Links for 2021-12-30
Scott Alexander is funding science projects. One of them seeks to breed a line of beetles that can digest plastic. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/acx-grants-results
A new causal inference book: 'The Effect'. It's a super intuitive look at causal research design, casual diagrams, and standard research methods. https://www.theeffectbook.net/
“You are probably going to get Omicron, if you haven’t had it already. The level of precaution necessary to change this assessment is very high, and you probably don’t want to pay that price.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zFhhDCxz87yKwqYQf/omicron-my-current-model
Revolutionary New Intelligent Transistor Developed: Nanometer-Scale Ge-Based Adaptable Transistors Providing Programmable Negative Differential Resistance Enabling Multivalued Logic https://scitechdaily.com/revolutionary-new-intelligent-transistor-developed/
"We present here the first machine-generated law review article." (using GPT-3) "...the resulting paper is good enough to give us some pause for thought. Although GPT-3 is not up to the task of replacing law review authors currently, we are far less confident that GPT-5 or GPT-100 might not be up to the task in future." https://lthj.qut.edu.au/article/view/2089
Estimating human mobility in Holocene Western Eurasia with large-scale ancient genomic data. A method to infer "genetic locations of origin" for aDNA samples and use this to track small- and large-scale human migrations in Europe over the past 10,000 years. https://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2021.12.20.473345v1
Nick Szabo has argued that the invention of maritime insurance in Genoa in the 1400s enabled the great age of European discovery https://archive.md/DsBNb
Two styles of understanding visual processing — discriminative and generative approaches — have guided researchers on separate paths for decades but are now being brought together. https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2021/12/22/reaching-across-the-aisle-to-find-the-algorithms-of-vision/
“We found little evidence for substantial negative associations between digital-screen engagement—measured throughout the day or particularly before bedtime—and adolescent well-being.” (N=17,249 total) https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f89af999-37d4-4d94-bbe0-3fa969425077
"People report feeling most authentic when they are doing what external society values, not when they are acting in accord with their actual personalities." https://amazon.com/-/es/Roy-F-Baumeister-ebook/dp/B09NLKT7FW/
David Wallace | The sky is blue, and other reasons physics needs the Everett interpretation youtu.be/aBocpB4FA3E
A Conversation with E.O. Wilson (1929–2021): "I think I may have been the only scientist in modern times to be physically attacked for an idea. The idea of a biological human nature was abhorrent to the demonstrators and was, in fact, too radical at the time for a lot of people—probably most social scientists and certainly many on the far-Left." https://quillette.com/2021/12/29/speaking-with-e-o-wilson/