zoologist Michael Akam at Cambridge. In an era when biochemistry predominates, the study of whole animals can sometimes seem like a throwback to another century. Why did you choose it? Because I wanted to take the findings in my dissertation to the next step. The dissertation examined how germ… Continue reading A Multitalented Scientist Seeks the Origins of Multicellularity
A New Agenda for Low-Dimensional Topology
Kirby has historically been a skeptic of the existence of structural biases in mathematics, including regarding the field’s gender imbalance. In the 1970s, about 10% of mathematicians were women; today almost 30% are, according to a 2020 report by the International Science Council. In an article that he wrote in the 1990s, and which was… Continue reading A New Agenda for Low-Dimensional Topology
When Classical Learning Meets Public Education, the Dialogue Isn’t Always Socratic
The future of the controversial classical education movement will be showcased later this month when Columbia University senior lecturer Roosevelt Montás is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at a national symposium hosted by Great Hearts, the biggest classical charter network. Roosevelt Montás: Signaling classical education’s effort to diversify. Columbia U. Princeton University Press The… Continue reading When Classical Learning Meets Public Education, the Dialogue Isn’t Always Socratic
Why Did God Create Dinosaurs? (& More Patrons’ Questions)
Podcast: Download MYS301: We regularly give Patrons the opportunity to ask Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli their mysterious questions and make them available exclusively to Patrons first and then later to the whole audience. This time the questions cover why God created dinosaurs; Dom & Jimmy’s own mysterious experiences; foo fighters; and more. Get all… Continue reading Why Did God Create Dinosaurs? (& More Patrons’ Questions)
The Opioid Crisis Is Now Being Tracked with Wastewater
Wastewater-based epidemiology, the process of monitoring health indicators through sewage, has become a common way to track the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. But before 2020 scientists were using the technology to follow a different public health threat: the opioid crisis. Just as sewage data can fill gaps in SARS-CoV-2 tracking, this… Continue reading The Opioid Crisis Is Now Being Tracked with Wastewater