CELEBRATING MATHEMATICIAN PARLIAMENTARIAN CÉDRIC VILLANI
EARLIER THIS year, the French had strikingly different candidates in their national elections and voters exhibited rare wisdom. The brand-new centrist Emmanuel Macron and his Le République en Marche! party … Continue reading
SPOOKY ACTION AT (REALLY) AFAR
CHINESE RESEARCHERS have sent entangled photons from a satellite to two ground stations 745 miles apart. This distance is by far a new record for what Einstein called “spooky action … Continue reading
HERMANN THE GERMAN JOINS THE GREATER HUMAN RACE
MIGRATION, ETHNICITY, and racial purity have been much in the news these days. Fortunately, so have the stabilizing influences of scientific research. In particular, goodbye to a favorite myth believed … Continue reading
WHAT IF ROBOTS UNIONIZE? PART 2
YESTERDAY, I shared robotic tidbits from Isaac Asimov and an Automotive News story about mirror specialist Gentex’s closure of its Mexico facility. Today, we pick up with Gentex’s business in … Continue reading
WHAT IF ROBOTS UNIONIZE? PART 1
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is making robotic devices smarter every day. The societal implications of this are profound in the near, as well as long, term. Here are two days of my … Continue reading
GOT ENERGY? KNOW HOW TO STORE IT? PART 2
THIS CONTINUES a discussion of energy-storage concepts, begun here at SimanaitisSays. The New York Times, June 3, 2017, “The Biggest, Strangest ‘Batteries’ ” is a primary source, along with my … Continue reading
GOT ENERGY? KNOW HOW TO STORE IT? PART 1
AS THE COST of renewable energy comes down, a significant challenge remains in its inherent intermittency of supply. It is well known to science (you’ll excuse the S word) that … Continue reading
CONGRESS, THE PRESIDENT AND THE S-WORD (SCIENCE)
TWO ARTICLES on the same two-page spread of Science, May 5, 2017, suggest the turmoil taking place in scientific communities funded at least in part by the federal government. One … Continue reading
NATURE’S ORIGAMI
“LADYBUG, ladybug, fly away home…” These tiny polka-dotted insects invariably complied with this childhood entreaty so quickly that I knew nothing about their winged travel. Coccinellidae are known as ladybugs … Continue reading
SNIFFING OUT A MYTH
IT IS CONVENTIONAL wisdom that many mammals, dogs especially, have far better senses of smell than humans. However, recent research suggests that this is a myth perpetrated by 19th-century science … Continue reading
