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Weekly Links for August 15 and August 22, 2024
a day ago
- The staggering death toll of scientific lies
- Finally, yes please: Artificial intelligence is losing hype
- From the ‘absolute crap’ department: Peloton announces $95 “used equipment activation fee”
- Magic moment: Sydney aquarium filled with song after sea birds mourn death of gay penguin Sphen
- You don’t know how bad most things are nor precisely how they’re bad.
- Did you lose your AirPods?
- Person having ordinary skill in the art
- 200 meteorites on Earth traced to 5 craters on Mars
Space News, December 2025
a day ago
- Moss spores (Physcomitrium patens) survived 283 days on the outside of the ISS, with over 80% surviving direct exposure to vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperature swings; 86-89% of survivors germinated normally on Earth.
- The moss's protective sporangium, evolved 450-500 million years ago for land transition, provided natural shielding, making it a candidate for terraforming Moon and Mars by producing oxygen and improving soil.
- Moss spores showed about 1,000 times more UV resistance than tardigrades, challenging the common perception of tardigrades as the ultimate space survivors.
- Google's Project Suncatcher plans AI data centers in orbit using solar-powered satellites, but faces major challenges: cooling in space (requires kilometer-long radiators) and severe space debris collision risks (11000+ satellites, thousands of avoidance maneuvers).
- The risk of Kessler Syndrome is accelerated by large constellations, where debris collisions could render orbits unusable; Google's proposed orbit is already congested with Starlink satellites.
- Christmas in space history includes the first song played in space (Jingle Bells on Gemini 6), Apollo 8's Genesis reading and Earthrise photo, ISS traditions, and the bizarre 2008 film 'Christmas on Mars' by The Flaming Lips.
Corona Science Journal - Bert Hubert's writings
a day ago
- COVID-19 is far worse than seasonal flu, with significant mortality and strain on healthcare systems.
- Social distancing, hand washing, and coughing hygiene are effective measures to slow the spread.
- Warmer weather may slightly reduce transmission but strong measures are still necessary.
- Masks can reduce virus spread from asymptomatic carriers, but clear public messaging is essential.
- Risk factors include older age, hypertension, obesity, and smoking; more data needed.
- Several drugs (e.g., remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine) show promise but lack solid evidence; trials are ongoing.
- Monoclonal antibodies and convalescent sera are being investigated as treatments.
- Multiple vaccines are in development, but none yet proven in humans; mRNA vaccines show potential.
- Countries like China, South Korea have shown that strict measures can suppress local transmission.
- Testing limitations: PCR detects viral RNA, serology tests detect antibodies but have time lag.
- Reinfection appears unlikely in short term; immunity development is normal but duration unknown.
- Ibuprofen/NSAIDs safety uncertain; paracetamol is recommended until more data.
- Post-lockdown control may rely on testing, contact tracing, masks, and possibly seasonality.
- Many open questions remain about superspreading, children's role, and country-specific lethality.
A bit about me - Bert Hubert's writings
a day ago
- Studied physics at Delft University but dropped out; still loves physics.
- Worked as a part-time regulator for Dutch intelligence services; resigned in protest of a new law.
- Now serves as technical advisor at Dutch Electoral Council and advisor on online terrorism/CSAM material.
- Published scientist in DNA with two peer-reviewed papers; proud of 2022 Nature Scientific Data publication.
- Co-founded two companies that were later sold; wrote most of the software for both.
- Devotes time to DNA research, climate change, real-time societal metrics, European autonomy, and explaining science to governments and the public.
- Advocates for issues independently, not as a lobbyist.
Totemic Books for Many Fields - Bert Hubert's writings
a day ago
- The author collects the most important books in various scientific fields, referring to them as 'totemic tomes' that are essential reading.
- Many books remain relevant, but some have been overtaken by new discoveries yet retain their epic status, often drawing criticism for minor flaws.
- The list includes fields such as biology, business/economics, chemistry, climate, computing, data, defense/military, electronics, GNSS/GPS, philosophy, history, security/cryptography, intelligence/spying, networking, physics, politics, renewable energy, rocketry/spaceflight/aviation, and writing.
- Key criteria for inclusion: a book must be so meaningful that it becomes part of the vocabulary and has been around for at least 10 years, often with its own Wikipedia page.
- Some outdated classics (e.g., Applied Cryptography) are noted as no longer recommended, while historical treasures (e.g., Newton's Principia) are not used for learning today.
- The page also lists 'unevaluated suggestions' from readers that the author has not yet assessed.
March 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter
a day ago
- Gwern.net launched two new site features: mobile 'popins' and recursive Wikipedia popups.
- AI research highlights include multimodal neurons in CLIP (Goh et al. 2021), evolving RL algorithms, and SEER self-supervised pretraining on 1 billion images.
- Genetics: GWAS identifies 50 new eye color loci; wealth inheritance remains difficult across generations.
- Psychology studies: working memory training shows no transfer to intelligence; real-time dialogue with dreamers during REM sleep achieved.
- Critiques: COVID vaccine trial delays due to perceived ethical concerns despite public support; vaping moral panic over THC adulterants misattributed to nicotine.
Podcast Notes: Iain McGilchrist on “The Great Simplification”
a day ago
- Science and reason have limitations; they are excellent servants but not arbiters of all knowledge.
- AI, like science, can be a good servant but a terrible master because it lacks human experience such as suffering, love, or mortality.
- Many great scientific discoveries come from sudden gestalt insights, not linear logic or algorithms (e.g., Einstein's thought experiments).
- Analysis provides information, but information is only useful when integrated into a whole context, like understanding a piece of music as a whole.
- True wisdom comes from 'unknowing' after acquiring knowledge, recognizing how little we know, which is distinct from ignorance.
Underrated reasons to be thankful V
a day ago
- Your dog truly loves you, not just because of evolution.
- Sexual reproduction creates genetic variance, allowing life to persist despite entropy.
- Curing the common cold is theoretically possible but currently too annoying to pursue.
- Historical plagues went from Europe to the Americas, but modern sanitation and vaccines hold diseases in check.
- We have many advanced strategies to fight engineered infectious diseases, and we can win.
- Clean water is abundant and almost free.
- Dentistry has greatly improved quality of life.
- Tongues are a wonderful sensory organ.
- Radioactive atoms have trade-offs: high energy but short life, or low energy but long life, making permanent poisoning difficult.
- Curing cancer, heart disease, and accidents together could nonlinearly extend life expectancy.
- Peroxisomes handle fatty acids too long for mitochondria.
- Having preferences and no universal ranking of goodness makes us happier.
- Cardamom is cheap but tastes expensive, adding luxury to life.
- Gregory of Nyssa was right about something.
- Grandma Moses shows it's never too late to start.
- Sleep provides a reset and pause, making life bearable.
- Air travel is very safe despite concerns.
- Markets are often less worried than individuals about most things.
- The bundle of sexual attraction, love, economic unit, and reproduction is strange but successful.
- Derivatives of elementary functions are also elementary, though larger.
- Gradients of expression graphs are the same size as the original, enabling large-scale fitting.
- Biological life and intelligence don't use this property of expression graphs.
- Five-dimensional light fields can be stored on 2D film via wave mechanics.
- The storage of light fields on film is a strange example of physics.
- Disposable plastic is popular for good reasons.
- Disposable plastic, when disposed correctly, sequesters carbon.
- Rocks breaking into pieces but verifying origin is like cryptography.
- Society's deal to help raise children works without constant transactions.
- Only 1% of humans lived under free democracies historically, now 10% — do not lose heart.
- Be thankful for being in three dimensions; eating in 2D would be problematic.
You Can Discover the Drives
13 days ago
- Human psychological drives, such as hunger, thirst, and safety, are distinct motivations that guide behavior, but their full extent and categorization remain largely undiscovered and informal.
- Drives may be more numerous and complex than commonly assumed; for example, hunger likely consists of multiple sub-drives for specific nutrients like salt or iodine, rather than a single drive for calories.
- The current understanding of drives is compared to early chemistry, where elements were poorly defined, suggesting a need for systematic discovery and classification through new research methods.
- Evidence from personal anecdotes, such as cravings for iodine-rich seaweed snacks diminishing after supplementation, points to the existence of specific nutrient drives, highlighting the potential for empirical study.
- Discovering and documenting all human drives is presented as a fundamental scientific challenge, with potential applications in psychology, nutrition, and self-care, offering a modern frontier for exploration.

science

Weekly Links for August 15 and August 22, 2024

Space News, December 2025

Corona Science Journal - Bert Hubert's writings

A bit about me - Bert Hubert's writings

Totemic Books for Many Fields - Bert Hubert's writings

March 2021 Gwern.net Newsletter

Podcast Notes: Iain McGilchrist on “The Great Simplification”

Underrated reasons to be thankful V

You Can Discover the Drives