Hacker News with Generative AI: Research

Lockheed Martin and IBM combine quantum computing with HPC in new research (ibm.com)
In a new paper published in The Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, researchers from IBM Quantum® and Lockheed Martin demonstrate how a quantum computer can help accurately model the electronic structure of certain molecules.
Quantum Computing, HPC, Research, Science, Chemistry
52 points by donutloop 7 hours ago | 2 comments
Is Philosophy Still Useful in the Age of Science? (write.as)
As someone interested in pursuing a philosophy PhD, there are many things to worry about. Could I get accepted? Could I get funding? Will I be lonely? Will I come to hate it?
Philosophy, Science, Academia, Career, Research
5 points by pppone 16 hours ago | 3 comments
Fei-Fei Li, godmother of AI, points to risks of US research student visas cuts (semafor.com)
Fei-Fei Li, the leading Stanford University researcher nicknamed the “godmother of AI,” emphasized the risks of cutting research funding and international student visas to the US as it faces an increasingly competitive global tech race.
Artificial Intelligence, Education, Immigration, Technology, Research
6 points by Bluestein 19 hours ago | 0 comments
Are groundbreaking science discoveries becoming harder to find? (nature.com)
Researchers are arguing over whether ‘disruptive’ or ‘novel’ science is waning – and how to remedy the problem.
Science, Research, Innovation
9 points by Brajeshwar 21 hours ago | 2 comments
Power generation from nuclear fusion not expected in the foreseeable future [pdf] (econstor.eu)
Nuclear Fusion, Energy, Science, Research
10 points by vixen99 1 day ago | 6 comments
Getting a paper accepted (maxwellforbes.com)
In 2019, I submitted a paper that was rejected with review scores 2.5, 3, 3. One week later, I resubmitted it with minor changes, and it was accepted with scores 4, 4.5, 4.5.01 For context, that’s an almost unspeakably dramatic jump in scores, from “middling reject” to “strong accept.”
Academia, Publishing, Research
203 points by stefanpie 1 day ago | 123 comments
Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests (theguardian.com)
Usage of punctuation down almost half in two decades as further research finds 67% of British students rarely use it
Language, Linguistics, Literature, Punctuation, Research
7 points by gnabgib 2 days ago | 0 comments
Ask HN: How are you using LLMs for research on a library of journal articles? (ycombinator.com)
Does anyone have a nice setup for using LLMs to perform queries on their personal library of papers?
Research, Journal Articles, Libraries
3 points by jopizio 2 days ago | 0 comments
ZEUS – A new two-petawatt laser facility at the University of Michigan (engin.umich.edu)
The ZEUS laser facility at the University of Michigan has roughly doubled the peak power of any other laser in the U.S. with its first official experiment at 2 petawatts (2 quadrillion watts). 
Lasers, Science, Research
121 points by voxadam 2 days ago | 105 comments
Discord Unveiled: A Comprehensive Dataset of Public Communication (2015-2024) (arxiv.org)
Discord has evolved from a gaming-focused communication tool into a versatile platform supporting diverse online communities.
Social Media, Data Analysis, Communication, Research, Community
145 points by leotravis10 2 days ago | 175 comments
"No longer able to purchase reagents using NIH grants at Harvard Medical School" (reddit.com)
I am a post-doc at Harvard Medical School in a lab that is exclusively funded by NIH grants. Today all my purchase orders were cancelled and I was told we are no longer able to purchase supplies with an NIH grant.
Science, Academia, Funding, Research
7 points by areoform 2 days ago | 0 comments
Understanding How Violet Light Can Stop Myopia Progression (bme.gatech.edu)
An international team of researchers has taken an important step toward understanding a powerful potential treatment for myopia, which is fast becoming a public health crisis in Asia.
Myopia, Vision, Health, Science, Research
13 points by plun9 2 days ago | 6 comments
Violence on TV: what happens to children who watch? (umontreal.ca)
Boys exposed to violent screen content in the preschool years were more likely to become antisocial and violent themselves a decade later, in their mid-teens, a new study shows.
Violence, Children, Media, Research, Psychology
9 points by gnabgib 3 days ago | 5 comments
Nvidia Powers Largest Quantum Research Supercomputer (nvidia.com)
NVIDIA today announced the opening of the Global Research and Development Center for Business by Quantum-AI Technology (G-QuAT), which hosts ABCI-Q — the world’s largest research supercomputer dedicated to quantum computing.
Quantum Computing, Supercomputing, NVIDIA, Research
4 points by donutloop 3 days ago | 0 comments
Robin: A multi-agent system for automating scientific discovery (arxiv.org)
Artificial Intelligence, Science, Research, Automation
148 points by nopinsight 3 days ago | 19 comments
The Fractured Entangled Representation Hypothesis (github.com/akarshkumar0101)
Much of the excitement in modern AI is driven by the observation that scaling up existing systems leads to better performance.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Research, Hypotheses
57 points by akarshkumar0101 3 days ago | 22 comments
AI in my plasma physics research didn’t go the way I expected (understandingai.org)
I’m excited to publish this guest post by Nick McGreivy, a physicist who last year earned a PhD from Princeton. Nick used to be optimistic that AI could accelerate physics research. But when he tried to apply AI techniques to real physics problems the results were disappointing.
Artificial Intelligence, Physics, Research, Academia
362 points by qianli_cs 3 days ago | 294 comments
Capuchin monkeys develop 'fad' of abducting baby howlers, cameras reveal (phys.org)
On an island off the coast of Panama lives a population of wild primates with a remarkable culture.
Primates, Animal Behavior, Research, Panama, Culture
5 points by arunc 4 days ago | 0 comments
Michael Pollan: This Is Your Priest on Drugs (newyorker.com)
In October, 2015, Hunt Priest, then a minister at Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Mercer Island, in Washington State, was flipping through The Christian Century, a progressive Protestant magazine, when an advertisement caught his eye: “Seeking Clergy to Take Part in a Research Study of Psilocybin and Sacred Experience.”
Religion, Psychedelics, Research, Christianity
6 points by mitchbob 4 days ago | 1 comments
The paper that got LLM started. It was in 2003, in Montreal (twitter.com)
Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.
Artificial Intelligence, History, Research
6 points by ksec 4 days ago | 0 comments
Living beings emit a faint light that extinguishes upon death, study (phys.org)
The light of someone's life might not be just another person, but light in the literal sense. According to a recent study by researchers from University of Calgary, every living system emits light without requiring external excitation due to a biological phenomenon known as ultraweak photon emission (UPE).
Science, Biology, Life, Death, Research
114 points by pseudolus 4 days ago | 65 comments
Benchmarking Crimes Meet Formal Verification (microkerneldude.org)
No, this isn’t about formally verifying benchmarking (BM) crimes. It’s about the use of misleading statistics in papers that apply formal methods (FM) to verify (prove correct) operating systems (OS) code – something that has been bugging me for a while.
Formal Verification, Operating Systems, Research, Software Engineering
32 points by snvzz 4 days ago | 4 comments
Waist-to-height ratio predicts heart failure incidence (escardio.org)
Belgrade, Serbia – 18 May 2025. Waist-to-height ratio predicts heart failure incidence, according to research presented today at Heart Failure 2025,1 a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
Health, Heart Disease, Science, Research, Medicine
6 points by geox 5 days ago | 3 comments
The effect of physical fitness on mortality is overestimated (uu.se)
That fit people have a reduced risk of premature death from various diseases is a recurring result in many studies. New research from Uppsala University shows that people with high fitness levels in their late teens also have a reduced risk of dying from random accidents. This suggests that the associations seen in previous studies have probably been misleading.
Health, Mortality, Fitness, Research, Science
61 points by gnabgib 5 days ago | 80 comments
What Is This Thing Called Swing? (ds.mpg.de)
Jazz must swing - jazz musicians agree on that. However, even a century after the beginnings of jazz, there is still no general agreement what exactly constitutes the swing feel. With a dedicated experiment and data analyses on more than 450 well-known jazz solos, we have tried to unravel some secrets of swing.
Music, Jazz, Research, Data Analysis
8 points by Tomte 5 days ago | 1 comments
Remote work study clear conclusion: "Working from home makes us happier." (farmingdale-observer.com)
An Australian study, conducted over four years and starting before the pandemic, has come up with some enlightening conclusions about the impact of working from home. The researchers are unequivocal: this flexibility significantly improves the well-being and happiness of employees, transforming our relationship with work.
Remote Work, Work-Life Balance, Happiness, Research, Australia
9 points by MaysonL 5 days ago | 0 comments
Show HN: I modeled the Voynich Manuscript with SBERT to test for structure (github.com/brianmg)
This started as a personal challenge to figure out what modern NLP could tell us about the Voynich Manuscript — without falling into translation speculation or pattern hallucination.
Voynich Manuscript, Research, Programming
381 points by brig90 5 days ago | 131 comments
Mathematician solves algebra's oldest problem using intriguing number sequences (unsw.edu.au)
A UNSW mathematician has discovered a new method to tackle algebra’s oldest challenge – solving higher polynomial equations.
Mathematics, Algebra, Number Theory, Research
11 points by willmartian 5 days ago | 6 comments
MIT Backs Away from Paper Claiming Scientists Make More Discoveries with AI (gizmodo.com)
Last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was touting the research of a PhD student on the impact of AI on the workforce that “floored” professors in the field. Now the university is backing away from it and calling for it to no longer be published.
Artificial Intelligence, Research, Higher Education, Science
5 points by Bender 6 days ago | 1 comments
Science funding was already way too low (gabrielweinberg.com)
Cutting federal research funding is extremely short-sighted, but the previous funding levels were also short-sighted. I think those previous levels were off by something like 3x. There are so many compelling and synergistic justifications as to why, that it can be overwhelming to reason (and write!) about. So, in this post, I’m going to list ten justifications out at a high level, and plan to explore more nuance in the future.
Science, Funding, Research, Government, Economics
58 points by paulpauper 6 days ago | 4 comments