Marco Giancotti
@marco-giancotti.bsky.social
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📥 324
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Thinking tool artisan. Gardener of
https://aethermug.com
and
https://planktonvalhalla.com
To think better, you need to understand how thought works. But it's one thing to theorize about its building blocks, and another to see them in action, real-time.
2 days ago
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Thinking is an action.
2 days ago
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Marco Giancotti
Dan Falk
6 days ago
Happy 462nd Birthday to Galileo Galilei, born
#OTD
in 1564 -- a crucial figure in the early stages of what we now call the scientific revolution. Here are photos that I took in 2009 of his (rather humble) birthplace in Pisa, and his ornate tomb in Florence:
#science
#history
#histsci
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In Ikebukuro Station, Tokyo, commuters form double queues at each train door. One line boards the next train. The other waits for the train after that. No one directs them. There are no detailed instructions. People just seem to know.
7 days ago
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Marco Giancotti
Maria Popova
8 days ago
On Darwin's birthday, the charming doodles his kids left all over his manuscript of "On the Origin of Species"
www.themarginalian.org/2016/04/06/c...
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Marco Giancotti
Sasha Winkler
15 days ago
Great apes may use playful teasing to learn about their social relationships. In a new paper, Erica Cartmill & I propose a bond-testing hypothesis for ape teasing. Out today in Phil Trans Biology:
royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...
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Does playful teasing help great apes learn about social relationships?
Abstract. Understanding social relationships is critical to succeeding in primate societies. In species with complex social networks (including humans), co
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article/381/1943/20240371/480047/Does-playful-teasing-help-great-apes-learn-about
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Out if context quotes
16 days ago
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Last year a researcher asked if he could borrow my aphantasic brain for an experiment. That decision led to me spending 30+ hours deep inside an MRI, looking at pictures or trying (and failing) to imagine them.
17 days ago
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Maybe nature has no joints.
claude.ai/share/fb5af...
about 1 month ago
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existentialcomics.com/comic/632
2 months ago
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Indeed.
5 months ago
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I Used to Know How to Write in Japanese (Somehow, though, I can still read it)
aethermug.com/posts/i-use...
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I Used to Know How to Write in Japanese
Somehow, though, I can still read it
https://aethermug.com/posts/i-used-to-know-how-to-write-in-japanese
6 months ago
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Marco Giancotti
Ricard Solé
9 months ago
A great book by Sean B Carroll on two of my intellectual heroes: Jacques Monod and Albert Camus. Two giants (and friends) who won the
@nobelprize.bsky.social
but also fought totalitarianism during the Nazi occupation (joining the Resistance) and afterwards. Two great inspirations for these days.
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Marco Giancotti
Midge
9 months ago
When the IT guy takes over my computer remotely
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Mike Sowden
9 months ago
OK, this is wild. In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them. It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*. What the HELL? 1/
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Marco Giancotti
Hiroki Sayama
10 months ago
Clusters - an Asymmetrifcal Particle System with Emergent Patterns By Jeffrey Ventrella
vimeo.com/1048238799
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Clusters - an Asymmetrifcal Particle System with Emergent Patterns
This is a video explaining the Clusters particle algorithm. Explore it in real-time at ventrella.com/clusters
https://vimeo.com/1048238799
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Determinate Self-Sabotage, or Obsessive Connoisseurship?
aethermug.com/posts/self-...
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Determinate Self-Sabotage, or Obsessive Connoisseurship?
On the quandaries of kodawari
https://aethermug.com/posts/self-sabotage-connoisseurship
10 months ago
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10 months ago
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Morten H. Christiansen
10 months ago
Every year at the end of the semester, I ask the students in my Psych of Language class to create memes about what they've learned. They then vote for their favorites. Here's the winner about how the idea of a universal grammar is no longer as compelling as it once seemed. 1/5
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Marco Giancotti
Paul Byrne
10 months ago
This is a new image from
#JWST
. The bright points with spikes are stars in the Milky Way. Everything else is a galaxy. Everything. Else. Is. A. Galaxy.
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Marco Giancotti
Quanta Magazine
11 months ago
In chaotic systems, the smallest fluctuations get amplified. As scientist Edward Lorenz put it in the 1960s and 70s, even a seagull flapping its wings might eventually make a big difference to the weather. Here's how scientists came to understand what chaos is, and how to wrangle it: đź§µ
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Marco Giancotti
Ricard Solé
10 months ago
How can biological systems anticipate future events? In our new paper with
@jordiplam.bsky.social
, we show how a simple genetic circuit can predict future trends through a simple (and perhaps widespread) mechanism
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social
@koseskalab.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Marco Giancotti
Maria Popova
10 months ago
Bertrand Russell, writing on the other side of two world wars, on how to heal an ailing and divided world – it is not too late
www.themarginalian.org/2019/11/13/e...
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Bertrand Russell on How to Heal an Ailing and Divided World
“What is needed in our very complex modern society is calm consideration, with readiness to call dogmas in question and freedom of mind to do justice to the most diverse points of view.”…
https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/11/13/einstein-russell-manifesto/
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One thing is to say "thank you", another thing is to imply it even without saying it out loud. Which is not possible in most languages. What if Gratitude Was Built Into the Grammar? New post on Aether Mug:
aethermug.com/posts/what-...
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What if Gratitude Was Built Into the Grammar?
Another Japanese marvel
https://aethermug.com/posts/what-if-gratitude-was-built-into-the-grammar
10 months ago
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Marco Giancotti
Nautilus Magazine
10 months ago
Researchers think a single strand of RNA could have done the work of a contemporary protein enzyme. It might even have been capable of replicating itself, helping to explain the origin of life. đź§Ş
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The Incredible Conundrum of Life's Origin
How to solve biology’s chicken-or-egg dilemma
https://nautil.us/the-incredible-conundrum-of-lifes-origin-1178890/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=organic-social
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Marco Giancotti
Maria Popova
10 months ago
Gorgeous vintage Japanese illustrations of animals and scientific phenomena
www.themarginalian.org/2019/12/12/k...
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Gorgeous Vintage Japanese Illustrations of Animals and Scientific Phenomena
A vibrant minimalist celebration of nature, from the scale of cells and atoms to the scale of elephants and the Moon.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/12/12/kazumasa-nagai/
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Marco Giancotti
Jessica Flack
10 months ago
Norbert Wieiner, who was a central figure within the field of cybernetics—a precursor to complexity science—is describing below the implications of the compression that automatization entails. Outsourcing a computation to a machine explicitly or implicitly involves the creation of and investment in—
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Marco Giancotti
Steven Strogatz
11 months ago
Another day, another proof of the Riemann hypothesis in my inbox
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The responsibility is reciprocal: I'm bad at socials and socials are bad at me.
11 months ago
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Marco Giancotti
Reut Avinun, PhD
11 months ago
1/đź§µ The biggest parenting myth? That our behavior has ENORMOUS influence on our children. Almost every trait kids develop gets blamed on something parents did (usually mom...). This belief creates massive anxiety. But what does the SCIENCE actually say?
#ParentingTips
#MomTok
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An Aphantasic's Observations on the Imagination of Shapes
aethermug.com/posts/an-aph...
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An Aphantasic's Observations on the Imagination of Shapes
Log entry of a scientific test subject
https://aethermug.com/posts/an-aphantasic-s-observations-on-the-imagination-of-shapes
11 months ago
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Marco Giancotti
Mike Feigin 🥯
11 months ago
This will never stop blowing my mind.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Marco Giancotti
Ricard Solé
11 months ago
How to know that there's life on a planet? What biosignatures can be detected? In a 1993
@nature.com
paper, Carl Sagan and his team turned Galileo's spacecraft towards our planet. Here's what they found and the lessons for future exoplanet research
nature.com/articles/365...
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12 months ago
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Marco Giancotti
Ricard Solé
12 months ago
How to put all complexity in a single drawing? Here's my take, with catastrophes (the folded surface), ecosystems, computation (Turing Machine), turbulence, collective intelligence, nonlinear dynamics and chaos, evolution, viruses, networks and time. And a little touch of Santa Fe NM
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12 months ago
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Marco Giancotti
Maria Popova
12 months ago
If you would like to get out of Silicon Valley's pocket and stop letting algorithms decide what you see, give the Marginalian newsletter a try — an oasis of sanity, free, ad-free, algorithm-free, entirely human, made of feeling and time for 19 years running:
www.themarginalian.org/newsletter/
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sunday newsletter
If you yearn for depth and delight without the distraction of a social media feed, try the Marginalian Sunday newsletter, free and ad-free since 2006 — the week’s most inspiring and nou…
https://www.themarginalian.org/newsletter/
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Marco Giancotti
Morten H. Christiansen
12 months ago
What is human
#StatisticalLearning
for? The standard assumption is that the goal of SL is to learn the regularities in the environment to guide behavior. In our new Psych Review paper, we argue that SL instead is provides the basis for novelty detection within an information foraging system 1/2
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Matsuri's Grown-Up World—a tragedy. "The difficulty level will increase even more with the new season."
aethermug.com/posts/matsu...
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Matsuri's Grown-Up World
"The difficulty level will increase even more with the new season."
https://aethermug.com/posts/matsuri-s-grown-up-world
12 months ago
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Marco Giancotti
Maria Popova
12 months ago
In times of difficulty and disorientation, take consolation in the telescopic perspective, with a side of Bulgarian folk music and Carl Sagan:
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The Consolations of the Telescopic Perspective in Disorienting Times
Perspective to lift the blinders of our cultural moment.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/12/21/reflection/
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Marco Giancotti
Ricard Solé
12 months ago
Do languages evolve in time in ways similar to microbes? Is there horizontal information transfer too? Tal Dagan and co-workers pioneered work in this area using network science. See the
@royalsocietypublishing.org
paper here:
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
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Dear Charles, Careful what you wish for. — Someone from 186 years in the future
12 months ago
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about 1 year ago
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I wrote another thing. "Whatever a Man or Woman Was Able to Accomplish Before, You Can Accomplish, Too - A play over milkshakes"
aethermug.com/posts/whate...
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Whatever a Man or Woman Was Able to Accomplish Before, You Can Accomplish, Too
A play over milkshakes
https://aethermug.com/posts/whatever-a-man-or-woman
about 1 year ago
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reposted by
Marco Giancotti
Ricard Solé
about 1 year ago
While Roman engineers and architects were building cities, termites in Brazil excavated a massive network of galleries, creating millions of mounds that persisted until today and can be seen from space
phys.org/news/2018-11...
… A good reminder of the power and scale of collective intelligence.
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about 1 year ago
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about 1 year ago
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Some new experimental thinking tools on Aether Mug. Primitive Atlas of Glass Circuits
aethermug.com/posts/primit...
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Primitive Atlas of Glass Circuits
Aren't we all air converters?
https://aethermug.com/posts/primitive-atlas-of-glass-circuits
about 1 year ago
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I wish people would stop saying "people suffering from aphantasia" to refer to all aphantasics. Aphantasia is not a disease nor a handicap. Some people suffer because of it, but most are doing fine. Some are doing even better than most people who *can* visualise.
about 1 year ago
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Here's my first blog post of the year! "The Luxurious Pain of Using My Time"
aethermug.com/posts/the-l...
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The Luxurious Pain of Using My Time
Possibly just me coming out as a lucky optimist
https://aethermug.com/posts/the-luxurious-pain-of-using-my-time
about 1 year ago
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