Month: January 2019

Scale can weigh a proton

Ricci’s sensor can achieve ~1% accuracy. 1 goal for such precise sensors is to create high-resolution images of individual proteins and other molecules. Bachtold is developing similar sensors made of carbon nanotubes. You could place a single molecule in a magnetic field, which rotates the molecule’s constituent atoms. Because distinct elements rotate at different rates, a nearby force sensor could detect the rate of rotation of the atoms to identify them.

Libratus

Libratus’s poker technique suggests Strategy Robot might deliver military personnel some surprising recommendations. Pro players who took on the bot found that it flipped unnervingly between tame and hyper-aggressive tactics, all the while relentlessly notching up wins as it calculated paths to victory. “It’s weird because it doesn’t seem that it overwhelms you, but then you look at the score and you realize what’s happened”.

Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai

When talking about “Big 3” regional styles of ramen, most people outside of Japan have heard of Hakata and Sapporo styles, both having evolved from large metropolitan areas with many vendors and varieties. But a third lesser known style was developed in northern Honshu in the small village of Kitakata which gives it its name. Known for its storehouses full of soy sauce, Kitakata-style ramen uses this as its base, a type of shoyu. The bowl itself appears simple, a broth full of noodles and topped with chashu and some thinly sliced spring onion, but do not let this fool you. This broth has been extracting pure umami from pork bones for “long hours” which gives it an almost smoky and toasted taste, full of earth and charcoal. Ban Nai is the most famous source of this style of ramen, with 62 locations around Japan. Here in the United States there are now 2 in Orange County, California, 1 outside of Chicago, and now 1 tucked into a grocery store in Jersey City.

Zooba

Nolita will soon be home to a popular Egyptian fast-casual restaurant serving street food — making it one of the few Manhattan restaurants dedicated to staples from the country. Zooba, which launched in Cairo and now has 6 locations, will be opening this summer at 100 Kenmare St

Fastest Human on a Bike

Mueller-Korenek mounted a specially equipped bike with a massive gear and tethered it to a race car, which then accelerated to 100-plus kmh-the velocity necessary for the rider to turn over the cranks on her own volition. Then she unhooked from the car and stayed in the slipstream, smashing the pedals around to hit the highest speed possible under her own power. Her speed on her final mile on the Bonneville Salt Flats was 296 kmh. This short film from WSJ shows how Mueller-Korenek became the world’s fastest human on a bike.

Tribal Politics

He could get people to change their position on welfare, 100%, all the way to the other side of the spectrum of policy, just based on what party they were told supported that position. After they said they supported that position, he asked them why they supported that position, and they didn’t say, ‘Because my party does.’ They came up with other reasons. So, after being experimentally induced into holding a position that they actually didn’t agree with, they then came up with reasons that they thought they agreed with that.

Brainstorm

35 years ago, a fantastic movie came out that starred 4 Hollywood legends, 3 of whom were Oscar winners. It was directed by one of the most important and influential visual artists in film history, and the plot foretold the invention of virtual reality decades ahead of its time. The script was written as a showcase for a new technology designed to change the way we see movies. One of the Hollywood legends died before the movie was finished, a mysterious death, and this ended up being her last movie—And you’ve never heard of it.

Learn Ancient Languages

Lexicity: dedicated to providing online study resources for ancient languages, claims to be “the first and only comprehensive index for ancient language resources on the internet.” With links to resources for 30 ancient languages from Akkadian to Ugaritic (a language discovered in 1928!), you can spelunk and meander and amble your way through dictionaries, grammar lessons, charts and aids, ancient texts, and other resources. As you’d expect, the site has ancient Greek and Latin, Hebrew and Arabic, Sanskrit and Sumerian. Sure, they’ve thrown in Old French and Gaulish, Old Irish and Old English, Old French and Old High German. But the “olds” don’t stop there, and if you want to find resources to brush up on your Church Slavonic, Hittite, or the Mayan language families, there’s something here for you.