Category: Uncategorized
A new domain of life?
their work expanded the number of known types — or phyla — of bacteria by nearly 50%, a dramatic change that indicates just how many forms of life on earth have escaped our notice so far.
Curating sequences
A mathematician whose research generates a sequence of numbers can turn to the OEIS to discover other contexts in which the sequence arises and any papers that discuss it. The repository has spawned countless mathematical discoveries and has been cited more than 4000 times.
Black chickens
The Indonesian chicken breed known as Ayam Cemani takes ‘dark’ into an entirely different realm. Their feathers are black. Their skin is black. Cut open an Ayam Cemani and you’ll find black muscle anchored to black bones. Even their organs are black.
nothing crazy was involved in the making of these entirely black chickens.
Built for Eternity
The clock under construction in Texas will be astronomical, mechanical and solar-powered, and will tell time in a similar way to the Hoover Dam’s celestial map, only with moving parts. Those parts will be made from durable but worthless materials (to deter vandals) designed to never corrode or degrade each other in friction. It promises to be in perfect working order some time in the near-ish future. The clock has been in development since 1986. It will be very large, standing over 60m tall. It will be hidden behind 2 heavy metal doors in the side of the mountain and will require the ascension of steep, winding stairwells to navigate its parts and to make it work. There it will be occasionally ticking, like a bomb. The only light will come from a small window at the very top of the clock’s chamber; inside you will not be able to see anything, it will be so dark you will need to have brought your own light source. The chamber will house bells that can play more than 3.5M unique variations of sound, programmed by Brian Eno, when the clock chimes.
Westy ice cream
The holy Trinity. Yes, that’s Westvleteren ice cream because why not.
Selfdriving advantage
Error-Prone is cute little game of chaos and carnage made for 26 people to play around 1 keyboard. The end result illustrates perfectly how self driving cars are vastly superior to their human counterparts in terms of traffic grid lock, efficiency and avoiding road accidents. A screen shows 26 autonomous cars driving in a loop—one for each letter of the alphabet. Up to that many humans can take control of the cars by pressing the corresponding letter. But doing so is the first step in the inevitable path toward traffic flow inefficiency, at best, and a massive pileup, at worst.
US P&L
TIL that the us government publishes a yearly financial report, with assets and liabilities. makes sense. assets: 3 trillion, liabilities: 20 trillion
great use of a selfie stick
yes please
Microbial markets
A large fraction of microbial life exists in complex communities where the exchange of molecules and proteins is vital for their survival. They trade these essential resources to promote their own growth in ways that are similar to countries that exchange goods in modern economic markets.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 