Holiday Hiatus

Admin note: Posting will be light the rest of this week due to the US Thanksgiving holiday!

AI And Radiology Misconceptions

Dr. Ben White: "Hallucinating about AI"

McArdle On Education Decline

"The signs of educational decline are now impossible to ignore".  (If that link doesn't work, try this version.)

The results of this thinking can be seen in a recent report from the University of California at San Diego, which like the rest of the UC system stopped accepting standardized test scores in 2020. In 2024 the school had to redesign its remedial math program to create a class that focused entirely on remediating elementary school and middle school math. In 2025, more than 8 percent of entering students needed that class. These are college students who chose to enroll in a major with a math requirement yet struggle to round numbers to the nearest hundred, add or divide fractions, or work with negative numbers... 

That’s what happens when you silence the alarm instead of responding to it: The fire burns out of control. It should be a warning to the growing number of politicians who think they can fix other problems — like soaring rents or rising electricity costs — by simply freezing prices. The prices are telling us that there’s too little supply to meet demand, or that something (such as renewables mandates or too few natural gas pipelines) is driving up supply costs. Freezing prices doesn’t fix that any more than a courtesy A gives students what they actually need to succeed in college.

Inside The Wayback Machine

"Inside the old church where one trillion webpages are being saved"

Superman Comic Found

Kids clean out attic of their deceased mother's house and find a nearly-pristine copy of first "Superman" comic book from 1939. Sells for record $9 million at auction. 

For years, mom had mentioned once owning some "old comics", but everyone thought it was just a family legend. #GreatScott

More AI Math

"Google's Nano Banana Pro is by far the best image generation AI out there. I gave it a picture of a question and it solved it correctly in my actual handwriting. Students are going to love this. 😂"

Google’s Nano Banana Pro is by far the best image generation AI out there.

I gave it a picture of a question and it solved it correctly in my actual handwriting.

Students are going to love this. 😂 pic.twitter.com/GXd6PbZYxn

— sid (@immasiddx) November 21, 2025

Escher Online

"The Boston Public Library has made its digital archive of M.C. Escher's works available online."

Between Awake And Sleep

"At the Mysterious Boundary Between Waking Life and Sleep, What Happens in the Brain?"

Cowen Interviews Scholl

Video: Tyler Cowen interviews "Blake Scholl on Supersonic Flight and Fixing Broken Infrastructure"

Brain Implant Update

"New therapeutic brain implants could defy the need for surgery"

Signal Post-Quantum Security

"Why Signal's post-quantum makeover is an amazing engineering achievement"

Teaching An Octopus To Play Piano

Video: "I taught an octopus piano (It took 6 months)"

Not A Bubble

"A simple reason why the market's biggest investors say they aren't worried about AI bubble". 

 (Note: This is not financial advice. Do your own research before investing money. Never invest funds you can't afford to lose.)

Legislators Vs. VPNs

"Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs -- And They Have No Idea What They're Doing"

Beautiful Science

"What Makes an Experiment Beautiful?"

Hit AI Song

"That New Hit Song on Spotify? It Was Made by A.I."

This month, an A.I. country song called “Walk My Walk” (with percussive claps and forgettable lyrics such as “Kick rocks if you don’t like how I talk”) hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and passed three million streams on Spotify; the performer behind it is a square-jawed digital avatar named Breaking Rust. 

In September, Xania Monet, an A.I. R. & B. singer created by a young poet in Mississippi, landed a multimillion-dollar record deal after several Billboard-charting singles. 

And earlier in the year a mysterious psychedelic band called the Velvet Sundown passed a million plays on Spotify before its creators admitted that the group was “synthetic.”

Raccoon Resistance

Selecting for smarter raccoons.

The Last Penny

"US Mint presses final pennies as production ends after more than 230 years"

"God bless America, and we’re going to save the taxpayers $56 million," Treasurer Brandon Beach said at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia before hitting a button to strike the final penny. The coins were then carefully placed on a tray for journalists to see. The last few pennies were to be auctioned off.

Noperthedron Discovered

"First Shape Found That Can't Pass Through Itself"

Remote Work-From-Home Surgery

"Dundee and US surgeons achieve world-first stroke surgery using robot"

Prof Grunwald said the experiment demonstrated a robot could be connected to the same catheters and wires a surgeon would normally use, and a medic who is with the patient could simply attach the wires. 

The surgeon, in another location, could then hold and move their own wires, and the robot then carries out exactly the same movements in real time on the patient to carry out the thrombectomy. 

The patient would be in a hospital operating room, while the doctor could carry out the procedure using the Sentante machine from anywhere - even their own home.

Cryptocurrency Quantum Readiness

"Crypto's Quantum Computing Threat"

Interview With Palantir CEO

Wired: "Alex Karp Goes to War"

New Tooth Enamal

"Dentists Could Soon 'Regrow' Your Tooth Enamel With a Simple Gel". (Via H.R.)

Optimism And Longevity

"Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women". (Via Marginal Revolution.)

Quantum Computing Update

"A new ion-based quantum computer makes error correction simpler"

Phone As Scanner

"Who Needs a Printer or Scanner? Just Use Your Mobile Device."

Samsung Tri-fold

"Samsung’s Galaxy Z Tri-fold finally shows up in person and it's absolutely bonkers"

AI Hurricane Prediction

"Google's new hurricane model was breathtakingly good this season". (Via H.R.)

Dino Trackway

"How a huge dinosaur trackway was uncovered in the UK"

Organoid Chipa

"Chips With Neural Tissue Aim to Make AI More Energy Efficient"

Parallel Parking Championship

"Yes, There's a Parallel Parking Championship, and I Was a Contender"

Mushrooms And Cancer

"Can psilocybin help patients with advanced cancer?"

Prediction Market Hack

"Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong pulled up a prediction market at the end of their earnings call today and he rattled off all the words people were betting he would say."

Credit Card Skimmer Quiz

"Can You Spot A Credit Card Skimmer?"