Science that Christopher Nolan had to adhere to for Interstellar

(Credits: Far Out / Paramount Pictures)The "non-negotiable" piece of science Christopher Nolan had to change for ‘Interstellar’ Sun 30 June 2024 17:30, UKMore than most genres, sci-fi isn’t obligated to adhere rigidly to proven and indisputable scientific principles, but Christopher Nolan still sought to make Interstellar as authentic as possible despite its far-flung narrative.The narrative crux of humanity being relocated to a different planet by choosing the best and brightest, packing the...

System of the World - Astronomy and Cosmology in Early Modern Europe

A Treatise of the System of the World, by Sir Isaac Newton. / Public DomainFor decades, historians have grappled with the origins of modern science in early modern Europe.By Dr. Oded Rabinovitch, Senior Lecturer in History, Tel Aviv UniversityAbstractHistorians have long debated the origins of modern science in early modern Europe. Recently, however, scholars pointed to our need to understand how the ‘new philosophy’ became a sustained movement, which did not dissipate over the course of a fe...

With and Against

By James Rushing Daniel.   Dominique Routhier, With and Against: The Situationist International and the Age of Automation (Verso, 2023) In the contemporary art world dominated by glitzy international fairs and heavily licensed celebrity artists, it’s sometimes hard to fathom that art once held more serious political ambitions. Throughout the history of the avant-garde, from Dada to Fluxus, artists, in vastly different national contexts and through a variety of media, sought to cr...

UAPs and Non-Human - Alien - Intelligence

Editorial noteI originally intended to publish the essay below in an (online) magazine, not my own blog. I still have this intention, but opted to publish the complete draft here first for several reasons: (a) most magazines will place the essay behind a paywall (I already tried to negotiate this out, but it is not negotiable); (b) most magazines will require me to significantly shorten the essay (even Aeon Magazine, which publishes long-form essays, limits them to 5,000 words, while the text...

Tardigrades

Conversation with wavelength.ai on Tardigrades: Wavelength.ai on the discovery of the tardigrade: Johann August Ephraim Goeze's discovery of tardigrades in 1773 generated interest and curiosity within the scientific community. While there isn't a specific quote available from Goeze on the matter, his findings were published in a scientific journal called "Der Naturforscher" (The Naturalist) in 1774. This publication helped introduce tardigrades to the scientific community and sparked furthe...

Complicated conversations - Tactics for dealing with conspiracy theorists

The season is upon us, which means you’ll likely be gathering with family members and friends to share a holiday meal, but that can also mean sharing some dubious claim someone has seen on the internet.  So we’d like to offer you a couple of tactics to use over the holidays to counter those claims you might face from your wacky relatives or friends — and to keep the peace. Moon landing Let’s start with a conspiracy theory that is very common. Ever since NASA sent men to the ...

The Suspicious Smell of Witchcraft

This post is part of the Monster Carnival 2022: Why Early Modern History Matters Now. Jordan Grahamgraduated from Cardiff University with a BA in History in the summer of 2022. Jordan Graham Over the last few years it is likely that you or someone you know has had Covid-19. One of the common side of effects has been loss of taste or smell, so much so that often when someone tells you they had Covid it may be one of the questions you ask. Could you smell anything? Could you taste anything? Whi...

Plague, Religion, and Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England

This post is part of the Monster Carnival 2022 – Why Early Modern History Matters Now. Lisa Olson is a librarian and recent graduate of the Master of Information program at Dalhousie University where she completed a thesis focussed on plague publications in seventeenth-century England. Find her on Twitter @Olson_Bochord.Lisa OlsonThree years since the start of the pandemic seems like an apposite time to see what lessons we can learn about the experience from a closer examination of early mode...

NYRB clips 24 Nov 2022 print edition

How Scientists’ Misguided Utopian Theories of Biological Selection Defined the 20th Century

For the whole of history, all cultures, all countries, all societies, have considered the principles of who can reproduce, who lives and who dies. Governments, society, biology, tradition and myriad other factors nudge and steer and compel people away from the freedom to reproduce with whomever they want. Biology and culture are inextricably entwined: each sculpts the other. For just over a century, we have referred to the deliberate crafting of society specifically by biological design with ...

Review of Wee, Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary

THE BIBLICAL REVIEW BLOG: Review: "Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary: Ancient Mesopotamian Commentaries on a Handbook of Medical Diagnosis (Sa-gig)" by John Z. Wee (William Brown). John Z. Wee. Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary: Ancient Mesopotamian Commentaries on a Handbook of Medical Diagnosis (Sa-gig). Cuneiform Monographs 49/1. Leiden: Brill, 2019. [...] In short, John Wee’s Knowledge and Rhetorical in Medical Commentary in an erudite and...

Soil classification - Everything2.com

Near Matches Ignore ExactFull Text Everything2 Soil classification (idea) by Princess Therion Thu Feb 05 2004 at 12:27:02 Ah, the joys of Geography. While some might not find the concept of soil classification very interesting and some may in-fact wonder why we need it all, it is actually a very important factor that people such as farmers and town planners have to take into account. By classifying soils it is easier to make predictions about how they will behave over time,...

The Quantum Biosemiosphere

Michael Charles Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison have, once again, broken through into a new realm of environmental research with their latest mind-bending work, The Quantum Biosemiosphere. This complex undertaking offers readers an opportunity to explore some of the most intricate ideas ever composed in the ecological literary pantheon. The authors challenge readers to stretch the "evolutionary boundaries" of our ecological understanding and connect to an existing but previously unseen means of...

Philosophy of Systems and Synthetic Biology - RSS

[Revised entry by Sara Green on May 11, 2022. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html] This entry aims to clarify how systems and synthetic biology contribute to and extend discussions within philosophy of science. Unlike fields such as developmental biology or molecular biology, systems and synthetic biology are not easily demarcated by a focus on a specific subject area or level of organization. Rather, they are characterized by the development and application of mathematical, compu...

Discovery Finally Made Star Trek’s Warp Travel Obsolete

›Home ›SR Originals ›Discovery Finally Made Star Trek’s Warp Travel Obsolete Discovery Finally Made Star Trek’s Warp Travel Obsolete Star Trek: Discovery revealed Dr. Tarka built a next ge...

The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Discover the 1977 Illustrated Guide Created by Harvard's Groundbreaking Ethnobotanist Richard Evan Schultes | Open Culture

The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Discover the 1977 Illustrated Guide Created by Harvard's Groundbreaking Ethnobotanist Richard Evan Schultes | Open Culture Online Courses Certificates ...

Engineered Bacteria Produce a Rainbow of Colors

Researchers have modified a common bacterium to spit out an entire rainbow of dyes for food, clothing, cosmetics, and more. The proof-of-concept research also detailed the natural production of two colors—green and navy blue—for the first time.Some dyes can be produced naturally from plants. Indigo, for example, is extracted from leaves of species in the genus Indigofera. But the task is labor-intensive, with variable results. Synthetic alternatives can involve toxic precursors and by-product...

Renaissance Science – XVII

As we saw in the last episode, Ptolemaeus’ Geographia enjoyed a strong popularity following its rediscovery and translation into Latin from Greek at the beginning of fifteenth century, going through at least five printed editions before the end of the century. The following century saw several important new translation and revised editions both in Latin and in the vernacular. This initial popularity can at least be partially explained by the fact that Ptolemaeus’ Mathēmatikē Syntaxis and his ...

Introduced blackbirds and song thrushes: useful substitutes for lost mid-sized native frugivores, or weed vectors? | NZES

H7K9JZNRL is my link code for Otter recording with related commentary. zas Introduced blackbirds and song thrushes: useful substitutes for lost mid-sized native frugivores, or weed vectors? Research Article*  Corresponding authorThe New Zealand avifauna has declined from human impacts, which might leave some larger-seeded native plants vulnerable to dispersal failure. We studied fruit dispersal in a lowland seco...

JW Dunne - a remarkable conception of time

When was Hippocrates - History of Medicine

How Gravity Is a Double Copy of Other Forces

As far as physicists have been able to determine, nature speaks two mutually unintelligible languages: one for gravity and one for everything else. Curves in the fabric of space-time tell planets and people which way to fall, while all the other forces spring from quantum particles.Albert Einstein first spoke of gravity in terms of bends in space-time in his general theory of relativity. Most theorists assume that gravity actually pushes us around through particles, called gravitons, but atte...

The literary tricks Kepler used to become one of the first popularizers of science in history - Cleveland American

There is no doubt that scientific information should be transmitted between scientists through texts reviewed by peers and published in academic journals (if they are in the Q1 range, better than better) so that the whole process transmits confidence, reliability and accuracy. But How to make some of these conclusions reached in a paper reach the general public? Regardless of the nuance that we introduce in the answer to this question (and that has to do with our meaning of "popu...

Aimé Césaire (person) by Gethsemane - Everything2.com

Near Matches Ignore ExactFull Text Everything2 Aimé Césaire (person) See all of Aimé Césaire, no other writeups in this node. (person) by Gethsemane Thu Aug 31 2000 at 9:05:01 "Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge." Aimé Césaire (b. 1913 in Martinique) is amongst the foremost poets of the Caribbean. He studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he was a progenitor, with Léon Gontran-Damas and Léopold Senghor, of the notion of Négri...

Edward's Syndrome - Everything2.com

Near Matches Ignore ExactFull Text Everything2 Edward's Syndrome (thing) by BioTech Fri Nov 02 2001 at 16:00:15 Edward's Syndrome (also known as trisomy 18 or trisomy E) is a congenital disorder caused by a baby having an extra copy of chromosome 18 (in other words, the baby has three copies instead of the normal two). Characteristics of the disorder include widespread defects in internal organs throughout the body and malformed physical features of the face and skeletal s...