science
Please share: Our Max Planck Institute recently left X and is present here on Mastodon. Give them a follow! Beautiful pictures from the science of light!
#Mastodon #Physics #Science #Light #Quantum #Optics #Photonics #Pictures
From: @MPI_ScienceOfLight
https://wisskomm.social/@MPI_ScienceOfLight/113906463840724222
I've been reading up on the Lottery Ticket Hypothesis, which is super interesting.
Basically, the observation is that these days we build vast neural networks with billions of parameters, but most of the parameters aren't needed. That is, after training, you can just throw away 95% of the network (pruning), and it will still work fine.
The LTH paper is asking: could we start with a network just 5% of the size, and get comparable results? If so, that would be a huge performance win for Deep Learning.
What's interesting is that you can do this, but only by training the full network (perhaps several times) to see which neurons are needed. They argue that training a neural network isn't so much creating a model, as finding a lucky sub-network (a lottery ticket) from the randomly initialized network, a bit like a sculpter "finding" the bust hidden in a block of marble.
Initial LTH paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03635
Follow-up with major clarifications: http://arxiv.org/abs/1905.01067
Vera Rubin Was a Pioneering Female Astronomer. Her Federal Bio Now Doesn’t Mention Efforts to Diversify Science.
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The edits to the webpage offer a glimpse into how far the Trump administration will go in refusing to acknowledge today’s inequalities as it purges federal initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
A Harvard study found that the children of women who contracted COVID-19 while pregnant may be at an increased risk for autism and other neurodevelopmental diagnoses, raising new concerns about the CDC’s decision to stop recommending the vaccine to pregnant women.
https://www.propublica.org/article/covid-pregnancy-risk-autism-study-cdc?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Science #Research #Health #COVID #Vaccines #Women #Autism
This paper investigates how competition to publish first and thereby establish priority impacts the quality of scientific research. We begin by developing a model where scientists decide whether and how long to work on a given project. When deciding how long they should let their projects mature, scientists trade off the marginal benefit of higher quality research against the marginal risk of being preempted. Projects with the highest scientific potential are the most competitive because they induce the most entry. Therefore, the model predicts these projects are also the most rushed and lowest quality.
It's interesting to think about what subjects are perceived to be high value and therefore have rushed and low quality research regularly published about them. (attn @theluddite )
#Science #ScienceResearch #SciencePublishing #competition
PRESS RELEASE: A research team led by Dr. Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute, in collaboration with the Characterizing Atmospheric Technosignatures project and the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center, set out to answer a simple question: If an extraterrestrial civilization existed with technology similar to ours, would they be able to detect Earth and evidence of humanity? If so, what signals would they detect, and from how far away? https://youtu.be/Pdg2x3NP2ds
What a $2 Million Per Dose Gene Therapy Reveals About Drug Pricing
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Taxpayers and charities helped develop Zolgensma. Then it debuted at a record price, ushering in a new class of wildly expensive drugs. Its story upends the widely held conception that high prices reflect huge industry investments in innovation.
#News #Health #Healthcare #Medicine #Genetics #Biotech #Science
PRESS RELEASE:
The SETI Institute is pleased to open the call for applications for the 2026 Mino Postdoctoral Fellowship. This research program offers an exceptional opportunity for talented early-career scientists worldwide to contribute significant advances in several fields.
Applications open on November 20, 2025, and must be submitted by January 16, 2026.
To learn more and apply: https://www.seti.org/news/seti-institute-invites-applications-for-the-2026-mino-postdoctoral-fellowship/
Europe power guru Wang Xiongfei returns to China, bringing expertise in grid stability.
PRESS RELEASE: https://www.seti.org/press-release/unusual-stellar-nurseries-near-our-galaxys-center-puzzle-scientists
New research led by Dr. James De Buizer at the SETI Institute and Dr. Wanggi Lim at IPAC at Caltech revealed that, although the central part of our Galaxy has a much higher density of star-forming material than the rest of the Milky Way, in the Galactic Center, the current rate of formation of massive stars (those larger than 8 times the mass of our Sun) appears to be lower compared to the rest of the Galaxy.
From Futurism: "Scientists Calculate That the Entire Big Bang Must Have Taken Place Inside a Black Hole.
And we're still trapped inside it."
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #tech #dev #DataScience #science #ComputerScience #EcologicalRationality
The present perspective outlines how epistemically baseless and ethically pernicious paradigms are recycled back into the scientific literature via machine learning (ML) and explores connections between these two dimensions of failure. We hold up the renewed emergence of physiognomic methods, facilitated by ML, as a case study in the harmful repercussions of ML-laundered junk science. A summary and analysis of several such studies is delivered, with attention to the means by which unsound research lends itself to social harms. We explore some of the many factors contributing to poor practice in applied ML. In conclusion, we offer resources for research best practices to developers and practitioners.
In other words ML--which includes generative AI--is smuggling long-disgraced pseudoscientific ideas back into "respectable" science, and rejuvenating the harms such ideas cause.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #MachineLearning #ML #AIEthics #science #pseudoscience #JunkScience #eugenics #physiognomy
Shattered Science: The Research Lost as Trump Targets NIH Funding
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The Trump administration cut research funding that sought cures for future pandemics, examined the causes of dementia and tried to prevent HIV transmission. ProPublica heard from more than 150 researchers to understand the work that’s been lost.
https://projects.propublica.org/nih-cuts-research-lost-trump/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #NIH #Trump #Science #Research #Health #PublicHealth #Medicine
Trump’s anti-green agenda could lead to 1.3 million more temperature-related deaths.
Most of the people expected to suffer live in poor countries in Africa and South Asia that are least prepared to cope with the increasing heat from climate change.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-climate-rollbacks-heat-deaths?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Climate #ClimateChange #Trump #Data #Science #Politics
Francis Galton, pioneering figure of the eugenics movement, believed that good research practice should consist in “gathering as many facts as possible without any theory or general principle that might prejudice a neutral and objective view of these facts” (Jackson et al., 2005). Karl Pearson, statistician and fellow purveyor of eugenicist methods, approached research with a similar ethos: “theorizing about the material basis of heredity or the precise physiological or causal significance of observational results, Pearson argues, will do nothing but damage the progress of the science” (Pence, 2011). In collaborative work with Pearson, Weldon emphasised the superiority of data-driven methods which were capable of delivering truths about nature “without introducing any theory” (Weldon, 1895).
I've lost the reference, but I suspect it was Meredith Whittaker who's written and spoken about the big data turn at Google, where it was understood that having and collecting massive datasets allowed them to eschew model-building.
The core idea being critiqued here is that there's a kind of scientific view from nowhere: a theory-free, value-free, model-free, bias-free way of observing the world that will lead to Truth; and that it's the task of the scientist to approximate this view from nowhere as well as possible.
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #science #DataScience #ScientificObjectivity #eugenics #ViewFromNowhere
A Study of Mint Plants. A Device to Stop Bleeding. This Is the Scientific Research Ted Cruz Calls “Woke.”
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The senator flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude method for identifying research he calls “woke.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/ted-cruz-woke-grants-national-science-foundation?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Science #Data #Research #Medicine #Biology #USPolitics
Judge deems #Trump's #NIH grant cuts illegal
A federal judge in Boston on Monday said the termination of National Institutes of #Health #grants for #research on #diversity-related topics by Trump's admin's was "void & illegal," & accused the government of discriminating against minorities & #LGBT people.
#law #science #medicine
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/federal-judge-says-trump-cuts-nih-grants-are-illegal-politico-reports-2025-06-16/
PRESS RELEASE: https://www.seti.org/news/skymapper-and-seti-institute-team-up-to-map-the-entire-sky-all-the-time/
Today, the SETI Institute announced a strategic collaboration with SkyMapper, the world’s leading decentralized global astronomy and space science network. Together, they plan to deliver continuous, real-time astronomical data to scientists, educators, and enthusiasts worldwide.
I am glad my government is still funding #science projects like this, but I believe it’s only because ignoring the threat would immediately harm business.
👉🏾 The US plans to open a fly factory in Texas as part of its fight against a flesh-eating parasite https://apnews.com/article/fly-factory-texas-flesheating-screwworm-cattle-5eb62edc42bcfce40cdbea27b5f8b60c
Federal Judge Deems Trump Administration’s Termination of NIH Grants Illegal
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In a ruling issued Monday, the judge called the government’s directives “arbitrary and capricious” and ordered funding for some of the NIH grants, including many profiled by ProPublica in recent months, to be restored.