It’s one of the biggest cliches in crime and science fiction: An investigator pulls up a blurry photo on a computer screen and asks for it to be enhanced, and boom, the image comes into focus, revealing some essential clue. It’s a wonderful storytelling convenience, but it’s been a frustrating fiction for decades — blow… Continue reading The AI Tools Making Images Look Better
A Four-Day School Week? Here Are the Costs and Benefits
For a town of barely 13,000 people, Athens, Texas, is not shy about putting itself on the map. It calls itself the black-eyed pea capital of the world. It claims the hamburger was born in a little café on its courthouse square. And its school district proudly proclaims itself the “Home of the 4-Day Instructional… Continue reading A Four-Day School Week? Here Are the Costs and Benefits
What Caused Maui’s Devastating Wildfires?
Editor’s Note (8/21/23): This article was updated after posting to include new details of the situation on the ground, including the death toll from the fires. At least 114 people have been confirmed to be killed by wildfires that raged uncontrolled on the famously beautiful Hawaiian island last week. People were left with little time to escape from… Continue reading What Caused Maui’s Devastating Wildfires?
Money, Markets, and Machine Learning: Unpacking the Risks of Adversarial AI
It is impossible to ignore the critical role that artificial intelligence (AI) and its subset, machine learning, play in the stock market today. While AI refers to machines that can perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence, machine learning (ML) involves learning patterns from data, which enhances the machines’ ability to make predictions and… Continue reading Money, Markets, and Machine Learning: Unpacking the Risks of Adversarial AI
What a Contest of Consciousness Theories Really Proved
Dehaene favored the second experiment, which also involved the comprehensive decoding of brain patterns. Test subjects would be randomly exposed to faces and objects flashed on a screen while they played a distracting Tetris-like video game. Shortly after an image was shown, the game would stop and the subject would be asked whether they saw… Continue reading What a Contest of Consciousness Theories Really Proved
The State of Public Education, the Opioid Crisis, Defending Taiwan: RAND Weekly Recap
This week, we discuss the trends shaping public education in America; expanding access to nonopioid alternatives for pain management; a historic trilateral summit at Camp David; emerging technologies that could help defend Taiwan; how climate information can help stormwater managers better protect their communities from flooding; and the rise in mental health care spending since… Continue reading The State of Public Education, the Opioid Crisis, Defending Taiwan: RAND Weekly Recap
New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient
Through these checks — and more subtle tweaks of the iffy qubits — you can also hide a reliable qubit throughout the square block’s data-carrying qubits, not exactly here or there but sort of everywhere. As long as the iffy qubits keep the Minesweeper operations humming along smoothly, the hidden qubit stays safe and can… Continue reading New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient
A Winnable War
More than a century ago, Europe was convulsed by World War I, pitting the Allies—led by Britain, France, Russia, and eventually the United States—against the Central Powers, led by imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary. In the west, fighting occurred along a 440-mile front that stretched from the English Channel to the Franco-Swiss border. Much of this… Continue reading A Winnable War
The Blood of Saint Januarius (And Other Patron Questions)
Podcast: Download MYS274: 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 the blood of St. Januarius, ultraterrestrials, Mary Suratt, RPGs, the Beloved Disciple, and more. Get all… Continue reading The Blood of Saint Januarius (And Other Patron Questions)
The Hidden Brain Connections Between Our Hands and Tongues
One day, while threading a needle to sew a button, I noticed that my tongue was sticking out. The same thing happened later, as I carefully cut out a photograph. Then another day, as I perched precariously on a ladder painting the window frame of my house, there it was again! What’s going on here?… Continue reading The Hidden Brain Connections Between Our Hands and Tongues