The New Math of Some Temporary Things
New Math is an attempt to quantify the world using words and basic math.
New Math is an attempt to quantify the world using words and basic math.
We are afloat on a hidden ocean of equations. They are at work in transport, the financial system, health and crime prevention and detection, communications, food, water, heating and lighting. Step into the shower and you benefit from equations used to regulate the water supply. Your breakfast cereal comes from crops that were bred with…
Some 41,000 years ago a complete reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field occurred and compass needles would have pointed south not north, German scientists say. Researchers at the Helmholtz Center Potsdam — GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences report the most remarkable feature of the phenomenon was the speed of the reversal. “The field geometry…
Physically fit frogs have faster-changing genomes, according to a study of poison frogs from Central and South America. Stretches of DNA generally accumulate changes over time, but the rate at which this occurs varies between species. Biologists have, in the past, tried to explain why some species have faster-changing genomes than others by focusing on…
Brain activity shows how one voice pattern stands out from the crowd
From David Barash’s post, The Hare, the Tortoise, and the Aurora Madman, in reaction to the tragedy in Colorado, from The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Brainstorm blog: Far more than any other critter, we Homo saps are stuck between two worlds, biological evolution and cultural evolution. The former is a Darwinian, genetic process, necessarily slow…
In the early 2000s, Lowell Wood of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory proposed cooling the earth by launching reflective mirrors into space, though he cautioned that the mirror should be considered only as a measure of last resort. Why? Because the mirror would have to have an area of 600,000 square miles – a slightly smaller…