The Vulnerable World Hypothesis
"This paper introduces the concept of a vulnerable world: roughly, one in which there is some level of technological development at which civilization almost certainly gets devastated by default, i.e. unless it has exited the ‘semi-anarchic default condition’. Several counterfactual historical and...
Source: doi.org
Fusion energy record demonstrates powerplant future
"Landmark results from EUROfusion scientists and engineers at world-leading UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Joint European Torus (JET) facility in Oxford. "Record-breaking 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy demonstrates powerplant potential and strengthens case for ITER." "The record and scientific...
Source: ukaea.uk
Overturning 'conventional wisdom' with 'natural experiments'
Via Reuters ... "Economists David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens won the 2021 Nobel economics prize on Monday for pioneering "natural experiments" to show real-world economic impacts in areas from minimum wage increases in the U.S. fast-food sector to migration from Castro-era Cuba." "One experiment...
Source: reuters.com
Tailored messaging increases understanding of climate change in Republicans
A team of researchers at Yale University's Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has found that the use of tailored advertising can increase awareness among Republicans of the dangers posed by climate change. In their paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the group describes field...
Source: phys.org
Study shows conversations rarely end when people want them to end
"A team of researchers from Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and the University of Virginia has found that conversations between people usually do not end when either partner in the conversation wants them to end. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National...
Source: phys.org
UK rollout data on AstraZeneca shot should guide other countries: vaccine chief
Natural experiments can be a really useful source of data. "Data from Britain's vaccine rollout on the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University COVID-19 shot in older people should help other countries reassess their use of it, the head of the university's vaccine research group said on Tuesday."
Source: reuters.com
Our itch to share helps spread Covid-19 misinformation
Our itch to share helps spread Covid-19 misinformation: Study finds social media sharing affects news judgment, but a quick exercise reduces the problem. Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office.
‘The study follows others Rand and Pennycook have conducted about explicitly political news, which similarly...
Source: mit.edu
Early warning signals for critical transitions in a thermoacoustic system:
Early warning signals for critical transitions in a thermoacoustic system: Dynamical systems can undergo critical transitions where the system suddenly shifts from one stable state to another at a critical threshold called the tipping point. The decrease in recovery rate to equilibrium (critical slowing...
Source: nature.com
New computational model provides a tool for improving the production of valuable drugs: The model allows scientists to make
New computational model provides a tool for improving the production of valuable drugs: The model allows scientists to make comprehensive simulations without doing tedious experiments in the laboratory. Hence, the model will tell the scientist, which metabolic pathways are involved in the production...
Source: eurekalert.org
Good read. Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. A powerful book on animal rights written 40 years ago (updated 20 years ago
Good read. Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. A powerful book on animal rights written 40 years ago (updated 20 years ago and re-issued recently with an introduction by Yuval Hariri) and having stood the test of time and debate. It is called 'the bible' of the animal rights movement and rightly so ......
Source: amazon.co.uk
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