Nse Obot Witherspoon: Passionate Advocate for Children’s Environmental Health
Poisoning Our Children draws on nearly a half million words of interviews with experts, advocates, and families. Many of these are already published, but it has been a while, so I have decided to…
Godzilla El Niño Is Here - and It Isn’t Even the Biggest Problem
Something's badly wrong when ski resorts run out of winter before winter does. Selwyn Ski Resort just closed early because there simply isn't enough snow. And here in Canberra, it's still winter and…
No brainer: is consciousness a natural quality of the universe?
Christof Koch, a German-American neuroscientist, posits consciousness is an attribute of the universe, rather than something spawned by creatures possessed of a brain. Although somewhat left of…
One Small Protein from Smallest Human Virus Does Work of Many
Hepatitis D virus produces essentially one protein—hepatitis delta antigen—in two closely related forms: the 195-amino-acid small antigen and the 214-amino-acid large antigen. Yet from this single…
Lampshells – Not a clam!
Did you know about Lampshells, also known as Brachiopods? Lampshell species also have two shells, but they are in a completely different phylum than clams (Brachiopoda vs. Mollusca). They have a…
Cheap Reusable Carbon Fiber Orbital Rockets with Project ARMSTRONG
Letter of Interest from UAH for Project ARMSTRONG With the growth of SpaceX and reusable rocket technology, the cost of space access has declined, but one problem remains. You must go through Elon…
Extreme Temperature Diary- Sunday August 23rd, 2026/Main Topic: Bigger, Hotter Fires Are Slowly Erasing America’s Great Western Forests
The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day.…
The Interdisciplinary Nature of Water Purification: Where Materials Science, Chemistry and Thermodynamics Meet
For something as common as water filtration ,the modern technology that enables it, is built upon some serious materials engineering. Polymer fibers,the active components of any filtration process,…
What’s your favourite toxic heavy metal? For most of us, it’s gotta be lead. Sure, it’s a pretty…
What’s your favourite toxic heavy metal? For most of us, it’s gotta be lead. Sure, it’s a pretty common one, but just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s bad.…
China’s Moonshot Delayed – Multiple Issues Flagged
“China’s Chang’e-7 launch will not proceed in planned window this year” – that’s the word from China Central Television. While not cancelled, the Moon probe atop a…
Earth's Obliquity
A paper I read on astronomically calibrating pre-Cambrian sediments to get a more accurate chronology of important evolutionary events led me to look up where Earth’s rotational axis has…
THE MARINE MAMMAL THAT LOOKS LIKE A HIPPO DESIGNED BY COMMITTEE
Standing in the Age of Mammals Hall at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is one of the most delightfully perplexing mammals ever to paddle, wade or lumber along the Pacific coast.At…
Mathematics is Much More than Proof
The automation of mathematics has been going on for more than a century. If AI can automate some or all parts of mathematical proof, that will be another important phase in this process, but not the…
Cosmic birefringence in TGD framework
In Big Think Ethan Siegel has an article titled "Cosmic birefringence: the signal that could upend cosmology" (see this . Ordinary birefringence in condensed matter occurs because orthogonal linear…
2026, September 1: Venus and Spica Conjunction Tonight
September 1, 2026: A Venus-Spica conjunction occurs tonight in the west-southwest sky. See brilliant Venus and Virgo’s brightest star low above the horizon after sunset with a binocular. The post…
Global 30 year average temperature anomalies
The best way to show the structural changes in the world climate is to use the averages over longer period. 30 years is an accepted period that should even out specific events (like vulcano eruptions…
When AI Can Discover a Million Cures, Which 100 Do We Test?
Dario Amodei may be right about AI and still be wrong about medicine. His argument is that intelligence is about to become abundant. Millions of AI scientists could read the literature, generate…
My CERN internship
For two months this summer, I was part of the CERN summer student program. Upon arrival, my supervisor tasked me with exploring possibilities to capture or push the boundaries of one of the…
Are Aliens Running the Game in Gallimore’s Alien Information Theory?
I got this book after finishing Andrew's Psychedelic Neuroscience Master Course on his YouTube channel shortly after it was published, but only found time to read it now. It's super interesting both…
Chromatic Polynomials 04 – My CP Symbolic Math Engine
I debated whether I should write anything about my CP application and came to realize that I need this article to provide context for formulas and scripts in later articles. You might see some large…
Natural Groups Update
[ Update August 23, 2026: the updated paper looks better now. Lots of stuff previously written has been left but after a few frantic days of working on this, I feel better. Here are the main results…
The Mantle
As we descend from the base of Earth’s crust through the mantle, the rock does not remain unchanged. Pressure and temperature rise inexorably, and the minerals that thrive at the surface are forced,…
Recent superconductivity results + open positions at Rice
Much as I feel like I should write about the latest developments in US science policy, instead I want to point out two exciting recent superconductivity results. Below I will also append a couple of…
Extreme Temperature Diary- Saturday August 22nd, 2026/Main Topic: El Niño Set to Be ‘Strongest in Living Memory’, Says Met Office
The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day.…
Survey Finds UFO News Coverage Driving Increase in Alien Beliefs
A recently released survey conducted in July found that Americans believe more in extraterrestrial visitation and UFOs due to news coverage of the subject. The survey of 2,000 Americans, conducted by…
Galileo Didn't Have to Put Up With This
SpaceX has asked for permission to put up to 1 million satellites in front of the most powerful survey telescope ever built. The agency deciding is the one that happens to hold the radio spectrum. On…
NOAA's National Blend of Models: What It Is and Why We Switched to It
A practical breakdown of NOAA's National Blend of Models — what it is, how it works, and why we stopped hand-rolling a worse version of it.
Skyroot Vikram-1, the least worst case scenario for India’s launch crisis
Indian Space Progress #41-42: A garden does not save the forest.
Your Brain Sets the Speed of the World You See
A fly's wings become countable under LSD. Two papers argue that's a true reading of the world, and one hand movement could settle it.
2026, August 31: Venus Nears Spica
August 31, 2026: Venus nears Spica in the evening sky as August ends. Find Venus low in the west-southwest, while Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and the Moon appear before sunrise. The post 2026, August 31:…
Brain Waves Look Like Exhaust and Behave Like an Engine
Three drugs knock you out by different routes and leave the wiring intact. What they wreck is the brain's rhythm, and that turns out to be the point.
Hurricane Lala – Hawaii’s Brush from a Hurricane – August 15 and 16 2026
Hurricanes impacting the Hawaiian island chain are exceptionally rare but when they do occur, they are exceptional and newsworthy events. Hurricane Lala made such a close approach to the Big Island…
More space news!
Okay, let's have another non-political post while we prep for the World Science Fiction Convention (LACon ) in Anaheim, next weekend... and the premier of my play, The Escape ! Hope to see some of…
The Autumn Weather Transition is Occurring
Autumn doesn't wait until September 22 in the Pacific Northwest. During most years, there is a transition to cooler temperatures and the return of rain during late August, and this year will not be…
The road to epsilon-zero: Shortlex order also orders sequences of numbers
Previously: Ordinal numbers and basic set theory Ordinals as nim-heaps Nim always ends, even with infinite ordinals Infinite Nim as a coin-moving game Coin-moving games with no coins Productive…
What is a z-Score, and Why?
Last time we looked at some questions about drawing or interpreting the normal curve (graph of the normal distribution). Let’s back up and consider what it actually is. In particular,…
the figure of the earth
Brigadier Martin Hotine is not quite the image of a decorated officer. His name is styled with trailing acronyms that make it no surprise that there is an official portrait, yet in that painting he…
The mystic trip: how psychedelic research fell for mysticism (Saville-Smith & Mosurinjohn, 2026)
1:20 pm Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, Michael Hoffman The mystic trip: how psychedelic research fell for mysticism Richard Saville-Smith & Sharday Mosurinjohn  July 17, 2026…
The research behind instrumented curling brooms
Author’s note: This is joint work with John Newhook, Department of Civil and Resource Engineering, Dalhousie University. This article is […] The post The research behind instrumented…
Toxic Monopoly: Professor Bill Kovarik on the hidden history of leaded gasoline
Early Release: Mike speaks with Professor William Kovarik an expert on the history of leaded gasoline
Spread the love of MATH -- with POEMS
For me, writing is part of my thinking process -- my fingers join my brain in formulating thoughts. And, if the current day is not one that inspires my creativity, then reading the creative work of…
Linear Programing for Square Packing
This is the second post to improve a recent result and prove that 4.5058 (?) ≤s(17), but let’s first define s(17). Quoting the old article about the topic Let s(n) be the side of the smallest square…
Another Better Lower Bound for n=17 Square Packing
The idea is to improve a recent result and prove that 4.5058 (?) ≤s(17) using these weights: But let’s first define s(17). Quoting the old article about the topic Let s(n) be the side of the smallest…
August 21st Question
I loved Solar Express. In that novel, Alayna’s work centers on multifractal mini-granulation and turbulent processes in the photosphere. Kuridze et al. have now reported ubiquitous…
Such a lovely place, but so many leave
Research published in the International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development analysed interviews with over 300 Chinese hotel interns to see how perceptions regarding hotel work affect…
Razib Khan On Our Current Understanding Of Human Evolution
Razib Khan's latest piece on human evolution in his Unsupervised Learning series takes a step back and looks at how the big picture has changed with new discoveries made in the last several decades.…
Is The Mechanical CPR Device The Next MAST Trousers? Part 2
In my last post, I provided information on the history of the mechanical CPR device. Today I’ll examine the results of a paper published just two weeks ago that studied the rates of favorable…
Bonsai reconstructs tree representations for distortion-free visualization and exploration of high-dimensional data - Nature Biotechnology
Bookmarked: Bonsai reconstructs tree representations for distortion-free visualization and exploration of high-dimensional data - Nature Biotechnology I wonder how well the bonsai approach will work…