#science

Would you pay to have the ‘best baby’? Liberal eugenics and the troubling quest for human perfection

For decades the idea of eugenics has been taboo. Now it is returning in a new commercial guise For a very long time, I dreamed of being cured. I was born in 1981. I learned to walk early enough, but I stumbled and fell more easily than other children. My parents began to worry that something was wrong, that my muscles were weaker than they should be. Eventually, at the age of three, I was diagnosed with a form of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). In the 1980s, the precise mechanics were not yet understood, but the condition was known to be hereditary, probably linked to a recessive gene. It was a

The Guardian Long Read · EN

The Vibrant Color Wheels Designed by Goethe, Newton & Other Theorists of Color (1665–1810)

Maybe it’s the cloistered headiness of Rene Descartes, or the rigorous austerity of Isaac Newton; maybe it’s all the leathern breeches, gray waistcoats, sallow faces, and powdered wigs… but we tend not to associate Enlightenment Europe with an explosion of color theory. Yet philosophers of the late 17th and 18th centuries were obsessed with light […]

Open Culture · EN

Halloween’s Lost Heroes: Michael Pollan on Radical Gardening and the Insurgent Botanical Origin of the Broomstick in Flying-Witch Legends

"For most of their history... gardens have been more concerned with the power of plants than with their beauty — with the power, that is, to change us in various ways, for good and for ill."

Brain Pickings · EN

Understanding DC motor principles

A project from electroniclovers on Hackster walks through how a DC motor turns current into rotation, using magnets, a copper loop and a 3D simulation to show the steps. It starts with two permanent magnets and the attraction between opposite poles. Next, current through a copper rod makes a magnetic field around it, and reversing […]

Adafruit Blog · EN

MIT engineers design a safer, more efficient vaccination system for farmed fish

Zach Winn writes in MIT News about a team at MIT and the U.S. Department of Agriculture that built a new way to vaccinate farmed fish. Today the most effective method uses metal needles. Fish have to be sedated, lifted out of the water and injected one at a time. That’s slow and stressful for […]

Adafruit Blog · EN

OpenAI pitches data center power plants as a way to protect nearby areas

In an announcement on Monday, OpenAI says it will pilot its "Grid Protectors Program" at an upcoming data center in Effingham County, Georgia, where the company promises to free up to 1,000 megawatts of power during extreme weather or emergencies, enough to power air conditioners in around 700,000 homes. The announcement comes as opposition to […]

The Verge · EN

I Used AI to Fake a Scientific Paper. Here’s What Happened

Science has a spam problem. And the spam filter is getting clogged up. According to all reports, academic publishing is drowning in what has come to be called AI slop: low-quality, mass-produced content generated with AI. By 2025, an estimated 57 percent of all published academic articles exhibited detectable evidence of large language model (LLM) influence, a massive jump from 12 percent in 2023. What’s more, over 12 percent of Nature Communications reviews were found to be completely AI-generated in 2025. Given that for every 40 papers showing statistical evidence of AI usage in 2025, only o

IEEE Spectrum · EN

Thanksgiving

This year we give thanks for a feature of nature that is frequently misunderstood: quanta. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation of momentum, effective field theory, the error bar, gauge symmetry, Landauer’s Principle, the Fourier Transform, Riemannian Geometry, the speed of light, the Jarzynski equality, the moons of Jupiter, space, black hole entropy, electromagnetism, and Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem.) Of course quantum mechanics […] Related Posts: Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

Cosmic Variance · EN

New Course: The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics

In past years I’ve done several courses for The Great Courses/Wondrium (formerly The Teaching Company): Dark Matter and Dark Energy, Mysteries of Modern Physics:Time, and The Higgs Boson and Beyond. Now I’m happy to announce a new one, The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics. This is a series of 24 half-hour lectures, given by […] Related Posts: New Course: The Higgs Boson and Beyond Mysteries of Time: New Teaching Company Course Prof in a Box

Cosmic Variance · EN

Thanksgiving

(Apologies for the ugly blog format. We had a bit of a crash, and are working to get the template back in working order.) This year we give thanks for a crucially important idea that can mean very different things to different people: information. (We’ve previously given thanks for the Standard Model Lagrangian, Hubble’s Law, the Spin-Statistics Theorem, conservation […] Related Posts: Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

Cosmic Variance · EN

The UK’s legal cannabis market is booming – so why can’t this talented artist get any to treat his epilepsy? | Kojo Koram

Companies have rushed to supply the drug as a wellness treatment, but patients with serious illnesses aren’t able to get NHS prescriptions In 2022, a prodigiously talented young artist named Louis Petit was preparing to return to the UK, having been effectively exiled in the Netherlands as a teenager so he could access the medical cannabis he needed to control his epilepsy. Six years earlier, Louis, then 12, had been diagnosed with a rare form of the neurological disease when medical cannabis was still illegal in the UK. But in Rotterdam, where it was legal, doctors helped him discover that a

Guardian Science · EN

The Guardian view on listening to people with learning disabilities: a matter of life and death | Editorial

The Covid pandemic shed an unforgiving light on health and social care inequalities. The lessons have yet to be absorbed The fear that so many felt as the death toll rose during the Covid pandemic was magnified for Fiona Walker. “I know from experience they wouldn’t have valued my life,” she says, in a new report on the treatment of people with learning disabilities during the crisis. The 1.5 million people in the UK with learning disabilities, and their families, had reason for concern. Death rates in England were four to six times higher than average for people with learning disabilities. As

Guardian Science · EN

Starwatch: Catch the striking trifecta of Venus, the moon and Spica at break of dawn

The brilliant planet is about to join the waning crescent moon and the brightest star in the Virgo constellation Early risers have a beautiful sight to look forward to this week as brilliant Venus joins the waning crescent moon and the star Spica in the morning sky. The chart shows the view looking east-south-east from London at 0600 GMT on 7 November. Venus will be the easiest object to identify, shining brilliantly. Next to it will be Spica, the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo, the virgin, situated about 250 light years from Earth. Continue reading...

Guardian Science · EN

As cancer treatments become more effective, we must ask: what is life like for the people who receive them? | Ranjana Srivastava

Many treatments are now extending lives but the measure of progress should not end with a scan or a survival curve Two decades ago, a dear friend called me in a trembling voice. Was there hope for his young nephew , whose cancer had spread to the brain? Sadly, “no”, I said. But today, for such patients, there are options that were unimaginable back then. Recently, researchers at the European Society For Medical Oncology presented the latest chapter results from a randomised controlled trial of a bespoke cancer vaccine for patients with high-risk melanoma. The trial involved 1,137 patients whos

Guardian Science · EN

A job that changed me: I ran observatory tours as a student. An eight-year-old’s question taught me two important lessons

I thought the explanation I’d given about black holes was family-friendly. But, after what she had said, I had to rethink my examples Read more in the a job that changed me series In the first year of my science degree, I was fortunate to land a job as an astronomy guide at the Sydney Observatory. In my role, I would lead tour groups of about 20 people. We’d look at stars and planets through telescopes. If the skies were filled from horizon to horizon with clouds, we’d explore more of the universe through a 3D theatre. And to peer beyond what our telescopes could see, we’d pile inside the cosy

Guardian Science · EN

Fossilised red blood cells found in 115m-year-old dinosaur’s bone, say scientists

Chemical tests on Aratasaurus bone identify presence of heme, the organic compound that allows haemoglobin in blood to carry oxygen around body It could be the opening of a Jurassic Park rip-off: scientists examining ancient dinosaur bones find what appear to be fossilised red blood cells, and traces of the molecule that gives the beast’s blood its distinctive crimson hue. But that is what researchers are claiming to have discovered after analysing the hind leg bones of a small, meat-eating dinosaur called an Aratasaurus that lived and died in what is now north-eastern Brazil 115m years ago. C

Guardian Science · EN

Foundations of Computer Science

Santosh Vempala is the chair of this FOCS 2024 conference. Here is the schedule of the talks. And in our next section are the accepted papers with links so you can see the results now. His committee is: Daniel Alabi, Columbia Nima Anari, Stanford Maryam Aliakbarpour, Rice Xiaotie Deng, Peking University Jelena Diakonikolas, Wisconsin Alina […]

Gödel's Lost Letter · EN

A bull and a male donkey’s sexual relationship turns heads

The pair also display affectionate behaviors including licking, rubbing, and nuzzling. The post A bull and a male donkey’s sexual relationship turns heads appeared first on Popular Science .

Popular Science · EN

Aloe found in ancient Egyptian mummy skull

Medieval medicine was concocted from some of the same ancient remains. The post Aloe found in ancient Egyptian mummy skull appeared first on Popular Science .

Popular Science · EN

A NASA telescope will likely plummet to Earth on Wednesday

The decommissioned Swift Observatory turned a two-year mission into more than two decades of science. The post A NASA telescope will likely plummet to Earth on Wednesday appeared first on Popular Science .

Popular Science · EN

Dinosaur blood found in fossils for the first time

Once thought impossible, the molecules were discovered in a 15-million-year-old bones from Brazil. The post Dinosaur blood found in fossils for the first time appeared first on Popular Science .

Popular Science · EN

Watchful mama bear Gemini wins 2026 Helicopter Mom Award

Gemini kept an eye on her cubs around other bears fishing in Alaska's Anan Creek. The post Watchful mama bear Gemini wins 2026 Helicopter Mom Award appeared first on Popular Science .

Popular Science · EN

What to Know About China’s Top-Secret Spaceplane

This week, the Pentagon released a full-resolution image of the vehicle, the capabilities of which remain rather mysterious.

Wired Science · EN

The Iran War’s Impact on Oil Is Hitting Key Senate Races Hard

Democrats are using the high price of diesel, heating oil, and fertilizer to tie Republicans to President Donald Trump’s unpopular, costly war in Iran.

Wired Science · EN