The hottest Science Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Science Topics

Global Existential Risks

The Honest Broker Newsletter • 1648 implied HN points • 13 Nov 24
🔬 Science Global Risks Climate change Artificial Intelligence Pandemics Nuclear Threats
  1. The U.S. government identified six major risks that could threaten humanity, including artificial intelligence and nuclear war. These risks could lead to catastrophic events affecting civilization.
  2. Climate change was found to be significant but not classified as an existential risk, meaning it won't likely cause human extinction. It's seen as a serious issue but not at the same level as other threats.
  3. Experts warn that focusing too much on familiar risks may blind us to emerging threats, like pandemics or asteroid impacts, which could have severe consequences. We need to pay attention to a broader range of potential dangers.

"On Action At a Distance"

Fields & Energy • 219 implied HN points • 03 May 24
🔬 Science Physics Research Mathematics Electricity Magnetism
  1. There are debates about how forces act over distances. Some people think there's a hidden connection, while others believe that objects can directly affect each other without any medium.
  2. Here’s a fun example: when you ring a bell using a wire, the movement happens gradually, showing that actions often involve a series of connections, not just instant forces.
  3. Scientists like Faraday introduced the idea of 'lines of force' to visualize these actions. Instead of just thinking about pushes and pulls, we can now understand force as stretching and pressing through a medium.

River as a verb

The Egg And The Rock • 963 implied HN points • 21 Feb 23
🔬 Science Nature Space Physics Time
  1. A river is more than just a static object, it is a dynamic process that is constantly changing and flowing.
  2. Our language often limits our understanding of the world by categorizing things as objects rather than actions.
  3. The river is part of a larger cycle, influenced by natural forces like gravity and the sun, showing the interconnectedness of all elements in nature.

3.4.3 Gauss’s Laws

Fields & Energy • 259 implied HN points • 17 Apr 24
🔬 Science Physics Mathematics Electromagnetism History
  1. Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a brilliant mathematician known for his early talent, like solving a tricky addition problem in second grade. He made significant contributions to math and physics, including the development of formulas to calculate important dates, like Easter.
  2. Gauss's Law describes how electric fields and charges relate to each other. For instance, electric field lines begin at positive charges and end at negative ones, while magnetic field lines always form loops.
  3. Gauss and Wilhelm Weber worked together to measure the Earth's magnetic field. They created detailed maps of magnetic intensity that are still referenced today, showing the long-lasting impact of Gauss's work in science.
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3.4.4 Ampère’s Law

Fields & Energy • 239 implied HN points • 24 Apr 24
🔬 Science Physics Electromagnetism Mathematics Research Theory
  1. Ampère’s Law explains how electric currents create magnetic fields. You can use the right-hand rule to find the direction of the magnetic field around a current.
  2. We visualize magnetic fields using 'dot-x' notation. A 'dot' shows current coming toward you, while an 'x' shows it going away, helping to understand how fields form around currents.
  3. Maxwell introduced the idea of displacement current, which means a changing electric field can create a magnetic field. This is important for understanding how electromagnetic waves travel.

3.2 Michael Faraday

Fields & Energy • 359 implied HN points • 12 Mar 24
🔬 Science Physics Electromagnetism History Innovation Experimentation
  1. Michael Faraday discovered that moving magnets can create electricity, a process called induction. This was a major breakthrough in understanding how electricity and magnetism work together.
  2. Faraday also introduced the idea of 'lines of force' to visualize magnetic fields. This concept helps us understand the direction and strength of magnetic effects.
  3. He believed scientific discoveries should come from direct observations of nature, not just complicated math. Faraday's practical experiments made him one of the great experimental physicists.

Guilt by Association

Doomberg • 6508 implied HN points • 12 Apr 23
🔬 Science Energy Chemistry Geopolitics Natural Gas Oil
  1. Old practices of thrift are now merchandised as 'upcycling.'
  2. Utilizing byproducts from manufacturing and petrochemical industry is both necessary and economical.
  3. High oil prices incentivize more oil drilling, leading to oversupply and lower natural gas prices in the US.

3.4.5 Faraday’s Law & Electromagnetic Waves

Fields & Energy • 219 implied HN points • 01 May 24
🔬 Science Physics Electromagnetism Light Energy
  1. Faraday's Law shows that a changing magnetic field can create an electric field. This means electricity and magnetism are like partners that can influence each other.
  2. When electric and magnetic fields change together, they can create electromagnetic waves, which is how light travels. It's like a dance between the two fields that lets energy move through space.
  3. In history, scientists like Faraday and Maxwell noticed that light might be connected to electromagnetism. They found evidence that light behaves like an electromagnetic wave, leading to important discoveries about how we understand light and energy.

Avoiding Epistemological Nihilism

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 3657 implied HN points • 12 Feb 24
🔬 Science Research Data Analysis
  1. Social scientists often resort to statistical relationships when randomized experiments are not feasible, which can lead to flawed conclusions due to selection effects and confounding variables.
  2. Flawed data is often worse than having no data at all, as it can mislead individuals into making decisions based on inaccurate information.
  3. To form reasonable opinions on social, political, and economic issues, it is essential to prioritize well-grounded ideas backed by theoretical reasoning and empirical data over blindly following data from flawed social science research.

Monday Links

Niko McCarty • 159 implied HN points • 27 May 24
🔬 Science Biotechnology Neuroscience Environmental Science Cell Biology Genetics
  1. Scientists can now deliver single molecules into living cells using special tools called nanopipettes. This could help in studying cell functions more precisely.
  2. Neuralink is facing problems with its brain chip as most of the threads inserted in the first human are not working. They plan to implant another chip in another person soon.
  3. Greenpeace is blocking the planting of Golden Rice, which is modified to help prevent vitamin A deficiency. This decision may change as the Philippine government intends to challenge it.

LabGenius - the long slow road to faster drug discovery

Rory’s Always On Newsletter • 535 implied HN points • 07 Feb 24
🔬 Science Biotech AI Drug Discovery Machine Learning Clinical Trials
  1. AI and machine learning are revolutionizing drug discovery by speeding up the identification of potential treatments, leading to big rewards for those in the industry.
  2. Building a successful biotech company requires patience, determination, and significant funding, often with a focus on research and development before revenue generation.
  3. Investors in biotech companies must be prepared for a long journey of constant failures and successes, akin to the process of drug discovery, with potential acquisitions being key outcomes.

Three Pounds of Asking

Neuro Athletics • 50 implied HN points • 05 Jan 26
🔬 Science Neuroscience Brain health Consciousness
  1. Neurosurgery shows how intimate, fragile, and precise the brain and skull are, where millimetres and tiny vessels can mean the difference between life and death. The skull is living tissue with active veins, and operating on it is both technical and unexpectedly ordinary.
  2. Consciousness and memory are grounded in specific brain structures, so repairing or stimulating those parts can restore a person’s sense of self and bring back vivid experiences. The brain’s wiring and geography matter for who we feel we are.
  3. Alzheimer’s research has often overlooked sex differences, and women are disproportionately affected; menopause-related metabolic changes in the brain are a crucial, under-studied factor. This gap shows how much is missed when studies assume one body represents all bodies.

Scientific American’s Purging of Laura Helmuth Is Only A Start

The DisInformation Chronicle • 1410 implied HN points • 02 Dec 24
🔬 Science Public Trust Health Communication Media Ethics
  1. Leaving behind hate-filled comments can lead to serious consequences, like getting fired or resigning from a job.
  2. Many science writers may share extreme political views that can affect the credibility of their journalism.
  3. To regain trust, media outlets need to clean up their practices and focus on reporting accurately, without political bias.

No Free Dessert in Machine Learning

Mindful Modeler • 399 implied HN points • 20 Feb 24
🔬 Science Machine Learning Generalization Modeling Data
  1. Generalization in machine learning is essential for a model to perform well on unseen data.
  2. There are different types of generalization in machine learning: from training data to unseen data, from training data to application, and from sample data to a larger population.
  3. The No Free Lunch theorem in machine learning highlights that assumptions and effort are always needed for generalization, and there's no free lunch when it comes to achieving further generalization.

Finally—letters in Scroll 4!

Vesuvius Challenge • 64 implied HN points • 21 Dec 25
🔬 Science Imaging Machine Learning Computer Vision Archaeology Cultural heritage
  1. A new high-resolution tomographic scan (2.4 µm pixels, 78 keV, 22 cm propagation) revealed 5–6 mm letters in PHerc. 1667 that were invisible in earlier 8 µm scans.
  2. A generalist ink-detection model trained on other fragments detected letters immediately without scroll-specific labeling, suggesting the method can find ink across different scrolls.
  3. The team is retiring the First Letters and First Title prizes to focus on extracting text, and they doubled the Kaggle competition prize pool to $200,000 while preparing an updated dataset.

We should all participate in scientific research

The Novelleist • 445 implied HN points • 07 Jul 25
🔬 Science Research Environment Data Collection Public Health Community Engagement
  1. Participating in scientific research can create better solutions to complex problems. When everyone gets involved, we can gather more data and generate thoughtful ideas.
  2. Top-down approaches to science can have limitations, like lack of local data and accessibility. Bottom-up participatory methods help engage communities and make research more effective.
  3. Collaboration between citizens, private companies, and researchers can lead to impactful changes. When people work together, they feel empowered and can drive progress for their communities.

ZOE balls

Logging the World • 398 implied HN points • 18 Feb 24
🔬 Science Polling Trends Covid data
  1. Opinion polling can be challenging due to issues with representativeness, such as demographic bias and sampling errors.
  2. Trends in polling data can be stable over time, and short-term fluctuations may not always indicate significant changes.
  3. Subsamples in polling data can lead to wider margins of error and may not always provide accurate insights, caution is advised when interpreting this data.

We Should Try to Directly Measure the Value of Scientific Papers

Nonsense on Stilts • 59 implied HN points • 20 Jul 24
🔬 Science Research Methods Information Theory Statistical Analysis Scientific Integrity Decision Theory
  1. We should measure the value of scientific papers to understand their real impact. If a paper doesn't change how people act or think, then it may not be worth much.
  2. To figure out the value of a paper, we can use a formula that compares what outcomes we expect with the information from the paper versus without it. This helps us see if the research is actually useful.
  3. It's important to have good estimates and decisions tied to the research to see its true worth. By doing this, we can better judge which scientific papers are really making a difference.

Most Trend Breaks Aren't Real

Cremieux Recueil • 543 implied HN points • 18 Jun 25
🔬 Science Data Analysis Health trends Public Health
  1. When trends suddenly change, it often means that how we measure or report them has changed, not that something real has happened. We need to be careful not to jump to conclusions based on these changes.
  2. Examples in medicine show that so-called 'rises' in conditions like sepsis or Lyme disease can be due to better reporting or new definitions, not an actual increase in cases.
  3. We should treat shocking trends with skepticism. Sometimes what appears to be a major trend change is just better data or different reporting practices, rather than a true societal shift.

Hang on, are there ANY lost minerals?

Material World • 1269 implied HN points • 23 Dec 24
🔬 Science Geology Environmental Science Resources Sustainability
  1. Humans haven't really run out of minerals or resources, just gotten better at finding and extracting them. We still have plenty of well-known materials, even if they're harder to find in some places.
  2. Many stories about lost minerals, like certain types of marble, are exaggerated or incorrect. For example, some rare marbles still exist in significant amounts, contrary to popular belief.
  3. Instead of focusing on supposed lost minerals, it's more interesting to explore the minerals we continue to extract today, even when people think they've been exhausted.

Gain of Function.

News Items • 471 implied HN points • 18 Jan 24
🔬 Science AI Mathematics Reasoning Data generation Training
  1. AlphaGeometry AI system solves complex geometry problems as well as a human Olympiad gold-medalist.
  2. AlphaGeometry combines neural language model with a rule-bound deduction engine for reasoning.
  3. Development of AlphaGeometry highlights AI's logic reasoning progress and ability to discover and verify new knowledge.

Eve Theory of Consciousness (v2)

Vectors of Mind • 825 implied HN points • 10 May 23
🔬 Science Human Evolution Psychology Genetics Cultural anthropology Neuroscience
  1. Women may have evolved recursion before men, based on prehistoric myths and societal structures.
  2. The downsides and challenges of recursion may have led to unique pathways for human development.
  3. Gendered differences in genetic, cognitive, and cultural factors could have influenced the evolution of self-awareness and recursion in humans.

Thanks But I'll Walk, Scotty

Everything Is Amazing • 1031 implied HN points • 03 Feb 25
🔬 Science Animal Behavior Cognitive Science Research Methods
  1. Animals, like wild mice and rats, have been observed using wheels just for fun, without any obvious benefit. This suggests that play and enjoyment are important to all creatures, not just humans.
  2. Our brains can be easily tricked by illusions like pareidolia, where we see faces in random objects. This highlights how our perception can change quickly based on how we look at things.
  3. Having fun should be a priority in how we interact with each other. Embracing joy can improve our lives and connections, just like it does for animals.

Automating Biology

A Biologist's Guide to Life • 29 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
🔬 Science Biotechnology Synthetic Biology Computational Biology Artificial Intelligence Bioinformatics
  1. Living systems are layers of metabolic machines — from genes and proteins to cells, tissues, and organisms — that act like modular, self-replicating components we can study and engineer.
  2. Physical automation (robotic labs, cloud labs) and digital automation (AI-driven biodesign and structure prediction) can make experiments much cheaper, higher-throughput, and faster, enabling far more data and quicker innovation.
  3. Widespread automation is limited by trust, data security, and the need for flexibility as methods evolve, so modular, autonomous lab systems and careful governance are needed to realize its promise.

Lungs

Microanimism • 139 implied HN points • 24 May 24
🔬 Science Biology Microbiology Evolution Health
  1. Biological systems like lungs demonstrate asymmetry and imperfection, showcasing the complexity of biology over mathematical perfection.
  2. Microbial worlds in our lungs and in the atmosphere interact in complex ways, affecting our health and environment.
  3. The evolution and existence of lungs are deeply intertwined with microbial life, showcasing a long history of collaboration for the sustenance of life.

Is Designing Babies Unethical—or a Moral Imperative?

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 324 implied HN points • 11 Aug 25
🔬 Science Genetics Ethics Biotechnology Health Medicine
  1. Gene-editing technology has incredible potential to eliminate serious genetic diseases, which could save many lives. It's a powerful tool that could help create healthier babies.
  2. Some worry that this technology might lead to unethical choices, like selecting traits for intelligence or looks instead of just focusing on health. This could create a new form of eugenics.
  3. There's a big debate happening on whether designing babies is ethical or necessary. It's important for society to carefully consider the implications of these advancements for our future.

The golden age of vaccine development

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 45 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26
🔬 Science Immunology Microbiology Biotechnology Genomics Public Health
  1. Vaccines used to be lucky accidents but are now deliberately designed using detailed knowledge of microbes, cells, and the immune system.
  2. New tools let us build precise vaccines from specific proteins or mRNA, making them safer, easier to optimize, and avoid using whole pathogens.
  3. Faster sequencing, better delivery systems, and improved manufacturing let vaccines be developed and updated in weeks, and continued investment will unlock even more progress.

The unlit space between the stars

lifeboat • 530 implied HN points • 20 Dec 23
🔬 Science Astronomy Physics
  1. Darkness can reveal different kinds of understanding and truths that are often hidden in the light.
  2. The universe is much wilder and darker than we once thought, with most matter invisible and elusive like dark matter.
  3. Dark matter, although invisible, plays a crucial role in creating stars and light, showing that the source of substance and energy is found in the unlit spaces between things.

The Internet Is Killing Science Too

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 1278 implied HN points • 17 Nov 24
🔬 Science Scientific Method Philosophy of science Information Technology Cultural critique Epistemology
  1. The internet is transforming or even damaging traditional science, just like it has affected many other institutions over the years. As our way of sharing information changes, the understanding of what science is also shifts.
  2. There seems to be a growing shift from studying real-world objects and events to focusing on models and simulations instead. This might weaken the connection science has with actual reality, making it more about data interpretation than discovering the physical world.
  3. People are increasingly more interested in studying the process of knowledge rather than the world itself. This change indicates a cultural shift where real-world exploration is becoming less relevant compared to understanding ideas and identities.

Who is a scientist?

Science Forever • 338 implied HN points • 22 Feb 24
🔬 Science Diversity Philosophy Collaboration Policy Education
  1. Recognizing and valuing collaboration between Western and indigenous scientists is essential in making groundbreaking discoveries.
  2. The definition of a scientist can vary from narrow to broad, but ultimately, anyone contributing to the scientific enterprise is considered a scientist.
  3. Being a scientist is not limited to just lab work; it encompasses various roles like science policy, communication, illustration, and education.

The Computational Case for Hypocrisy

Living Fossils • 19 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
🔬 Science Neuroscience Evolution Cognitive Science Artificial Intelligence Behavioral Science
  1. The mind is a bundle of older, unconscious drives that act first, and a later "press secretary" layer that explains or justifies those actions to others.
  2. Because core drives are deeply integrated and costly to change, evolution added a lightweight adapter (like LoRA in AI) to steer outputs without rewiring the base system.
  3. Hypocrisy is thus an efficient solution: layering explanations over raw impulses preserves survival functions while enabling social norms. AI models reveal this split by showing internal impulses versus the polished outputs.

Malcolm in the middle (well, at the beginning)

Logging the World • 299 implied HN points • 07 Mar 24
🔬 Science Communication Mathematics Education
  1. Using interesting anecdotes or 'Malcolms' at the beginning can engage a wider audience and make complex topics more appealing.
  2. Balancing academic style writing with engaging storytelling can make science communication more effective and impactful.
  3. Integrating rhetorical tricks and interesting facts can drive curiosity and encourage broader audiences to explore complex subjects.

The Year of the Big-Balled Rat

Marcus on AI • 2687 implied HN points • 14 Mar 24
🔬 Science GenAI AI Impact
  1. GenAI is causing issues in science, with errors in research papers being linked to AI
  2. Using AI for writing and illustration might have negative impacts on the quality and credibility of scientific research
  3. The use of LLMs in research articles could lead to a decline in reputation for journal publishers and potential consequences for the science community

Bio links, Fall 2025

De Novo • 99 implied HN points • 16 Nov 25
🔬 Science Biology Genetics Health Research
  1. A new method can estimate an embryo's genetic makeup using a tiny amount of data, potentially helping more people choose traits for their babies.
  2. Research on modified cows and sheep shows we can create new stem cells that might also work in humans, leading to exciting possibilities in breeding and genetics.
  3. Recent studies highlight the harmful effects of herpesviruses, showing they can lead to serious diseases like lupus, making vaccine development even more crucial.