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SciencePhysicsPhysics Mystery Gets Even Deeper After Long-Awaited Muon Reveal
Inside a locked cabinet, an envelope held a number that was poised to rock the physics community, regardless of its contents. The value, a clock measurement deliberately hidden to keep physicists’ data analysis unbiased, would be used in a calculation that could either bring one of particle physics’ foremost mysteries to an end—or take it … Continued
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ScienceArtificial IntelligenceDeveloping Algorithms That Might One Day Be Used Against You
Machine learning algorithms serve us the news we read, the ads we see, and in some cases even drive our cars. But there’s an insidious layer to these algorithms: They rely on data collected by and about humans, and they spit our worst biases right back out at us. For example, job candidate screening algorithms … Continued
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ReviewsThe Physics of Tenet Is Shaky, but It Still Kicks Ass
“Don’t try to understand it,” a scientist tells the protagonist of Tenet, as she briefly explains the physics of Christopher Nolan’s $205-million, time-traveling spy thriller. Sure, the physics is often unrealistic and confusing, but it’s fascinating. And with its many Easter eggs, Tenet sets up some nice jumping-off points for Wikipedia rabbit holes. (Sator square? … Continued
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ScienceAnimalsJohn James Audubon Was Never Good
The most famous name in American ornithology is that of a slave owner, grave robber, and fraud who invented birds and falsified scientific results. Birders and ornithologists are grappling with John James Audubon’s legacy today, but problematic behavior doesn’t stop at a single 19th-century naturalist. Some in the field are considering a complete rethinking of … Continued
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SciencePhysicsExtremely Sensitive Dark Matter Experiment Detects Something Weird
A mysterious signal has appeared in an extremely sensitive dark matter-hunting experiment. And after more than a year of trying to convince themselves that they were looking at noise, scientists think they might have found something new. Today, the scientists behind the XENON1T dark matter experiment are reporting the result of a search through its … Continued
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SciencePhysicsScientists Call for Academic Shutdown in Support of Black Lives
White supremacy is baked into science and academia, from racist language in textbooks to a culture that excludes Black scientists from innovating and advancing at the same pace as their colleagues. But rather than more milquetoast statements and diversity initiatives, researchers want action. Organizers are asking the scientific community to participate in a work stoppage … Continued
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SciencePhysicsWhy the U.S. Is Betting It All on the Most Puzzling Particle in the Universe
Nearly 14 billion years ago, a universe appeared in an unthinkably high-energy blast. Particles started to materialize out of that energy, as did their antiparticles, which are kind of like evil twins, a mirror image with the opposite electric charge. Each and every particle had an antiparticle, scientists believe, and they would annihilate each other … Continued
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Tech NewsLook at These Cool Birds I’ve Seen
A few years ago, I stopped being afraid of birds and realized that, actually, I really liked them. It just clicked one day. It’s cool that there are so many that I can see relatively close to my house, they make for challenging photo subjects, and, in general, I love any subject that provides a large … Continued
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ScienceAnimalsResearchers Accidentally Got High on Laughing Gas From Penguin Poop
When studying penguins, there’s a surprise you’ve gotta watch out for: the laughing gas produced by their poop. Researchers based in Denmark and China were studying the effects of retreating glaciers and the accompanying surge in penguins on greenhouse gas levels on South Georgia Island. It turns out that climate change is kicking off a … Continued
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SciencePhysicsHow Do We Know the Nukes Still Work?
Scientists at U.S. National Laboratories are still testing nuclear weapons among the mountains, desert, and chaparral of the American West. High-tech machinery and warehouses stocked with supercomputer processors take data on warheads and explosions—yes, there are still explosions, which crack like rifle fire on schedule in the distance. But there are no nuclear explosions. Though … Continued
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Tech NewsCulture5 Things That Could Be Making the Spooky Sounds in My House
Like many people, I live in an apartment. I don’t really know how old my building is, but it must be kind of old: it has a dark and dirty basement, the ceiling has cracks in it, and there are a few exposed metal pipes. As you can probably imagine, my old apartment makes a … Continued
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SciencePhysicsCold War Nuclear Testing May Have Caused Extra Rain Around the World
A new study has found that nuclear radiation during Cold War-era weapons testing could have induced significant short-term changes in the amount of rainfall far across the globe.. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Weather is just an extremely complex physics experiment, with tons of variables that are hard of keep track … Continued
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ScienceSpaceHunk of Chinese Rocket Falls to Earth as Uncontrolled Space Debris
A large, out-of-control piece of space debris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean yesterday, passing over much of the United States. China launched the the Long March 5B rocket on May 5 from the Wenchang launch site in order to deploy a test model of its upcoming crew capsule. After a week in orbit, the nearly … Continued
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Tech NewsThis Philosopher Is Challenging All of Evolutionary Psychology
It’s not often that a paper attempts to take down an entire field. Yet, this past January, that’s precisely what University of New Hampshire assistant philosophy professor Subrena Smith’s paper tried to do. “Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible?” describes a major issue with evolutionary psychology, called the matching problem. The field of evolutionary psychology is no stranger to … Continued
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EartherEarth ScienceLava Lake Is Now Water Lake Atop Kilauea Volcano
Satellite images have captured the result of a lake of lava collapsing on Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, revealing an enormous new lake of water. The new lake formed as a result of the caldera, a crater called Halema’uma’u, collapsing at Kilauea’s peak. Now that the crater has filled with water, it’s possible that it may lead … Continued
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SciencePhysicsThese Physicists Cannot Rest Until They Understand the Motions of Drunk Worms
You wake up, slightly intoxicated as tap water rinses over your body. You don’t remember why you’re here, but you’re joined by hundreds of fellow sludge worms, wriggling slowly. You start to remember: The temperature changed. The water filled with alcohol. And then the spinning begins again. While this experiment may sound odd, the scientists … Continued
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ScienceSpaceAstronomers May Have Found the Closest Black Hole to Earth
This black hole—if that’s really what it is—is so close to Earth that you can see its star system without a telescope. Observations demonstrate that a star system 1,000 light-years away, called HR 6819, contains an invisible source of mass influencing a companion star—in other words, a black hole. The detection of one of these … Continued
Ryan F. Mandelbaum
Ryan F. Mandelbaum's posts
