This little asteroid will be Earth's companion for two months. Here's a sneak peek from @leebillings.bsky.socialwww.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny...
A small asteroid, 2024 PT5, will spend the next two months alongside our planet as a mini moon before swooping back to deep space
Mathematically optimal apartment-hunting strategy: Suppose you have time to view 26 units. Look at the first 10, reject them all, and use them to set the standard. Then choose the first apartment that exceeds it. Fun column by Jack Murtagh in @sciam.bsky.social@davidwees.bsky.social. 🧪
Math’s “best-choice problem” could help humans become better decision-makers, at everything from choosing the best job candidate to finding a romantic partner
Get your next round of free covid tests, USA friends! www.covidtests.gov
ASPR provide details on how U.S households can order free at-home COVID-19 tests, emphasizing the importance of testing and the ease of access.
The 2024 winners of Astronomy Photographer of the Year are out...and they are spectacular. Here's the overall winner: a time-sequence of a solar eclipse that shows deepening shadows from mountains on the Moon. (Credit: Ryan Imperio) www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/ast.... 🔭🧪
Today in utopian/dystopian thinking: Deep inside a salt cave in Austria, British researchers have stashed a "memory crystal" engraved with the full human genome. The crystal is design to last billions of years...so a future species could reconstitute us someday. 🧪 astrobiology.com/2024/09/the-...
This is the tilt illusion. In a new study we can provide a satisfying answer to how and where this effect arises in the brain, as well as the teleological "why" a well-designed visual system might have this property. 🧪
Mark has a long history of insights in this type of format (his blog - ever read the end of year summaries? Fabulous!). Really excited to hear more from him via @thetransmitter.bsky.social.
some cool news - I've started a regular column at The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social First column out now on that most convenient of all the fictions in neuroscience: averaging thetransmitter.org/neural-codin...
But neurons don’t take averages. This ubiquitous practice hides from us how the brain really works.
To anyone actually interested in what it would realistically take to live on Mars, I highly recommend @weinersmith.bsky.social@zachweinersmith.bsky.socialwww.acityonmars.com
@emily.space could you add me to the astronomy starter pack? Thanks! 🙏