The delicious physics of rice-cooker phase transitions. (Might have to steal this example for the book I’m working on.)

The world’s largest sand battery got through Finland’s harshest winter in years. 2,000 tonnes of sand, heated to 500-600°C by cheap power, feeding district heating in Pornainen. And it worked. Result from one install: oil down 100%, emissions down 70%. Industrial process heat is the real prize.

A different perspective...

I’m skeptical.

🤣♥️

The past is a foreign country? yeah no shit, that's why you need a pastport to get there

In these dark days, when a few men—who believe themselves touched by God (often sexual harassers, empathy-less fanatics, and anti-science figures)—use religion to drag millions into hatred, I can’t help but be reminded of a quote by Steven Weinberg.

thinking about the gould quote again

Me demoré ERAS en encontrar una manera de mostrar mis animaciones —que son muuuy anchas— en un formato 16:9 sin cortarlas ni que se vieran tan chicas y por fin me pegué los alcachofazos y armé este mockup que usaré en adelante y podré montar mi portafolio.

Release day! The ebook & hardback are live. The first book for teachers based on *enactive* cognitive science, please consider leaving a review when you're done (it really helps). (Paperback readers: Amazon is having a glitch, so it's slightly delayed.) mybook.to/teachingmean...

“What I didn’t know was that measles can cause long-term complications. A child can seem fine while the virus slowly replicates in her brain… Because both Britain and the United States are confronting outbreaks, I am sharing my story. Parents should know just how dangerous this disease is.”

Man Finally Good Enough At New Hobby To Understand How Bad He Is At It https://theonion.com/man-finally-good-enough-at-new-hobby-to-understand-how-bad-he-is-at-it/

Just because someone is yelling things at scientists, or angry at the results science yields, doesn’t mean there is a scientific debate. Life evolves and shares a common ancestor. Climate change is caused by humans. Masks work. Apples don’t fall up. Vaccines are safe and effective. Eppur si muove.

My most Luddite opinion is restaurants should always have physical menus.

After so many serious discussions about this paradox with physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers, I can’t help but find this cartoon absolutely hilarious.

It’s incoherent to say that ‘walking’ is innate, I think. Locomotion emerges in real time under constraints from perception and action systems and environmental affordances. ‘Walking’ is the wrong sort of thing to possibly be innate i suspect 🤔

My latest story is up! The components required for DNA and RNA are all present on asteroid Ryugu, which lends strong support to the hypothesis that the raw ingredients for life were present before the Sun even formed. A very fun and fascinating tale!

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

Walter Lippmann understood the importance of coarse-graining and effective theories in politics. An important difference between physics and politics is that in physics, Nature suggests natural ways to coarse-grain; in politics, we invent them, and we don't always do a great job.

Now that I have finally been paid I made a video about the Dana-Farber legal case from my own perspective: youtu.be/ioRtnMEV46Y

“Serendipity doesn't come from efficiency. It comes from spending time in the space where the problem lives, getting your hands dirty, making mistakes that nobody asked you to make and learning things nobody assigned you to learn.” Masterful piece. Read it!!

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.

And he is of course right, because it cannot be any other way

Alice Augusta Ball found the cure for leprosy at 23. She died in a mysterious lab accident at 24. Arthur Dean stole her research, stole it and renamed it from "The Ball Method" to "The Dean Method." It took 90 years before her original research papers were found and she got the credit due to her.

Earthquake prediction isn't possible. We've looked at whatever potential relationship between earthquakes and other event you'd care to propose and there's no statistical relationship.

Nope, not really. A lot of really, really good geologists, physicists, statisticians, and computer scientists have looked at this, for a very long time. Even with "neural networks."

Hola Hace tiempo que quería contarles que ya publiqué mi primer libro de "Fundamentos de Electromagnetismo". Ha sido una experiencia muy interesante y enriquecedora. Les dejo el vínculo por si conocen gente interesada en este tema a.co/d/0gaScuoU

The Jetsons lied to us

Stairs of Knowledge at the University of Balamand, Lebanon. Walking up these stairs is literally a step toward higher education. A Tribute To Modern Day Thinkers (10 Photos): streetartutopia.com/2026/01/09/a...

This is an unusual form of seamless tiling where all edges are continuous but using mirror reflection jumps, (Saughton rose garden, Edinburgh)

Spain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy. Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks. Those that didn't now pay the price.

I for one welcome our new evil ant overlords.

The final arguments against EVs (vs fossil fuel vehicles) are evaporating before our eyes

Este viernes en el Campus Ciudad Universitaria de la @USanSebastian nos reunimos a celebrar el futuro de los adultos con síndrome de Down y a imaginarlo juntos. Filosofía, neurociencia y un panel de experiencias vividas. Inscríbete aquí: forms.office.com/r/t9CY8n4aR1

Hoy 7:30 en Torres del Paine 👋👋👋

Si alguien manipula una foto tuya para desnudarte o denigrarte: - Ve a stopncii.org, creada por SWGfL (organización internacional que lucha contra el porno de venganza y otros abusos usando tecnología) - Sube la foto original y modificada - Se pondrán en contacto con las plataformas para borrarla

This is an awesome discovery: A single-celled organism with no brain called Stentor seems capable of Pavlovian learning. Yes, it can actually learn to associate two things despite having no neurons. My latest for @newscientist.com. 🧪 #science #memory #learning www.newscientist.com/article/2519...

We don’t need any more Sherlock adaptations when the perfect one exists (Elementary)

- Que lindo te ves sin lentes. - No uso lentes. - Yo si.

I love everything about this! The conviction that a major figure was not struck by a bolt of lightning but worked to understand the system he would ultimately critique and help dismantle. The scholarly sleuthing rare books — all of it. 😎🤓 www.science.org/content/arti...

¡Felicidades! Congratulations, #Chile for becoming the first country in the Americas, and the second globally, to eliminate #leprosy disease. A true milestone for public health! And a testament to what leadership, science, and solidarity can accomplish. Read more 🔗 bit.ly/4b3Hpga

En el día Mundial de la Vida Silvestre te dejo este Chucao de la Suerte para que duermas bonito 😍 (Scelorchilus rubecula) 🐦 📸 de Diego Navarro

Una marca de arena para gatos que se llame SanderCats

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso

Do you work or study in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, computer science, artificial intelligence, or philosophy? What does the term 'representation' mean to you? We invite you to participate in a brief survey on key conceptual questions across fields. eu.surveymonkey.com/r/VX9GNXM

The Talk

Córy Doctorow with another verbal bullseye: pluralistic.net/2026/01/13/n...