LEVIN: Well, I think that we have an opportunity as research scientists to dig really deep into particular ideas of our choosing, but we don’t really get a chance ourselves even to talk to other people deeply in other fields, and I think that’s going to be a real pleasure. We’re going to home in… Continue reading New Conversations, Deep Questions, Bold Ideas in Season Four of ‘The Joy of Why’
Injunction Dysfunction or Tyrant Disruption? Trump-Era Judicial Paralysis Explained
Can a single judge unilaterally thwart the president of the United States? That’s the contentious question the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to resolve last week in response to court orders blocking its effort to curtail birthright citizenship, and after a slew of decrees requiring the president do everything from halting major actions on DEI and… Continue reading Injunction Dysfunction or Tyrant Disruption? Trump-Era Judicial Paralysis Explained
Measles Outbreak in Children Grows in One of Texas’ Least Vaccinated Counties
A measles outbreak is growing in a Texas county with dangerously low vaccination rates. In late January, two school-age children from Gaines County were hospitalized with measles. Since an estimated 1 in 5 people with the disease end up in the hospital, the two cases suggested a larger outbreak. As of Feb. 12, there were… Continue reading Measles Outbreak in Children Grows in One of Texas’ Least Vaccinated Counties
‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture
And even in cases where the grains all conspired to provide maximum overlap, they found, the number of grains intersecting any given point couldn’t be too big. Starting from the 2.5 bound, they were able to prove that the grains couldn’t overlap enough to result in a dimension slightly above that bound either. Then, starting… Continue reading ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture
Animal-to-Human Organ Transplants Hit Long-Awaited Testing Milestone
February 13, 2025 4 min read Animal-to-Human Organ Transplants Hit Long-Awaited Testing Milestone Up to 50 transplant patients will receive a genetically modified pig kidney in a clinical trial that will launch this summer By Tanya Lewis edited by Dean Visser Towana Looney, 53, received a gene-edited pig kidney transplant at NYU Langone Health in… Continue reading Animal-to-Human Organ Transplants Hit Long-Awaited Testing Milestone
A New Beltway Intrigue: Follow the Biden EPA Money
When the Biden administration announced $27 billion in environmental grants last April, it set the clock ticking on a predicament: how to get the unprecedented sums for the President’s envisioned NetZero future out the door before the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30? Lee Zeldin, Trump EPA Administrator: Sees “a deeply entrenched pattern of political… Continue reading A New Beltway Intrigue: Follow the Biden EPA Money
UFO Observables (Unidentified Flying Objects, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, UAPs)
UFO Observables (Unidentified Flying Objects, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, UAPs) < !- end of Google Analytics Code Snippet by GA4WP–> // tabnab protection window.addEventListener(‘load’, function () { // make all links have rel=”noopener noreferrer” document.querySelectorAll(‘a[target=”_blank”]’).forEach(link => { link.setAttribute(‘rel’, ‘noopener noreferrer’); }); }); ]]> Podcast: Download MYS355: Strange things are flying in our skies, and the US… Continue reading UFO Observables (Unidentified Flying Objects, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, UAPs)
Scientists React to RFK, Jr.’s Confirmation as HHS Secretary
February 13, 2025 4 min read Scientists React to RFK, Jr.’s Confirmation as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has expressed support for some fields of science but has also declared he’d like a “break” in infectious-disease research. Here’s what he might do as the U.S.’s newly confirmed secretary of health and human services By… Continue reading Scientists React to RFK, Jr.’s Confirmation as HHS Secretary
The Upstart ‘Classic Learning Test’ Gets a Testy Welcome From the SAT
A lobbyist for the College Board delivered a sharp warning to William Slater last month. She was not happy that the Tennessee Republican lawmaker had recently introduced a bill to allow the state’s public universities to accept the Classic Learning Test, an upstart competitor to the College Board’s famed SAT, as an admissions exam. Jeremy… Continue reading The Upstart ‘Classic Learning Test’ Gets a Testy Welcome From the SAT
Why Do Researchers Care About Small Language Models?
Large language models work well because they’re so large. The latest models from OpenAI, Meta and DeepSeek use hundreds of billions of “parameters” — the adjustable knobs that determine connections among data and get tweaked during the training process. With more parameters, the models are better able to identify patterns and connections, which in turn… Continue reading Why Do Researchers Care About Small Language Models?