Links for 2022-04-26
“…they determined the solar storm in 7176 B.C. was so severe that if a similarly intense storm happened today, it could have catastrophic consequences, including knocking out satellites in orbit, disrupting communications networks and blacking out electricity grids.” https://astronomy.com/news/2022/03/ice-holds-evidence-of-ancient-massive-solar-storm
New generation of cancer-preventing vaccines could wipe out tumors before they form. — “The idea is to deliver into the body bits of proteins, or antigens, from cancer cells to stimulate the immune system to attack any incipient tumors.” https://science.org/content/article/new-generation-cancer-preventing-vaccines-wipe-tumors-form
Tuning Large Neural Networks via Zero-Shot Hyperparameter Transfer — “While it's too early to say, this may be remembered as the single biggest efficiency advancement in hyperparameter tuning.”
Rapid evolution, illustrated: “To capture a full picture of how vertebrate evolution works, Hoekstra and colleagues traveled to Nebraska and custom built a number of different enclosures on and around the sand hills, an important natural habitat with soil that is distinctively different from the surrounding area.” [published in 2019] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/harvard-study-captures-clear-picture-of-how-evolution-works-in-vertebrates/
Geometric interpretation of trace: “If your matrix is geometrically projection (algebraically A^2=A) then the trace is the dimension of the space that is being projected onto. This is quite important in representation theory.” https://mathoverflow.net/questions/13526/geometric-interpretation-of-trace
The rate at which individuals with IQs below 90 (the US average is around 98) completed college has "increased approximately 6-fold in men and 10-fold in women relative to rates in the previous generation." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016028962200023X
"Estimates of the population-attributable fractions suggested that 41% to 49% of the accidents in male patients with ADHD could have been avoided if they had been receiving treatment during the entire follow-up." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1814941?resultClick=1
"[T]he growth of human shoulders slows down just before birth and speeds up thereafter; this alleviates the problem of shoulder dystocia, where the shoulders interfere with safe passage of the fetus through the birth canal." https://eurekalert.org/news-releases/949793
Have we systematically underestimated the contribution of infectious agent to mental health problems? https://www.hardtowrite.com/pathogens/
The chip shortage is so bad companies are ripping them out of washing machines https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/chip-shortage-washing-machines
How Hypersonic Missiles Work and the Significant Threats They Pose https://scitechdaily.com/how-hypersonic-missiles-work-and-the-significant-threats-they-pose/
“Racism as a cause of persistent societal inequalities is homeopathy for the social sciences.” — Russell T. Warne https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Analyzing-Disproportionate-Representation-in-Gifted-Education-Identification-Procedures-Proximal-Causes-Distal-Causes-and-Theoretical-Causes.pdf
“Wokeism is totalitarian, allowing no private spaces. Snitches tattle to the press about remarks at dinner parties; vigilantes incriminate from posthumous personal correspondence. The Case of Edward O. Wilson, by his longtime collaborator Bert Holldobler” https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/self-righteous-vigilantism-in-science-the-case-of-edward-osborne-wilson/
Operation Z: The Death Throes of an Imperial Delusion (long report) https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/operation-z-death-throes-imperial-delusion
“Germany received far more and clearer warning about its feckless reliance on Russian gas than Greece ever did about its precrisis borrowing.Yet it seems as if Germany’s eagerness to treat economic policy as a morality play applies only to other countries” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/opinion/germany-russia-ukraine-energy.html?searchResultPosition=1