Hacker News with Generative AI: Science

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

Scientific conferences are leaving the US amid border fears (nature.com)
Several academic and scientific conferences in the United States have been postponed, cancelled or moved elsewhere, as organizers respond to researchers’ growing fears over the country’s immigration crackdown.

Science, Politics, Immigration, Conferences

15 points by jmsflknr 17 hours ago | 0 comments

Vitamin D Supplements Show Signs of Protection Against Biological Aging (massgeneralbrigham.org)
Results from the VITAL randomized controlled trial reveal that vitamin D supplementation helps maintain telomeres, protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that shorten during aging and are linked to the development of certain diseases.

Vitamins, Health, Aging, Science, Medical Research

10 points by gnabgib 19 hours ago | 1 comments

Ice Theft in Antarctica (nautil.us)
Glaciers are committing piracy at the bottom of the planet

Antarctica, Climate Change, Science, Environmental Issues

11 points by simonebrunozzi 20 hours ago | 28 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 20 hours ago | 2 comments

Never-before-seen 'extreme' microbes surrounded NASA robot (livescience.com)

Microbes, Space Exploration, Science, NASA

11 points by Brajeshwar 21 hours ago | 3 comments

Study shows vision-language models can't handle queries with negation words (news.mit.edu)
Words like “no” and “not” can cause this popular class of AI models to fail unexpectedly in high-stakes settings, such as medical diagnosis.

Artificial Intelligence, Science, Computer Science

4 points by taubek 23 hours ago | 0 comments

Accidentally discovered nanostructured material passively harvest water from air (phys.org)
A serendipitous observation in a Chemical Engineering lab at Penn Engineering has led to a surprising discovery: a new class of nanostructured materials that can pull water from the air, collect it in pores and release it onto surfaces without the need for any external energy.

Science, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Water Harvesting

25 points by pseudolus 1 day ago | 4 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

The scientific “unit” we call the decibel (lcamtuf.substack.com)
I don’t have many pet peeves. That said, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get over the sheer madness of the scientific “unit” we call the decibel (dB).

Science, Acoustics

595 points by Ariarule 1 day ago | 470 comments

British soldiers make Everest history using new method (bbc.com)
Four British former special forces soldiers have set a record by climbing Mount Everest in under five days without acclimatising on the mountain, as part of a high-speed expedition controversially aided by xenon gas.

Mountaineering, Everest, Military, Records, Science

9 points by colinprince 1 day ago | 0 comments

Mitochondria Are More Than Powerhouses–They're the Motherboard of the Cell (scientificamerican.com)
When these energy-giving organelles thrive, so do we

Biology, Science, Mitochondria, Cells

102 points by novia 2 days ago | 48 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

"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

Warming of 1.5 °C is too high for polar ice sheets (nature.com)
Mass loss from ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica has quadrupled since the 1990s and now represents the dominant source of global mean sea-level rise from the cryosphere.

Climate Change, Ice Sheets, Science

22 points by Luc 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

Jupiter was formerly twice its current size and had much stronger magnetic field (phys.org)
Understanding Jupiter's early evolution helps illuminate the broader story of how our solar system developed its distinct structure.

Jupiter, Solar System, Astronomy, Science, Planets

14 points by amichail 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

Autopsy of an LHC Beam Dump (home.cern)
For the first time at CERN, an autopsy has been carried out on a radioactive beam dump.

Science, Physics, CERN

24 points by voxadam 3 days ago | 2 comments

Where does your weather forecast come from? (text.npr.org)
Millions of Americans rely on weather forecasts every day.

Weather, Meteorology, Science, Data

6 points by mooreds 3 days ago | 1 comments

Monkeys are kidnapping babies of another species, perplexing scientists (cnn.com)

Animal Behavior, Primate Behavior, Science, Wildlife

10 points by kjhughes 3 days ago | 3 comments

Protein for strength training? Vegan diet matches meat for muscle gains (npr.org)

Veganism, Strength Training, Nutrition, Health, Science

11 points by toomuchtodo 4 days ago | 1 comments

CERN gears up to ship antimatter across Europe (arstechnica.com)
There's a lot of matter around, which ensures that any antimatter produced experiences a very short lifespan. Studying antimatter, therefore, has been extremely difficult. But that's changed a bit in recent years, as CERN has set up a facility that produces and traps antimatter, allowing for extensive studies of its properties, including entire anti-atoms.

Science, Physics, Antimatter

258 points by ben_w 4 days ago | 166 comments

DARPA zaps popcorn with laser power beamed 5.3 miles through air (theregister.com)
Wireless power transmission is moving from lab curiosity toward real-world utility, at least if the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's latest test is any indication.

DARPA, Technology, Science

12 points by rntn 4 days ago | 5 comments

What does the end of mathematics look like? (awanderingmind.blog)
As a prelude to what is to follow, I must say that while I am not a professional mathematician (I have a masters degree in theoretical physics and work in the software world), I do enjoy reading the occasional textbook or review paper, and wandering through its pages in a type of reverie, like walking through a glade looking at flowers.

Mathematics, Philosophy, Science

62 points by awanderingmind 4 days ago | 87 comments

First successful demonstration of quantum error correction of qudits (phys.org)
In the world of quantum computing, the Hilbert space dimension—the measure of the number of quantum states that a quantum computer can access—is a prized possession.

Quantum Computing, Science, Physics

11 points by saikatsg 4 days ago | 1 comments

Linguists find proof of sweeping language pattern once deemed a 'hoax' (scientificamerican.com)
In 1884 the anthropologist Franz Boas returned from Baffin Island with a discovery that would kick off decades of linguistic wrangling: by his count, the local Inuit language had four words for snow, suggesting a link between language and physical environment.

Linguistics, Language, Culture, Anthropology, Science

130 points by bryanrasmussen 4 days ago | 136 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

The Universe Is 'Suspiciously' Like a Computer Simulation, Physicist Says (sciencealert.com)
We have long taken it for granted that gravity is one of the basic forces of nature – one of the invisible threads that keeps the universe stitched together. But suppose that this is not true. Suppose the law of gravity is simply an echo of something more fundamental: a byproduct of the universe operating under a computer-like code.

Physics, Simulation, Universe, Science

8 points by cpncrunch 4 days ago | 5 comments