Subject
20 entries
Science
Bookmarks
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
The NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) is the public repository for NASA's research: conference papers, journal articles, patents, technical reports, and videos. Free public access to decades of aerospace and space science literature.
I Should Have Loved Biology
James Somers's essay on how biology education killed his interest in one of the most wondrous subjects imaginable. A sharp critique of how rote memorization strips away the genuine mystery from cells, evolution, and molecular machinery — and what biology education should be instead.
PNAS Paper: 2113883119
A PNAS paper (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2113883119) saved in April 2022 — exact title and topic unclear from filename alone, but likely a life sciences or multidisciplinary research article given the journal and period. Needs direct reading to fully characterize.
Movies Every Physics Student Should Watch
A curated list of films recommended for physics students — mixing sci-fi with documentaries and biopics of physicists. Light reference material rather than a serious pedagogical resource.
Big Data: The Power of Petabytes (Genomics Edition)
Nature's supplement on big data in genomics, covering the arrival of the $1,000 genome and what it means for medicine — the data storage, analysis, and clinical interpretation challenges of a world where genome sequencing is routine. A milestone in the convergence of biology and data infrastructure.
SciencePorn Tweet
A SciencePorn tweet saved from Pinboard — likely a striking science image or infographic. Content unrecoverable from the original tweet.
Gamers Solve Decade-Old HIV Puzzle in Ten Days
Coverage of Foldit — the protein folding game where players solved an HIV enzyme structure in 10 days that had stumped biochemists for a decade. Landmark demonstration of crowdsourced human spatial reasoning outperforming automated methods.
Automated Science, Deep Data, and the Paradox of Information
Oscillatory Thoughts blog post on the paradox of automated science and deep data — arguing that as data volumes grow and pattern detection automates, we risk producing empirical findings we can't explain or falsify. A philosophical challenge to data-driven science.
Picosecond Protein Watching
Derek Lowe's 'In the Pipeline' post on picosecond-timescale protein dynamics measurement — covering new spectroscopic techniques that let researchers observe protein conformational changes at femtosecond-to-picosecond resolution. A window into the frontier of structural biology.
MIT Team Builds Most Complex Synthetic Biology Circuit
Christopher Voigt's MIT team built the most complex synthetic genetic circuit to date — integrating four molecular sensors that can simultaneously monitor glucose, pH, temperature, and solute concentration. The breakthrough was eliminating crosstalk between biological components that had previously limited circuit complexity.
It Takes 275 Water Molecules to Make Ice
Scientific American podcast item: researchers determined that a cluster of exactly 275 water molecules is the minimum required to form an ice-like crystalline structure — a finding that probes the boundary between bulk and nanoscale physics in water.
GM Maize and Roundup Tumor Study: A Case Study in Science Communication
Coverage of the Séralini study — the 2012 paper claiming lifetime exposure to GM maize and Roundup caused tumors in rats. It was widely covered as bombshell evidence against GMOs, then retracted in 2013 after severe methodological criticism. An instructive case study in science communication failure.
The Hidden Truths About Calories
Scientific American on the hidden complexity behind calorie counting — how the Atwater factors used on nutrition labels are crude approximations, how cooking changes caloric availability, and how gut microbiome composition affects calorie extraction. The 'a calorie is a calorie' model is much messier in practice.
Scientists Grow Bacon from Stem Cells
A 2012 report on scientists growing bacon-like tissue from stem cells — an early milestone in cellular agriculture research. This predates the more famous 2013 lab-grown burger by Mark Post, but represented the same wave of interest in cultured meat as a sustainable protein source.
Revisiting Why Incompetents Think They're Awesome
Ars Technica revisiting the Dunning-Kruger effect — the finding that people with limited knowledge in a domain overestimate their competence while experts underestimate theirs. The 2012 piece examined criticism and refinements of the original 1999 study.
DNA Drawing with an Old Twist
Nature News on using DNA as a drawing medium, revisiting the 'DNA origami' technique pioneered by Paul Rothemund in 2006. DNA's programmable base-pairing makes it a surprisingly precise nanoscale construction material.
Annular Solar Eclipse, May 20, 2012
NASA's article on the May 20, 2012 annular solar eclipse, visible across the western United States with up to 94% coverage. An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is near apogee and too small to fully cover the Sun — leaving a 'ring of fire' rather than total darkness.
Why Nikola Tesla Was the Greatest Geek Who Ever Lived
The Oatmeal's viral 2012 comic on Nikola Tesla reframed him as a wronged genius — the AC inventor who was cheated by Edison and died broke while his ideas powered the world. Sparked significant Tesla cultural rehabilitation and the Tesla Motors naming debate.
Value of Genomics and Personalized Medicine Is Wrongly Downplayed
UCSF researchers pushing back against a widely-reported study claiming DNA's power to predict illness is limited — arguing that the value of genomics for personalized medicine is being systematically underestimated. A 2012 snapshot of a debate that's still ongoing.
Chronic Buckyball Administration Doubles Rat Lifespan
Coverage of the Baati et al. 2012 study finding that C60 fullerene dissolved in olive oil nearly doubled rat lifespan. Sparked major excitement in longevity and biohacking communities, though replication and human applicability remain uncertain.