Links for 2021-12-24
Neuronal activities selective to facial images are observed in randomly initialized deep neural networks in the complete absence of learning https://news.kaist.ac.kr/newsen/html/news/?mode=V&mng_no=18151&skey=&sval=&list_s_date=&list_e_date=&GotoPage=1
A new technique can catch 'liars' at an unprecedented accuracy of 73% by measuring facial muscles’ movements https://english.tau.ac.il/news/exposing-liars
Earth Is Spinning Faster Now Than It Was 50 Years Ago — “This lack of the need for leap seconds was not predicted,” Levine says. “The assumption was, in fact, that Earth would continue to slow down and leap seconds would continue to be needed. And so this effect, this result, is very surprising.” https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/earth-is-spinning-faster-now-than-it-was-50-years-ago
What is it that unifies Mathematics? Barry Mazur: “Bridges between Geometry and Number Theory” youtu.be/U3EzqIYgqEw
The Mathematician Who Delights in Building Bridges — Ana Caraiani seeks to unify mathematics through her work on the ambitious Langlands program. https://www.quantamagazine.org/ana-caraiani-delights-in-building-mathematical-bridges-20211117/
The World’s First Optical Oscilloscope – Game-Changing Innovation for Communication Technologies https://scitechdaily.com/the-worlds-first-optical-oscilloscope-game-changing-innovation-for-communication-technologies/
Demonstration of Communication using Neutrinos https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2847
This ‘Breakthrough’ in Chipmaking Could Bring Us a Phone With One-Week Battery Life https://gizmodo.com/this-breakthrough-in-chipmaking-could-bring-us-a-phone-1848206901
What Does It Mean for AI to Understand? — “Some cognitive scientists have argued that humans rely on innate, pre-linguistic core knowledge of space, time and many other essential properties of the world in order to learn and understand language. If we want machines to similarly master human language, we will need to first endow them with the primordial principles humans are born with. And to assess machines’ understanding, we should start by assessing their grasp of these principles, which one might call ‘infant metaphysics.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-does-it-mean-for-ai-to-understand-20211216/
Forecasters were able to predict the causal effects of large field experiments on policy interventions in Kenya with good accuracy https://www.nicholasotis.com/Publications/Otis_2021_FieldForecasting.pdf
"This is an unusually clear example of the difference between classical and Bayesian ways of thinking." https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/addendum-to-no-evidence-post
Rear Admiral (ret.) Tim Gallaudet and Avi Loeb on UFOs: Will we soon rewrite textbooks on our place in the universe? — “…long-standing stigma associated with UFOs, combined with the significant risk aversion in mainstream science have made UAP study almost untouchable.” https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/586505-will-we-soon-rewrite-textbooks-on-our-place-in-the-universe
What kind of people are, on average, better suited to unearth evidence in support of an offending hypothesis such as the origin of species? People, who are more concerned with feelings or those who are more concerned with truth and liberty?
From the perspective of Darwin's contemporaries, his idea was more dangerous than anything for which you can get banned from social media today. It was threatening to undermine the very foundation of moral conduct: religion. Yet he was not canceled but able to publish his thesis. Could Darwin have thrived in today’s environment?