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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Category: Nanodot

The worlds smallest snowman

The worlds smallest snowman. from nanowerk     The snowman is 10 µm across, 1/5th the width of a human hair. The snowman was made from two tin beads used to calibrate electron microscope astigmatism. The eyes and smile were milled using a focused ion beam, and the nose, which is under 1 µm wide,… Continue reading The worlds smallest snowman

Singularity and the codic cortex

Once upon a time, the story goes, there was a programmer.  He was an amazingly productive programmer, producing thousands of working, debugged lines of code every day. Then he learned about DO-loops. One of the foundational concepts behind the idea of Singularity is the notion of self-improving AI.  And one of the key notions behind… Continue reading Singularity and the codic cortex

Researchers show how proteins slide along DNA to carry out vital biological processes

Researchers show how proteins slide along DNA to carry out vital biological processes. For decades, scientists have known that proteins searching for genetic sequences are able to locate them at rates much faster than expected. They found that rather than moving around the entire three-dimensional space inside a cell, they moved in one-dimension, along DNA… Continue reading Researchers show how proteins slide along DNA to carry out vital biological processes

Cryonics and Philosophy of Mind

There’s an interesting debate between Bryan Caplan and Robin Hanson on their respective blogs. Caplan writes: … Robin didn’t care about biological survival.  He didn’t need his brain implanted in a cloned body.  He just wanted his neurons preserved well enough to “upload himself” into a computer. To my mind, it was ridiculously easy to… Continue reading Cryonics and Philosophy of Mind

It's 0067 AA

(Atomic Age, that is.) From the University of Chicago Library site: On December 2, 1942, scientists at the University of Chicago produced the world’s first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in a nuclear pile constructed in a squash court beneath the West Stands of Stagg Field, the University’s athletic stadium. This experiment, crucial to the control… Continue reading It's 0067 AA

IEEE Spectrum: Radios With Micromachined Resonators

IEEE Spectrum: Radios With Micromachined Resonators. It’s likely that better mechanical components, and the cognitive-radio techniques they enable, will usher in the next wave of mobile telephony by giving our cellphones access to much more spectrum. These phones will operate in multiple bands, provide greater data throughput, and minimize if not eliminate the need for… Continue reading IEEE Spectrum: Radios With Micromachined Resonators

Royal Society classic science papers

The Royal society has a new website making freely available a selection of classic papers from the history of science. (h/t Luboš Motl’s The Reference Frame): I am just looking at an Isaac Newton’s letter about light and colors sent to the editor of Cambridge University Press 😉 in February 1671/72. It describes some Newton’s… Continue reading Royal Society classic science papers

Eine Kleine Nachtphysik

(or a little physics about climate change. Or at least a few clarifications about some of the points being raised.) In the wake of Climategate, a wide variety of mistakes and misapprehensions are being circulated on the Internet (as if that weren’t happening before). For example, in this article from the Telegraph: Phil Jones, the… Continue reading Eine Kleine Nachtphysik

Why raw data are important

Raw data are important in validating scientific work. Even so simple an operation as smoothing by time-averaging can have counter-intuitive effects, such as Simpson’s Paradox: For a simple and homey example, here are the batting averages of Derek Jeter and David Justice in 1995, 1996, and 1997: in 1995, Jeter had 12 hits in 48… Continue reading Why raw data are important

Peer Review

Just for fun: (h/t Roger Pielke, Jr.) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY) (h/t Megan McArdle)

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