Links for 2022-10-29
Inside the Proton, the ‘Most Complicated Thing You Could Possibly Imagine’ — “The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity, one that changes its appearance depending on how it is probed. We’ve attempted to connect the proton’s many faces to form the most complete picture yet.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-complicated-thing-imaginable-20221019/
“How super-hot rocks miles under the earth’s surface could provide limitless clean energy…with investment in innovation, this category of clean, baseload energy has the potential to be cost-competitive with other zero-carbon technologies, while having a small land footprint.” https://cnbc.com/2022/10/28/superhot-rock-geothermal-what-is-it-could-it-fight-climate-change.html
Thread about space-based solar power. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1583106346538311680.html
Explainpaper: A better way to read academic papers. https://www.explainpaper.com/ (you can highlight text or ask any question about the paper and instantly get an explanation)
The analysis of ancient DNA from individuals who lived before, during, and after the Black Death pandemic gives clues to how exposure to pathogens may have shaped the makeup of immune genes https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05349-x
First Known Family of Neanderthals Found in Russian Cave [The New York Times] https://archive.ph/9J6ek
10,000 Times Quicker: New Breakthrough Could Change the Field of Medical Microrobots https://scitechdaily.com/10000-times-quicker-new-breakthrough-could-change-the-field-of-medical-microrobots/
Stability AI Announces $101 Million in Funding for Open-Source Artificial Intelligence https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stability-ai-announces-101-million-in-funding-for-open-source-artificial-intelligence-301650932.html
AI: Startup Vs Incumbent Value http://blog.eladgil.com/2022/10/ai-startup-vs-incumbent-value.html
COVID-19 Surges Linked To Spike in Heart Attack Deaths – “Like Nothing Seen Before” https://scitechdaily.com/covid-19-surges-linked-to-spike-in-heart-attack-deaths-like-nothing-seen-before/
Dramatic rise in cancer in people under 50 https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/09/researchers-report-dramatic-rise-in-early-onset-cancers/
Human intuition evolved for raw survival on the African savanna. Nevertheless, when it comes to mathematics and computer science human intuition serves as a bright searchlight that allows us to locate golden needles of useful and interesting results in an infinite haystack of abstractness.
Since such abilities had no evolutionary advantage, this might suggest that general intelligence was easier to achieve than an ensemble of narrow expert systems.
If true, this could explain the apparent difference between someone with severe brain damage and a chimpanzee. A person suffering from brain damage, or a condition such as Down syndrome, has some of the dimensions of their general intelligence severely crippled, far below the level of a chimpanzee, while others are on a human level. Unlike a chimpanzee, the former might be able to talk but is not self-sufficient.
If intelligence and generality are orthogonal, this could further explain how it is possible that some countries can have an average IQ score that would be characterized as mental retardation in people from other countries. This situation could be similar to how two artificial neural networks with the same design but different scales exhibit different abilities. Both networks have the same general intelligence but the larger one is smarter. In the same sense, people from different countries have the same general intelligence but the ones with the higher average cranial capacities score higher on IQ tests.