rosieredfield.bsky.social
@rosieredfield.bsky.social
Drat, that's not a very large effect of COVID vaccination. I knew that protection waned after a few months, but I expected the initial effect to be much larger.
Significant reduction in ER visits, hospitalization, and death regardless of previous COVID experiences.
October 14, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Drat, that's not a very large effect of COVID vaccination. I knew that protection waned after a few months, but I expected the initial effect to be much larger.
Emma Beddington solves the birthrate crisis: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Tech bros want women to have more babies. But they’re going about it the wrong way | Emma Beddington
Dropping birthrates are worrying Elon Musk, JD Vance and the like. But their proposed remedies are risible. Here are some surefire winners, writes Emma Beddington
www.theguardian.com
September 29, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Emma Beddington solves the birthrate crisis: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Kitsilano park/beach/pool/Showboat on a summer evening is the perfect antidote to doomscrolling!
August 4, 2025 at 5:41 AM
Kitsilano park/beach/pool/Showboat on a summer evening is the perfect antidote to doomscrolling!
Brilliant book! Funny as hell and packed with rigorous analysis.
Icymi!
The brilliant, hilarious, bestselling investigation into space settlement is now in paperback! Leaving Earth and settling Mars feels tempting these days, but have we thought this through? A CITY ON MARS has answers. Learn more:
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/639449...
@smbccomics.bsky.social
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/639449...
@smbccomics.bsky.social
July 30, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Brilliant book! Funny as hell and packed with rigorous analysis.
LLMs make up for their lack of real-world experience with their massive exposure to the reality-modulated words humans have written. The result feels like consulting a very well-informed and helpful friend or colleague who occasionally makes human-like errors.
July 26, 2025 at 5:28 PM
LLMs make up for their lack of real-world experience with their massive exposure to the reality-modulated words humans have written. The result feels like consulting a very well-informed and helpful friend or colleague who occasionally makes human-like errors.
What we call ‘thinking’ is our brains putting words into combinations, based on the word-probability patterns it has learned. Large language models do lack our ability to modulate these probability patterns by direct experience of the physical and social world. /3
July 26, 2025 at 5:27 PM
What we call ‘thinking’ is our brains putting words into combinations, based on the word-probability patterns it has learned. Large language models do lack our ability to modulate these probability patterns by direct experience of the physical and social world. /3
We make a big mistake when we complain that large language models 'don't think like humans do'. The mistake isn't about how LLMs think, but about how humans think. Like LLMs, humans learn how to use words by experiencing how they are used by others. This is exactly what LLMs do. /2
July 26, 2025 at 5:25 PM
We make a big mistake when we complain that large language models 'don't think like humans do'. The mistake isn't about how LLMs think, but about how humans think. Like LLMs, humans learn how to use words by experiencing how they are used by others. This is exactly what LLMs do. /2
Here are the first-round arseniclife reviews and authors' response: www.usatoday.com/story/tech/c.... They're VERY credulous; the reviewers appear to have been chosen for something other than knowledge of basic microbiology.
Glowing reviews on 'arseniclife' spurred NASA's embrace
Glowing peer reviews greased the skids for the 'arseniclife' debate, investigation shows.
www.usatoday.com
July 26, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Here are the first-round arseniclife reviews and authors' response: www.usatoday.com/story/tech/c.... They're VERY credulous; the reviewers appear to have been chosen for something other than knowledge of basic microbiology.
Reposted by rosieredfield.bsky.social
Here Mike Lynch mounts a fierce challenge to two recent attempts to understand the evolution of complexity in biology and beyond. I wouldn't like to place bets on the winner in this bout, but it does seem Lynch presents some tough questions.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Complexity myths and the misappropriation of evolutionary theory | PNAS
Recent papers by physicists, chemists, and geologists lay claim to the discovery of
new principles of evolution that have somehow eluded over a cen...
www.pnas.org
May 30, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Here Mike Lynch mounts a fierce challenge to two recent attempts to understand the evolution of complexity in biology and beyond. I wouldn't like to place bets on the winner in this bout, but it does seem Lynch presents some tough questions.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
People voting in the Vancouver byelection at Kitsilano now have been waiting in line for more than 3 hours. #CivicHeroes!
April 6, 2025 at 3:12 AM
People voting in the Vancouver byelection at Kitsilano now have been waiting in line for more than 3 hours. #CivicHeroes!
Nice to see the Wells' work getting due recognition. Before COVID there was nothing in Wikipedia about their work, so in May 2020 I created a page on the Wells Curve.
Thanks to @pjvogt.bsky.social for having me on the Search Engine podcast. I had a great time talking about William and Mildred Wells, two major figures in AIR-BORNE. Why they were forgotten says a lot about how science actually unfolds. www.searchengine.show/listen/searc...
Search Engine | Viruses in the Air
www.searchengine.show
March 21, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Nice to see the Wells' work getting due recognition. Before COVID there was nothing in Wikipedia about their work, so in May 2020 I created a page on the Wells Curve.
The controversy poisoned her career only because she was (and remains) unable to accept the scientific community's consensus that her methods were seriously flawed and her conclusion entirely wrong. Scientists unable to admit their mistakes lose the respect of their peers.
When the scientific research self-correction process becomes toxic. Controversy over ArsenicLife poisons a young career.
Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/s...
Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/s...
Her Discovery Wasn’t Alien Life, but Science Has Never Been the Same (Gift Article)
The internet erupted in controversy over Felisa Wolfe-Simon and colleagues’ claim of a microbe thriving on arsenic. Nearly 15 years later, she’s pursuing new research on the boundaries of life.
www.nytimes.com
February 12, 2025 at 6:56 PM
The controversy poisoned her career only because she was (and remains) unable to accept the scientific community's consensus that her methods were seriously flawed and her conclusion entirely wrong. Scientists unable to admit their mistakes lose the respect of their peers.
This is a superb article.
🧪A child born with Cystic fibrosis in the ’50s could expect to live until age 5. In the early 2000s, age 35. With Trikafta, those who begin taking the drug in early adolescence, a recent study projected, can expect to survive to age 82.5—an essentially normal life span.
The Cystic-Fibrosis Breakthrough That Changed Everything
The disease once guaranteed an early death—but a new treatment has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected. What do they do now?
www.theatlantic.com
March 14, 2024 at 8:23 PM
This is a superb article.
Grammarly is driving me nuts. Why does the box with the suggestion keep disappearing, and why do I have to wait so long or move the cursor around so much for it to reappear?
October 22, 2023 at 9:26 PM
Grammarly is driving me nuts. Why does the box with the suggestion keep disappearing, and why do I have to wait so long or move the cursor around so much for it to reappear?