I don’t need to go into all the details, because if you follow this link you can get up to speed on them. But the gist of the story is that a senior engineer at Google wrote an internal memo … Continue reading →
The Netherlands euthanasia thread on Saturday generated a fascinating discussion in the comments section about the use of morphine at end of life, so I thought I’d highlight it here and expand on my remarks. First, a personal note. In … Continue reading →
Here’s a little tidbit: German authorities have launched a six-month test of automatic facial recognition technology at a Berlin railway station, which the country’s top security official says could be used to improve security in the future. More than 200 … Continue reading →
As I get older, I have lost more and more people I love and care about to cancer—one of them very very recently. Others I’m very close to have had the disease and are (knock wood) okay so far. Anyone … Continue reading →
Found. Actually, it’s one of the very few fossil mushrooms we have. But all mushrooms, fossilized or otherwise, look pretty ancient to me. Here’s the fossil:
Continue reading →President Trump has announced that the US is withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. That CNN article I just linked to says in the first sentence that his withdrawal will “seriously dampen global efforts to curb global warming.” But do … Continue reading →
To tell you the truth, I assumed they could already do this sort of thing: Routers scatter and bounce their signal off objects, illuminating our homes and offices like invisible light bulbs. Now, German scientists have found a way to … Continue reading →
Wow. Just wow: At first glance the reassembled gray blocks look like a nine-foot-long sculpture of a dinosaur. A bony mosaic of armor coats its neck and back, and gray circles outline individual scales. Its neck gracefully curves to the … Continue reading →
The answer is “maybe.” But not easily. And the results would be unpredictable. But it was the second paragraph here that especially caught my interest: Assuming that a living passenger pigeon embryo can be “resurrected” (or perhaps, some would prefer … Continue reading →
…then those with an opposing view become apostates. That’s especially true if the topic is one with very high stakes, such as AGW (anthropogenic global warming). Think about it this way: if a person is—(a) convinced that AGW has been … Continue reading →
I try to follow the general outlines of the current theories of theoretical physics, but it goes without saying that I don’t understand the math, and that I miss a lot of the details. So although I’d never even heard … Continue reading →
First, I learned a new word today: “satnavs,” for satellite-guided navigators. Next, this is exactly what I intuitively sense when I use my navigator to help with driving directions: ”˜Our results fit with models in which the hippocampus simulates journeys … Continue reading →