Engineers have simulated an Easter Island Moai and demonstrated that the easiest way to transport a Moai, the many-ton stone statues, is by WALKING THEM.
Category: News items
News that is interesting to me, and possibly to you
Origami Bloom Patterns (NYtimes) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/science/origami-bloom-patterns.html
There is a new category of origami folding and researchers think it can revolutionize solar panels or other technology going to space by folding down flat in rockets.
Vibe Coding (Wired.com)
The term Vibe Coding, I take to mean, an AI does the actual coding that a human tells it to do. Here's a WIRED reporter learning to do just that. Insightful read.
Sharing Science Through Story: Fergus McAuliffe at TEDxDublin
How can dry science be communicated in a way that the public can understand? How can science recover the standing that it had years ago, when the Royal Society in London was THE place to be, to hear scientists talk about their latest work? In fact, Albemarle street had to made ONE WAY, the first one-way street, because of the popularity of these talks that the traffic was otherwise unmanageable? This is a compelling talk you have to hear.
A High Schooler: AI is demolishing my education (Atlantic), and my reaction about AI in healthcare
High schooler examples of how AI is ruining education in the classroom: what can healthcare AI learn from these examples? How do we pivot from no-win to win-win? Here’s my take.
Surprising way to boost your attention span (NYTimes)
More research on how “nature therapy” adds up to improved attention span and working memory and restoration for our depleted brains from work and school. Walking 2.8 miles in an arboretum vs walking in a city. I wonder if this restoration applies to cycling in wooded paths. Asking for a friend.
Passwords are so last year. Passkeys! (Wired.com)
I have joined the passkey (quiet) revolution. Far superior even to long passwords, and better and faster than 2 factor and multifactor authentication. I'm all for faster and easier security for my accounts.
Worms to eat plastic?! Wired.com
There is hope! Scientists have found a strain of worms able to digest polyethylene (along with their gut microbes) and turn it into glycol and fat. Please let this insight pan out...
Sleeptime Compute and AI forgetting? (WIRED)
The issue of short and long term memory is an increasingly interesting problem in generative AI. Maybe sleep is an important consolidation function for computers as well as humans ...
UCHealth Biobank breaks new ground in personalized genomic medicine (news)
Our smart colleagues at UCHealth Biobank delivered the 1 millionth pharmacogenomic result into our Epic EHR. In separate news, the Biobank also delivered our 1000th pathogenic variant (like BRCA).