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?"

Hsieh Forbes Column: How Often Do Medical Emergencies Occur On Airplanes?

My latest Forbes column is now out: "How Often Do Medical Emergencies Occur On Airplanes? What Passengers And Physicians Need To Know"

Awesome Guitar Intros

Video: "Top 80 Greatest Guitar Intros"

OpenAI Becomes For-Profit

"Microsoft and OpenAI's new for-profit deal gives Windows maker 27% stake"

Sturdy D-Cell Battery

Great experiment utilizing a Christmas card music player and a D-Cell battery.

14 years and 2 months!!!

The Misnomer Of The "Pneumonia Vaccine"

Dr. Amesh Adalja: "In this video I discuss pneumococcal vaccination -- even though it's called the 'pneumonia vaccine' it is not about the prevention of pneumonia (but about prevention of invasive disease)"

In this video I discuss pneumococcal vaccination — even though it’s called the “pneumonia vaccine” it is not about the prevention of pneumonia (but about prevention of invasive disease) pic.twitter.com/MQMCV0lVKj

— Amesh Adalja (@AmeshAA) October 28, 2025

Superhuman Learning

"Thinking Machines challenges OpenAI's AI scaling strategy: 'First superintelligence will be a superhuman learner'"

AI False Alarm

"US student handcuffed after AI system apparently mistook bag of chips for gun"

Real Red October Navy Story

"'Sir, a Rogue Captain Is Stealing a Warship': The Real Hunt for Red October Story"

Quantum Computing Updates

"IBM says conventional AMD chips can run quantum computing error correction algorithm". 

Related: "Google says it has developed landmark quantum computing algorithm".

Inverted Picture

"Same picture when inverted"

Tesla Safety Data

Interesting Tesla safety data, posted 10/22/2025: 

Drivers using Autopilot technology: One crash per every 6.36 million miles driven. 

Drivers not using Autopilot: One crash per 993,000 miles driven. 

All drivers (per NHTSA): One crash per 702,000 miles driven.

Alzheimer's Progress

"Scientists Achieve 'Striking Reversal of Alzheimer's' in Mice"

Wave Math

"The Hidden Math of Ocean Waves Crashes Into View"

Closer To Nanobots

"A Pill That Prints-An Ingestible Bioprinter for Non-Invasive Structured Bioink Deposition". (Via H.R.)

Semi-Telepathy

"MIT-Linked Startup Unveils 'Near-Telepathic' Wearable Device for Silent Communication". (Via H.R.)

Changes These iPhone Settings

"The 25 Key Settings You Need to Change on Your iPhone"

Amit Kukreja Deep Dive On BMNR

"BMNR: Tom Lee Is Buying Ethereum Faster Than You or I Can". (Not financial advice.)

Jimmy Wales Interview In NYT

I'm looking forward to reading this in-depth interview of Jimmy Wales in the NY Timeson the culture wars, Wikipedia, Elon Musk, etc.!

Glovepipe Tutorial

Video: The Glovepipe Tutorial (Via T.K.)

Bad Password

"McDonald's AI Hiring Bot Exposed Millions of Applicants' Data to Hackers Who Tried the Password '123456'"

MIT SEAL

"Self-improving language models are becoming reality with MIT's updated SEAL technique"

Organ Transplant Near Disaster

"A Surgical Team Was About To Harvest This Man's Organs -- Until His Doctor Intervened"

[Larry] Black [a] 22-year-old patient, had arrived at the hospital after getting shot in the head on March 24, 2019. A week later, he was taken to surgery to have his organs removed for donation -- even though his heart was beating and he hadn’t been declared brain-dead, Zohny said. 

Black's sister Molly Watts said the family had doubts after agreeing to donate Black’s organs but felt unheard until the 34-year-old doctor, in his first year as a neurosurgeon, intervened. 

Today, Black, now 28, is a musician and the father of three children. He still needs regular physical therapy for lingering health issues from the gun injury. And Black said he is haunted by what he remembers from those days while he was lying in a medically induced coma...

This kind of transplant surgery mishap is very rare. But it should be "never", not "rare".

Digital ID And Blockchain

"Bhutan to Anchor National Digital ID on Ethereum by Early 2026"

Bone Healing Update

"Scientists want to treat complex bone fractures with a bone-healing gun". (Via H.R.)

Easter Island Statues

"How Easter Island's giant statues 'walked' to their final platforms". (Via H.R.)

iPhone Settings

"The 25 Key Settings You Need to Change on Your iPhone"

AI And Stroke Detection

"What Could Go Right? AI Triples Stroke Recovery Rates". (Via Ari A.)

Life Saving Facts

Sam Ghali, MD: "Share a life-saving medical fact everyone should know"

QC And Cryptocurrency

"Will Quantum Computers Break Bitcoin?"

Light Posting Notice

Admin note: Posting will be light or non-existent this week due to external obligations.

Huntington Disease Treatment

BBC: "Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time".

The goal of the treatment is to reduce levels of this toxic protein permanently, in a single dose.

The therapy uses cutting edge genetic medicine combining gene therapy and gene silencing technologies.

Slang Tells

"Your Slang Reveals Where You're From"

AI Psychosis

"The Emerging Problem of 'AI Psychosis'". 

Counterpoint: "AI Psychosis Is Rarely Psychosis at All"

2025 Ig Nobels

"Meet the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners". (Via H.R.) 

Also, TIL that physicist Sir Andre Geim is "the first and only individual, as of 2025, to have received both Nobel and Ig Nobel prizes".

Waymo Safety Breakdown

"Very few of Waymo's most serious crashes were Waymo's fault".

I will be very interested to see how these Waymos perform in Colorado, especially in the wintertime.

iOS 26 Overview

"The Top New Features in Apple's iOS 26 and iPadOS 26"

Transplant Surgery Near-Mishap

"A Surgical Team Was About To Harvest This Man's Organs -- Until His Doctor Intervened"

This is very rare in the world of transplant surgery. But it should be "never", rather than "rare".

Big Numbers And Busy Beavers

"Busy Beaver Hunters Reach Numbers That Overwhelm Ordinary Math"

The total number of steps that mxdys’ new champion took before halting was greater than 2↑↑↑5, or 2↑↑(2↑↑(2↑↑(2↑↑2))). To unpack this expression, you work outward from the innermost parentheses: 2↑↑2 is 4, and 2↑↑4 is a bit over 65,000. That leaves you with 2↑↑(2↑↑65,000), making the height of the final stack of 2s an incomprehensibly large number. Forget about writing a tower of powers that stretches out for miles or megaparsecs. Even this more compact notation no longer fits in the universe.

Sand Patterns

Video: "Zen garden - Pattern explorations"

Irish Names

"How To Pronounce Common (and Commonly Confused) Irish Names"

Palantir AI Uses Cases

Newsweek: "AI Goes Mission Critical as Palantir Powers Essential Systems". 

I am impressed by the wide variety of uses cases for their software, ranging from health care to energy to aviation to disaster response.

Karp's Contrarian View On AI

"Palantir CEO Alex Karp says U.S. labor workers won't lose their jobs to AI"

The primary danger of AI in this country, says Karp, is that workers don't understand that AI will actually help them in their roles—and it will hardly replace them. "Silicon Valley's done an immensely crappy job of explaining that," he said. "If you're in manufacturing, in any capacity: You're on the assembly line, you maintain a complicated machine -- you have any kind of skilled labor job -- the way we do AI will actually make your job more valuable and make you more valuable. But currently you would think—just roaming around the country, and if you listen to the AI narratives coming out of Silicon Valley—that all these people are going to lose their jobs tomorrow."

Direct link to Palantir "AI Optimism Project".

Slippery Ice

"Scientists rewrite physics by debunking 200-year-old theory on why ice is slippery". (Via H.R.)

Xenoparous Species

Biology is amazing and weird! "We term females exhibiting this reproductive mode as xenoparous, meaning they give birth to other species as part of their life cycle." 

Source: Nature, "One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants", via Patrick Heizer] 

 

Passkeys

"How Passkeys Work -- and How to Use Them"

Google AI Flop

"Local Restaurant Exhausted as Google AI Keeps Telling Customers About Daily Specials That Don't Exist"

Quadratic Equations Simplified

"Mathematician Finds Easier Way to Solve Quadratic Equations".

Related: "A new way to make quadratic equations easy".

Voice AI Flop

WSJ: "Taco Bell Rethinks Future of Voice AI at the Drive-Through"

How To Walk A Human Being,

The Oatmeal: "How To Walk A Human Being -- A Guide For Dogs"

Quantum Navigation

"US military to test quantum navigation on secret spaceplane"

UK, Apple, And Privacy

"UK government walks back controversial Apple 'back door' demand after Trump administration pressure"

Smart Glasses Again?

"Meta to unveil Hypernova smart glasses with a display, wristband at Connect next month"

Big Universe

Video: "Universe Size Comparison". (Via S.N.)

Message In Ice Bubbles

"Manipulating trapped air bubbles in ice for message storage in cold regions"

Expiration Dates

NYT: "Do Food Expiration Dates Really Matter?"

Surveillance Shoes For Parents

"Skechers is making kids' shoes with a hidden AirTag compartment"

Skechers introduced a line of kids' sneakers that contain a hidden compartment where parents can slip in an Apple AirTag. 

 Inside the heel of the shoe, a small insert can be lifted to reveal the compartment. Then, parents can track the location of their child -- or, at least their child's shoes. These shoes don't come with an AirTag, and they don't appear to be an actual collaboration with Apple, but rather, a third-party product that Skechers has developed on its own... 

Apple only advertises its AirTags as products to keep track of items like keys, wallets, or luggage -- not human beings. But parents have been using the technology to keep an eye on their kids. Already, there are products like AirTag-compatible bracelets, insoles, pins, or even knock-off Crocs Jibbitz that can fit an AirTag.

I am not a parent, so I am probably not qualified to comment much on the propriety of these uses. I'm sure my readers who are parents have some interesting opinions about this use of technology.

Time In The Market > Timing The Market

"What if you had the worst timing and bought the market at the top before each crash over the past 25 years?" 

tldr; you still would have done astonishingly well

Robotaxi Report

"I Took a Tesla Robotaxi Around Austin and This is What It's Like -- And Why I Feel Safe"

Wearable BP Monitor

"Wearable blood pressure monitor attaches like a bandage for real-time continuous measurement". (Via H.R.)

Better Rebar

"Startup enables 100-year bridges with corrosion-resistant steel"

Allium Engineering, founded by two MIT PhDs, is tripling the lifetime of bridges and other structures with a new technology that uses a stainless steel cladding to make rebar resilient to corrosion. By eliminating corrosion, infrastructure lasts much longer, fewer repairs are required, and carbon emissions are reduced. The company’s technology is easily integrated into existing steelmaking processes to make America’s infrastructure more resilient, affordable, and sustainable over the next century.

Robot Folding Laundry

"Helix Learns to Fold Laundry"

AI Reading Roman Texts

"Google AI makes breakthrough to crack Roman texts to unearth secrets of the past". (Via H.R.)

Tech Tree

"Historical Tech Tree". Nice interactive site! (Via G.F.)

AI Plastics

"AI helps chemists develop tougher plastics"

MIT Vs. Eggs

"MIT engineering students crack egg dilemma, finding sideways is stronger"

Same Side Up

"This New Pyramid-Like Shape Always Lands With the Same Side Up"

When Do You Really Need To Get To The Airport?

Nate Silver runs the numbers and determines that "get to the airport 2 hours before flight time" is too cautious; he says 1 hour is sufficient. 

(From my experience in Denver's airport, there is enough variability in the length of the TSA lines that I still need to arrive 2 hours ahead of time to be confident of not missing my flight.)

Long Bridge

"World's longest suspension bridge: Italy approves $15.6 billion connection to Sicily". (Via H.R.)

Forbes On Robinhood

Detailed Forbes piece on Robinhood ($HOOD) and Vlad Tenev.

AI Medical Disclaimers

"AI companies have stopped warning you that their chatbots aren't doctors"

QC And Wall Street?

"Why Wall Street's Future May Depend on Quantum Mechanics"

Nvidia Millionaires

TIL that "78% of Nvidia employees are millionaires" 

I'm especially impressed by all the employees who want to keep working there, rather than cashing out and retiring. (Via P.O.)

Health Costs

"Baumol's Cost Disease and the Undercutting of Physician Pay"

Huemer On AI

Mike Huemer: "I, for one, welcome our robot overlords" (Springer Nature)

Hsieh Forbes Column: Just Seeing A (Fake) Sick Person Can Activate Your Immune System

My latest Forbes column is out: "Just Seeing A (Fake) Sick Person Can Activate Your Immune System"

Zuckerberg On Personal Superintelligence

Mark Zuckerberg: "Personal Superintelligence"

996 Workweeks

"Silicon Valley AI Startups Are Embracing China's Controversial '996' Work Schedule"

Would you like to work nearly double the standard 40-hour week? It's a question that many startups in the US are asking prospective employees--and to get the job, the answer needs to be an unequivocal yes. These companies are embracing an intense schedule, first popularized in mainland China, known as "996," or 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. In other words, it's a 72-hour work week.

In the health care world, that's called "residency".

AI And War

"Six ways AI could cause the next big war, and why it probably won't"

Too Much Salt?

"Is All This Salt Killing Us?"