Links for 2022-03-23
South Korea already had the lowest fertility rate in the world and now it’s fallen even further to just 0.81. “If the current pattern of fertility (or lack thereof) holds, South Korea’s working age population will be only 17.4 million by 2070, a 53.5% decrease in just 50 years.” https://mercatornet.com/south-korea-the-worlds-worst-birth-dearth/78131/
New Insight Into Possible Origins of Life: For the First Time Researchers Create an RNA Molecule That Replicates https://scienmag.com/new-insight-into-the-possible-origins-of-life/
Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive' — “A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months…Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved.” [published in 2018] https://www.science.org/content/article/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive
Big Little Lies: A Compendium and Simulation of p-Hacking Strategies https://psyarxiv.com/xy2dk/
In the spirit of Leamer, this informative blog post summarises recent work where different researchers study the same problem. Even with relatively unknown questions that don’t evoke strong ideological reactions, results varied massively. https://mattsclancy.substack.com/p/one-study-many-results?s=r
On the reliability of published findings using the regression discontinuity design in political science https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.14526
How do single neurons integrate thousands of inputs, from multiple circuits, to learn about the environment? https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm1670
GWAS on birth year infant mortality rates provides evidence of recent natural selection https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2117312119
Direct detection of natural selection in Bronze Age Britain https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.14.484330v1
Metaculus estimates there's a 55% chance that at least one human born before 2001 will live to 150. https://www.metaculus.com/questions/353/will-someone-born-before-2001-live-to-be-150/
Apartment buildings and shops in the centre of Mariupol on Jun 21st 2021 and Mar 18th 2022.
Source: https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/03/21/hundreds-of-thousands-face-catastrophe-in-mariupol
Launch costs for Artemis, a program that’s using NASA's new heavy-lift vehicle, could be as high as $4.1 billion while the launch costs for Starship by SpaceX could eventually be as low as $10 million. Right now, the Falcon Heavy rocket by SpaceX costs about $90 million to launch.
If you are in doubt that Ukrainians actually managed to replace their formerly corrupt pro-Russian government with a much less corrupt one consider how they managed to reform their armed forces to the point of offering Russia a tough fight.
Whereas the Russian government is so corrupt that they actually believed their own lies, thinking that they could win a Blitzkrieg against Ukraine. The Russian armed forces can't even maintain their trucks well enough to not get stalled by burst tires.
People are still talking about how it is evidence of racism that Poland now accepts millions of fleeing Ukrainians when they were previously unwilling to accept any other "refugees".
It's true, racism is ingrained in human nature. That's why diversity will never work. But it is disingenuous to ignore that Ukrainian refugees are women and children fleeing to neighboring countries. A few years ago Europe was mostly dealing with fighting-age men from an archaic culture who crossed several safe countries to reach the ones that paid the most money.
Things Germans find less troublesome than nuclear power:
- Climate change
- Air pollution
- Financing Russian wars of aggression
- Existence-threatening energy prices
But there is one noteworthy exception: Germans support nuclear power in Iran.