Sabine posts
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3D Printed Rockets & We Might Be Getting Dumber
New Data Visualization App From Google & The U.N.The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has partnered with Google to produce earthmap.org, an app that lets you overlay regional data for changes in agriculture and climate on a map of the earth. If nothing else, it serves to illustrate how coarsely g...
Science News March 15
[This is a transcript with references.]Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about a potential breakthrough in room temperature superconductivity, new clues about the origin of water on Earth, the best ever model of our geological past, a recent report on academic freedom, an image of the m...
I believe chatbots understand some of what they say. Let me explain.
[This is a transcript.]Does an artificially intelligent chatbot understand what it’s chatting about? A year ago, I’d have answered this question with “clearly not”. It’s just a “turbocharged autocomplete” or a “stochastic parrot,” as people more eloquent than me have put it. Though for all I know, the...
Coming up on March 11
I used to think that today's "artificially intelligent" bots are actually pretty dumb, but I've recently changed my mind. On Saturday I want to argue that they partly understand what they do, if not very much of it.
Earth's Innermost Core & is Marijuana Bad for You?
A Nanosatellite From RNAIt doesn’t fly, but researchers from Aarhus University and Berkeley Laboratory have found a way to coax RNA molecules into custom shapes, and created a tiny satellite just to prove their point. Much of the advances in this technology come from improved imaging methods, such as Cryo-Electron Mi...
Science News March 8
[This is a transcript with references.]Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about a new LHC anomaly, wakefield acceleration, nuclear fusion progress, how to look around corners in augmented reality, the largest magnetic fields we’ve ever seen, engineers who have designed better wood, bir...
Marijuana: Legalize or not?
[This is a transcript with references.]More than 200 million people use marijuana. It’s the most widely used drug worldwide, after alcohol, caffeine, and YouTube. In contrast to those three, marijuana is illegal in most of the world. But an increasing number of countries have begun legalizing cannabis, first for medi...
Coming up on March 4
This weekend we'll talk about marijuana. What are the risks, what are the benefits, is it a good idea to legalize it? Despite never using it, I had many friends who did. I've always been in favor of legalization and I'm glad the Germans are finally getting there.In my student days bought a T-shirt featuring...
A One-Atom Computer & The Genetics of Mathematical Ability
Non-Dusting SurfacesResearchers from the University of Texas have imprinted surfaces with nanometer-sized pyramids and found it to drastically increase the amount of dust that just slips off. They produced the method to prevent dust from sticking to devices in outer space, where no one’s around to dust them, but the ...
Science News March 1
[This is a transcript with references.]Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about computers made of human brain cells, galaxies that are too big to exist, how the Brits prevented a global chocolate disaster, what the Milky Way’s black hole is having for dinner, how to get radioactive com...
An Air Condition for the Planet: How Would it Work?
[This is a transcript with references.]Imagine you come home on a cold winter day, take off the gloves, and turn on the heating. You heat with oil and feel a little bad about it, but we’ve got used to that worry. So here’s something new to worry about. What happens with the heat itself? Doesn’t that also, well, h...
Coming up on Feb 25
All power plants create waste heat that contributes to global warming. At the moment, the contribution is fairly small, but if mankind flourishes it is bound to increase and eventually it will become a problem. The only thing we an do about it is to build an air condition for the planet. Scientists have come up with so...
Damage to the Ozone Layer & The Untapped Potential of Geothermal Energy
Scientists Concerned More Rocket Launches Might Damage Ozone LayerThe number of rocket launches per year has almost doubled in the past few decades, and many companies are planning on extensive satellite networks that will undoubtedly see the number of launches skyrocket (pun intended) even further. A group of research...
Science News Feb 22
[This is a transcript with references.]Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about whether dark energy is made of black holes, four types of solar systems, exoboots, whether banning short-haul flights makes sense, 3D printing with sound, smart contact lenses, how copper makes fuel, a new me...
The Untapped Potential of Geothermal Energy
[This is a transcript with references.]In 2007, the mayor of the small German town Staufen decided to do his part for the environment. He approved a drilling project to heat the old city hall with hot water from underground. The drilling began in early September and went 140 meters deep. About two weeks later the first...
Coming up on Feb 18
There's a lot of energy below our feet. But how much can geothermal energy realistically help with reaching net zero? What are the risks, what are the problems, and is it carbon neutral in the first place? On Saturday, I'll sort out the numbers for you.
Moondust & The Physics Of Time
Moondust Against Global Warming?A group of scientists from the University of Utah has proposed that we collect dust from the moon and spray it into space near the first Earth-Sun Lagrange point, where it would linger for about two years and block about 2% of the sunlight that reaches us. While it would probably reduce ...
Science News Feb 15
[This is a transcript with references.]Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about a mysterious laser beam over Hawaii, brain scans in court, a link between quantum chips, self-flying airplanes, better sensors for self-driving cars, how to weave a message into your sweater, the durability o...
Sponsor Troubles
The main bulk of our expenses, as probably those of many YouTubers, is covered by our sponsors. These are the integrations for special offers that you see at the beginning or the end of the video. I pick those sponsors very carefully so that the offers are of high quality and, hopefully, of interest to our viewers. It&...
What is going wrong in particle physics?
[This is a transcript of the video.]If you follow news about particle physics, then you know that it comes in three types. It’s either that they haven’t found that thing they were looking for. Or they’ve come up with something new to look for. Which they’ll later report not having found. Or it’s something so ...
Coming up on Feb 11
From various exchange that I have had on social media in the past months I got the unfortunate impression that particle physicists are attempting to misunderstand my criticism on their methodology. I believe it's because most of them start from the assumption that of course what I say must be wrong. And since they ...
Honey Bees vs. Wild Bees and How the Greenhouse Effect Really Works
Nobel Prize Winners, Write For Kids, And It’s All Open Access"Frontiers for Young Minds” is a science journal for children, freely available and open-access. They just published their second collection written by Nobel Prize winners which includes Michael Kosterlitz on topological phase transitions (Nobel Prize...
Science News Feb 8
[This is a transcript with references.]Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about how to look inside a nuclear reactor with muons, eight new signals that came up in a search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, why Germany wants to bring back direct current, the plausibility of climate goal...
How the Greenhouse Effect Really Works
[This is a transcript with references.]I thought I understood how carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming. Turned out I got it completely wrong. I was about to sweep my misunderstanding under the carpet. But then I thought, what if I’m not the only one. What if we’re all just pretending to kind of understand ...
Coming Up On Feb 4
One of the things, if not THE thing, that bothers me most about science news is that journalists seem to have entirely given up explaining climate science. It's now just "the science is settled" and "we shall not question". Of course this doesn't sit well with a lot of people who actually want e...
Shark Populations and Genetic Screenings
Data Presentation Affects Our ExpectationsA study from the City University of London has found that connecting data points with a line leads to stronger expectations about the continuation of a trend, an effect that doesn’t occur with bar charts. Paper here, press release here.Shark and Ray Populations in the Northwe...
Science News Feb 1
[This is a transcript with references]Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about changes in the Earth’s core, a quantum computer that folds a mini-protein, radioactive water that the Japanese want to dump into the ocean, NASA’s plans for a nuclear rocket and a transonic plane, how to s...
Genetic Screening: Risks and Benefits
[This is a transcript with references.]The American NBA player Shawn Bradley is 7 foot 6. A genetic analysis found that his height score is more than 4 standard deviations above the population mean. If you could have picked the genetic makeup of your child, would you have chosen one that tall? Before you answer, consid...
Deepfakes and Nuclear Explosions
U.S. Certifies Its First Small Modular ReactorThe U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has certified the first small nuclear reactor in the country, VOYGR fromNuScale. Each module is a cylinder of about 76 x 15 ft and produces up to 77 MW of electricity. Up to 12 of them can be stacked together.Deepfakes Are About to Bec...
Coming up on Jan 28
Few technology have the potential to shape society as much as choosing the genes that we pass on to our children. While gene editing is still somewhat in the future, genetic screening is already reality. On Saturday, I talk about the risks and benefits of genetic screening: what genetic tests are available, are they le...
