Plasticity differs from evolution because it happens within an individual’s lifetime. Understanding a polyp’s adjustments can therefore help biologists grasp the limits of adaptation in an era of unprecedented change. How quickly does coral grow? How densely can polyps pack together? What shapes do colonies assume to adapt to different environments? What’s the minimum number… Continue reading The ‘Elegant’ Math Model That Could Help Rescue Coral Reefs
The Ghost of the USS Hornet (Museum, Investigation, Paranormal, Haunting, Ghosts)
The Ghost of the USS Hornet (Museum, Investigation, Paranormal, Haunting, Ghosts) < !- 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 MYS353: In this second part of our look at… Continue reading The Ghost of the USS Hornet (Museum, Investigation, Paranormal, Haunting, Ghosts)
The Power of American Originals
“In the US, voters just loosed a genuine bull into the china shop of the ruling class.” BACKBONE: Maverick Essays in Middle America: Why American Populism Should be Welcomed, Not Feared is a collection of short essays about America’s spine, and everything that entails. Like a backbone, this collection of short essays runs through our… Continue reading The Power of American Originals
The Hidden Costs of Men’s Social Isolation
Men are struggling—at least, that’s what many headlines suggest. Compared with women, they report having fewer and less supportive friendships. Men lag behind dramatically in achievements such as higher education attainment. Suicide rates, too, reveal a grim gender disparity: women attempt suicide more often, but men are far more likely to die by it. Concerns… Continue reading The Hidden Costs of Men’s Social Isolation
California’s Other Dodgers: Pols Exploiting a Golden Gateway to Murky ‘Behested Payments’
The smoke from fire-ravaged Los Angeles has cleared, but a thick pall clouds the funding for fire recovery efforts. While insurance companies, landowners and taxpayers will surely foot most of the bill, it is likely that money solicited by Mayor Karen Bass through a campaign finance loophole will play a role. This wildfire is in… Continue reading California’s Other Dodgers: Pols Exploiting a Golden Gateway to Murky ‘Behested Payments’
Tumors Hijack the Nervous System to Fuel Their Own Growth
Cancer arises as an enemy from within. One of the body’s own cells becomes damaged or corrupted and then multiplies to create copies of its aberrant self. The ballooning army of deviant cells may invade nearby tissues, damaging them and causing symptoms. Deepening the betrayal, the body itself becomes complicit. Blood vessels grow toward the… Continue reading Tumors Hijack the Nervous System to Fuel Their Own Growth
New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes
At the beginning of time and the center of every black hole lies a point of infinite density called a singularity. To explore these enigmas, we take what we know about space, time, gravity and quantum mechanics and apply it to a place where all of those things simply break down. There is, perhaps, nothing… Continue reading New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes
Trump Administration Starts Firing Energy Department and Other Employees
CLIMATEWIRE | The Trump administration fired federal employees on probationary status Thursday, affecting tens of thousands of staffers nationwide. The Department of Energy, Forest Service and Office of Personnel Management are among the agencies that axed staffers, several current and former federal employees said. All agency employees for this story were granted anonymity because they… Continue reading Trump Administration Starts Firing Energy Department and Other Employees
How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories
He tweaked a machine learning technique called a hidden Markov model so it would work with fMRI data. The algorithm can be trained to recognize structure for events that stretch out over time, such as an episode of a TV show. The approach, borrowed from computer science, was new to neuroimaging. “That gave me a… Continue reading How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories
Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive
The breakthrough came months later, when Buhrman was visiting his frequent collaborator Richard Cleve at the University of Waterloo. They decided to focus on an extreme scenario, one where the full memory is very large. If a computer with little free memory can access this massive full memory, would that enable it to solve problems… Continue reading Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive