your science briefing for 01.30.2025
DIY nukes, the benefits of Indigenous rituals for mental health, the wild, grandiose, PT Barnum style claims of a company trying resurrect the mammoth, and more...
There’s a lot of information about nuclear weapons, their history, and their designs on the web, which includes this newsletter. Back in 1960, there was no internet, but there were still enough books and articles on the subject of how nukes work that American powers that be wondered if a small team of capable scientists given minimal data can come up with a viable warhead design to gauge how quickly non-superpowers are to go nuclear. Turns out, the answer was yes… (Gizmodo)
For decades, astronomers asked if the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter may be the remnants of a lost planet they called Phaeton or Krypton. Ultimately, they figured out that it can’t be. There wasn’t enough debris for such a planet to have ever existed. But what if there was a fifth rocky planet in our solar system? Researchers ran some numbers and came up with a pretty interesting set of scenarios… (PhysOrg)
A new study hints that people struggling with substance abuse, depression, anxiety, or compulsive behaviors should say perhaps to very certain drugs, specifically peyote in traditional religious rituals. Specifically, when used as a sacrament in an Indigenous ceremony to commune with nature and confront one’s own emotions. Participants of these rituals reported cutting back on alcohol and recreational drug use, feeling more motivated, and making positive changes to their lives… (PsyPost)
Okay, yes, I know generative AI is ruining the internet. I did a whole video about it. And wrote an article before that. But there are things AI that isn’t of the LLM/GAN variety, can do to significantly improve our lives and help us understand the universe. One of them is coming up with computer chip designs that are significantly more efficient in ways we don’t quite understand yet, unlocking new potential gains in computing and power savings for everything from data centers to our electronics… (ZME)
I’ve talked about Colossal Biosciences and their quest to bring back mammoths, and thylacines, and dodo birds. Well, they’re still at it, claiming that the first mammoth will return to Earth by 2028 and that it will… save the permafrost from climate change and cure an elephant disease? And that bringing back the dodo will save the endangered birds of today? To put it mildly, this blatantly obvious ad in article format is a master class in modern snake oil salesman style carnival barking… (Inc)