themarginalian.org

The Violinist Who Solved the Ancient Riddle of How the World Holds Together

The plate tectonics model that would arise from her discovery would go on to change our understanding of life itself: Tectonic activity mixes surface and ocean chemistry, recycling elements to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature stable, and is what allowed Earth's waters to remain liquid for the billions of years that complex life needed to evolve. Without it, we would have never risen from the oceans to measure the

jefftweedy

In My Life (Beatles cover)

If you haven't heard them, you should check them out. I'm always turning people on to that band.

3quarksdaily.com

The AI Revolution in Math Has Arrived

Those early adopters found, to their surprise, not only that the models were good at puzzles, but that they could help break genuinely new ground. Soon, mathematicians were using AI to discover and prove new results, accomplishing in a day what would have once taken them weeks or months.

themarginalian.org

How to Be a Good Explorer on the Lifelong Expedition to Yourself

An exploration is a traversal of the unknown, of landscapes you didn't even know existed, with all the courage and vulnerability and openness to experience that demands; its payoff is discovery — of unimagined wonders, of yourself in the face of the unimagined.

currincy

You Should Absolutely Be Going to Big Ears, Too

That inaugural Big Ears—scattered across a clutch of theaters and strange little rooms in a sliver of the then-sleepy city—was a continual revelation for 25-year-old me, instantly expanding my sense of what was possible.

noahpinion.blog

A conversation with Claude

There could be more complex patterns in nature — too complex for a human to hold in their mind, or even notice in the first place, but stable and useful nonetheless. What if there are other complex-but-useful patterns in other domains, like materials science and biology? If they exist, I think AI will be able to find them and apply them.

asteriskmag.com

The Sweet Lesson of Neuroscience

Scientists once hoped that studying the brain would teach us how to build AI. Now, one AI researcher may have something to teach us about the brain.

nautil.us

Paleontologists Solve the Mystery of a Twisted Jawbone With Sideways Teeth

The jaw has this weird twist that drove us crazy trying to figure it out. We were scratching our heads over this for years, wondering if it was some kind of deformation. But at this point, we've got nine jaws from this animal, and they all have this twist, including the really, really well-preserved ones. So it's not a deformation, it's just the way the animal was made.