Women hunted, back in the hunter-gatherer days.
PhysOrg has a study that defies the conventional idea of “man the hunter, woman the gatherer” with evidence that, in more than three-quarters of contemporary […]
Articles by grant
AI is eating the web. Not as in coding, but as in its economy.
The Verge has one of the more interesting pieces (to me) about AI that I’ve seen lately, reporting less on “what do these content-making machines […]
Science Art: Outdated drawing of a torosaurus, 1905
I was looking these particular dinosaurs up because I recently came across a news story about the world’s largest dinosaur skull being displayed somewhere new […]
SONG: Content Feeds
SONG: “Content Feeds”. ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: The Markup, 1 May 2023, “The Very Hungry Algorithm: Bedtime with ChatGPT,” as used in the post “How do […]
Taurine, not telomeres, could be the key to a longer lifespan.
Science Alert reports on research that finds that boosting levels of the amino acid taurine – present in meat, fish, and dairy, and one that […]
MDMA against white supremacy.
BBC reports on a simple pharmaceutical study at the University of Chicago – about the mechanism by which MDMA increased “the pleasantness of social touch” […]
Science Art: Ceratosuchops inferodios life reconstruction, by PaleoGeekSquared
This is a kind of spinosaur-ancestor dubbed “the hell heron” by some dramatically minded scientists. C. inferodios was identified in 2021 from some fossil fragments […]
Making a pain-free battery: “Nickel doesn’t have child-labor issues.”
Scientific Frontline looks at a new way to create rechargeable lithium-ion batteries – the power behind electric cars, iPhones, and most of the rest of […]
Texas expects record-setting power usage this week.
Reuters reports on a hot, hot summer that is pulling more electricity from the Texas state grid than ever before: AccuWeather forecast high temperatures in […]
How do you feel when the AI starts reading your young children their bedtime stories?
As The Markup points out, this is no longer a hypothetical question, but an actual parenting challenge now: I made a note to ask his […]
Science Art: NASA’s Chandra, Webb Combine for Arresting Views (Pillars of Creation), 2023
This is an image made by combining visible light (from the Hubble and ESO orbiting telescopes) and invisible infrared and X-ray imagery (from the Webb, […]
A beaked dinosaur in Utah named for the god Janus.
Smithsonian Magazine covers the discovery of a new species of dinosaur, Iani smithi, that’s part of a little-known group of dinosaurs that were around just […]
Science Art: Habitus images of Chimairacoris lakshmiae, 2015.
This is a plant bug. That’s the technical term – it’s part of that group of insects called “true bugs,” the family Miridae; plant bugs […]
The smarter the brain, the longer it takes to solve a hard problem.
The Berlin Institute of Health has a new metric for intelligence. It’s not speed at solving problems, but the opposite. Higher intelligence means simple problems […]
More Chinese astronauts for China’s space station.
Reuters reports that a couple of days ago, the Shenzhou-16, or “Divine Vessel-16,” a spaceship mounted on a Long March-2F rocket, sent a new crew […]