Telescopic Turnip

Telescopic Turnip explores the unexpected intersections of science, culture, and theoretical perspectives, delving into how accidents drive discoveries, the complexities of evolution, societal norms, and personal biases. It juxtaposes scientific phenomena with everyday experiences, offering insights on a diverse array of topics from artificial sweeteners and sexual dimorphism to internet privacy and cultural evolution.

Science and Discovery Evolutionary Biology Cultural Analysis Technology and Society Mathematics and Statistics Ethics and Privacy Experimental Psychology Genetics and Genomics Economics and Consumerism Pop Culture and Media

The hottest Substack posts of Telescopic Turnip

And their main takeaways

Mechanisms too simple for humans to design

274 implied HN points β€’ 22 Jan 25
πŸ”¬ Science Biology Evolution Genetics Technology Artificial Intelligence
  1. Living organisms, like butterflies and bacteria, are incredibly complex, yet humans struggle to replicate them fully because they are surprisingly simple in construction. It's like trying to build a working insect but only using a few basic parts.
  2. The information contained in the genomes of living beings is often much less than what we assume. For example, the human genome contains less useful information than what fits on a CD, showcasing how nature efficiently packs information.
  3. Natural evolution leads to a balance where simpler designs can survive better, while human-made technologies often have complex specifications and high error rates. This means some amazing designs in nature might be too bizarre for humans to create intentionally.

Links for Autumn 2024

2 implied HN points β€’ 20 Oct 24
πŸ”¬ Science Biology Neuroscience History Technology Culture
  1. The Bat Bomb was a WWII plan to drop bats with tiny explosives over Japan, showing how unusual military tactics can be.
  2. Researchers can measure brain chemicals while people play decision-making games during awake surgeries for Parkinson's, revealing how our brains react to rewards.
  3. There are big bacteria called Aureispirae that latch onto smaller bacteria and suck out their insides, showing the strange interactions in nature.

The Mariotte bottle – or how I replaced my roommate with a silicone sandwich

16 implied HN points β€’ 12 Jan 24
  1. In the Glorious Era of Science, a Mariotte bottle can provide a constant water flow without complex control systems.
  2. Using a silicone sandwich approach, a passive automata device can maintain a constant flow of water regardless of the remaining volume inside.
  3. Understanding the physics behind the Mariotte bottle can help in creating passive control systems for various applications.

There is way too much serendipity

6 HN points β€’ 19 Jan 24
  1. Most popular artificial sweeteners were discovered accidentally through serendipity.
  2. Sweet receptors exist to guide our eating habits towards good plants and away from potentially harmful ones.
  3. Chemists and pharma industries have extensively tasted compounds, leading to accidental discoveries and limited success in finding new sweeteners.

Links for Winter 2024

4 implied HN points β€’ 08 Jan 24
  1. Cells contain a mysterious organelle called 'the vault' used for gene therapy
  2. Progress in understanding mechanisms behind sexual attraction is advancing
  3. Aboriginal mythology contains precise descriptions that match modern geography
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Reverse-correlation: how to summon the ghost of your mental imagery

10 implied HN points β€’ 14 Feb 23
  1. Human interpretability research focuses on understanding latent knowledge in the brain
  2. Reverse-correlation technique can reveal stereotypes and self-perceptions through noisy images
  3. The method can be applied to different stimuli like music or designing the ultimate food

The talk: a brief explainer of sexual dimorphism

4 HN points β€’ 18 Sep 23
  1. Sexual reproduction evolved to address genetic hitch-hiking and clonal interference, leading to increased evolvability of macroscopic organisms.
  2. Exclusive mating types and asymmetric competition drove the divergence into small gametes (males) and large gametes (females) in sexual reproduction.
  3. Sexual selection, through genes hitch-hiking, can lead to exaggerated and seemingly illogical traits in species due to Fisherian runaway effects.

Links from Spring 2023

5 implied HN points β€’ 02 Jul 23
  1. Some surprising results from the Ideological Turing Test experiment
  2. Claims on inflation indicate decreasing producer prices and rising consumer prices
  3. Research shows brain wave synchrony between teachers and students

Interlude: tiling the dinner table with aperiodic cookies

6 implied HN points β€’ 09 Apr 23
  1. Aperiodic tilings allow covering a plane without repeating patterns.
  2. New technology enables tiling the plane with just one type of tile.
  3. Creating a 3D-printable cookie-cutter for aperiodic cookies is an interesting application.

Do bamboos set themselves on fire?

8 implied HN points β€’ 19 Sep 22
  1. Bamboos have evolved a unique strategy to avoid predators by flowering at rare intervals
  2. Mutant bamboos can benefit from skipping cycles to produce more seeds and escalate population growth
  3. Bamboos are adapted to invade areas after forest fires, but it's unlikely they deliberately set themselves on fire

It's time to worry about Internet privacy again

6 implied HN points β€’ 25 Dec 22
  1. Internet privacy is still important, even if you think you're not a target
  2. AI can automate stalking and scams, making attacks more sophisticated
  3. Maintaining privacy and being cautious online can help protect against potential threats

The average North-Korean mathematician

17 implied HN points β€’ 07 Mar 21
  1. North Koreans have a strong track record at the International Math Olympiads despite challenges like famine.
  2. North Korea focuses on nurturing a few brilliant math students for competitions rather than the overall population.
  3. Men and women show equal cooperation levels on average, but men tend to have more variability in behavior, as seen in various studies.

Second-order selection against the immortal

10 implied HN points β€’ 03 Dec 21
  1. The concept of immortality could be unstable due to competing fitness levels in populations.
  2. Second-order selection focuses on evolvability and how well a lineage can improve its own fitness in the future.
  3. Cultural evolution could play a significant role in shaping the fate of immortals vs mortals.

Football, statistics, figure skating and quantum chromodynamics

4 implied HN points β€’ 08 Oct 22
  1. In figure skating, winning requires performing the most difficult tricks which only a few athletes can master.
  2. For groundbreaking discoveries in quantum chromodynamics, one must delve deep into knowledge and push boundaries in quantum theory.
  3. Statistics, like football, require consistent application of basic techniques, analysis of data structure, and understanding social context and incentives.

Conspiracy-proof archaeology

6 implied HN points β€’ 27 Feb 22
  1. Ask the same historical question multiple times to understand collective memory changes over time.
  2. Zero-day breaches in nature help us experimentally test historical theories.
  3. Certain technologies and sciences have 'read-only windows' that limit manipulation, offering insights into the past.

The computational complexity of progress

4 implied HN points β€’ 01 Oct 22
  1. Evolutionary problems can have different levels of complexity, depending on how 'labyrinthic' they are
  2. Higher complexity in evolution and progress arises when traits interact with each other
  3. Cultural evolution ('metis') may navigate more complex challenges, while rational optimization ('episteme') is better for low-complexity tasks

I only believe in the paranormal

4 implied HN points β€’ 24 May 22
  1. Every researcher is essentially a paranormal researcher as they investigate unexplainable phenomena.
  2. Magic exists in both the universe's phenomena and in human actions like predictions and impossible feats.
  3. Seeing is believing - witnessing paranormal or mysterious events can validate beliefs more than just theoretical explanations.

The fingerprints of ideology in science

4 implied HN points β€’ 03 Apr 22
  1. Academics are supposed to provide an accurate model of the world for policy decisions.
  2. Selective publication bias in academia can be detected using funnel plots.
  3. Social sciences sometimes show evidence of publication bias, but corrections still reveal overall trends.

Links from (late) Summer 2023

1 implied HN point β€’ 15 Oct 23
  1. Jeremy Bentham wanted to be mummified after death, promoting utilitarianism
  2. People tend to wrongly assume improvements in areas they know little about over time
  3. Using LLMs for testing human behavior hot takes can be an exciting approach

Experiments with a random clock

6 implied HN points β€’ 13 Jun 21
  1. Chronically late? Adding uncertainty with a random clock can help you be more punctual.
  2. Shifting your watch randomly by a few minutes can trick your brain into being on time.
  3. Using a continuously-randomizing clock can maintain the effect of uncertainty without manual adjustments.

Calibration proverbs

4 implied HN points β€’ 11 Jan 22
  1. The best advice is calibration advice, helping us know when to stop or change our habits.
  2. Calibration proverbs can offer valuable insights and guidance for self-improvement.
  3. It's important to have metrics in place to gauge how well we are doing and make necessary adjustments.

Argumentative prison cells

6 implied HN points β€’ 21 Feb 21
  1. Two people in a prison cell must reach an honest agreement to escape.
  2. Most factual disagreements can be settled with good arguments.
  3. Disagreements on moral values may be rooted in genetic and emotional differences.

Links from Summer 2022

2 implied HN points β€’ 24 Sep 22
  1. The Wisdom of the Crowd can be improved by considering different perspectives.
  2. Using tools like Nutshell by Nicky Case can enhance user experience on websites.
  3. Maintaining transparency in research is crucial to avoid unethical practices.

A map of randomness

4 implied HN points β€’ 04 Jan 21
  1. Probability distributions help understand different random processes.
  2. Different distributions describe outcomes of specific stochastic processes.
  3. By analyzing distributions, it's possible to grasp the processes that generated the data.

Experimental psychology on roofies

2 HN points β€’ 22 Apr 22
  1. Experimental psychology studies can only test participants once, which can be limiting for research.
  2. There is interest in using drugs that induce anterograde amnesia for experimental purposes to explore unconscious biases and other psychological phenomena.
  3. While there may be ethical concerns, researchers are considering the potential uses of drugs like midazolam and GHB for memory-related experiments.

Invisible privileges

4 implied HN points β€’ 30 Sep 20
  1. Discrimination exists in various forms and stages for African-Americans, including education, justice system, and housing.
  2. Men also face discrimination, particularly in the justice system, education system, and housing, with biases against men being more pronounced than racial biases.
  3. People may not always be aware of discrimination they face, and there are similarities in the patterns of discrimination faced by ethnic minorities and men.

Most likely is not likely

2 implied HN points β€’ 12 Feb 22
  1. The most likely outcome may actually be unlikely, as seen in a dice roll example.
  2. Bayesian statistics can show what is most likely, but that doesn't mean it's highly probable.
  3. When interpreting statistical results, it's essential to consider the absolute likelihood of the outcome, not just what is most likely.

Celebrities, numerosity and the Weber-Fechner law

4 implied HN points β€’ 30 Aug 20
  1. Human brains intuitively process large numbers using numeracy and numerosity scales.
  2. Wealth distribution follows a log-normal pattern, with rich individuals far apart from each other.
  3. The Weber-Fechner law suggests that humans inherently understand numbers logarithmically, impacting our perception of quantities.

Is top-down veganism unethical?

2 implied HN points β€’ 22 Aug 21
  1. Meat production can lead to animal suffering due to breeding practices.
  2. Plant-based meat and lab-grown meat are current solutions to reduce animal suffering in the meat industry.
  3. Exploring genetic engineering to reduce animal suffering in meat production is a novel and controversial idea.

Culture wars in riddle format

1 implied HN point β€’ 17 Jul 22
  1. It's challenging to find the truth in culture-war issues as personal biases often cloud judgment.
  2. Social justice is complex and requires a fair, unbiased perspective to be effective.
  3. Approaching controversial topics through riddles can encourage curiosity and open-mindedness.

Links from Spring 2022

1 implied HN point β€’ 21 Jun 22
  1. Genomes could predict people's faces.
  2. A train crash was staged for profit in Texas in 1896.
  3. Fruit flies evolve cyclically in response to seasonal changes.

Yarn circuitboards

1 implied HN point β€’ 27 May 22
  1. 3D printing was invented by a network of housewives from Holland in the 19th century using thread to create objects.
  2. Crocheting can be combined with electronics to create unique projects like a luminous armband.
  3. When crocheting with wires for electronics, use thin wire, make clean connections, and consider adding components like stress sensors.

Quantified Pop Culture

2 implied HN points β€’ 15 Nov 20
  1. Gender stereotypes in pop culture shape behavior in real life.
  2. TVtropes provides a database to measure and analyze stereotypes in media.
  3. Evolution of tropes over time reveals changing trends in gender representation.

The Great Happiness Filter

2 implied HN points β€’ 24 Oct 20
  1. The Great Happiness Filter proposes that intelligent lifeforms may choose to prioritize happiness over expansion and optimization.
  2. The key challenge of The Great Happiness Filter is the order in which technologies like robotic servants and artificial intelligence are discovered.
  3. There is a hypothetical sweet spot where automation powers happiness-pods, allowing for stable existence without the need for expansion.

The Holy Algorithm

1 implied HN point β€’ 03 Apr 21
  1. The date of Easter is determined by a complex algorithm called Computus Ecclesiasticus.
  2. In the past, the Easter date was communicated by the Pope or his bureaucrats, but Carl Friedrich Gauss later refined the algorithm.
  3. There are different hypotheses on how the Easter date is practically calculated today, ranging from printed tables to sophisticated software solutions.

The Hundred Coca-Colas of Post-brand capitalism

1 implied HN point β€’ 27 Dec 20
  1. Abolishing trademarks could have a significant impact on society, presenting both challenges and potential benefits.
  2. Without trademarks, brands would lose their legal protection and uniqueness, leading to a more competitive market.
  3. Removing trademarks could disrupt the advertising industry, potentially reducing consumer costs and challenging the dominance of big companies.

90% true: Agriculture from the Future

1 implied HN point β€’ 23 Sep 20
  1. Genetic modification can improve crop efficiency and environmental impact.
  2. Genetic modification can enhance the nutritional quality of crops, aiding in malnutrition
  3. Local production of food is increasingly valued for environmental sustainability.

90% true: Introduction

1 implied HN point β€’ 22 Sep 20
  1. Articles titled '10 things that...' were popular in 2015.
  2. The '90% true' series contains 9 true items and 1 fabricated item to encourage fact-checking.
  3. The deliberate fake element in the series serves as proof of honesty.

Moving to substack

0 implied HN points β€’ 11 Jan 22
  1. Moving to Substack to post more frequently.
  2. Choosing Substack over WordPress due to bugs in the editor.
  3. Encouraging followers to update their RSS feeds.

Links from Autumn 2022

0 implied HN points β€’ 25 Dec 22
  1. Underestimating counterparts' learning goals can hinder conflictual conversations
  2. FΕ“tuses can taste what their mother eats, impacting baby behavior
  3. Rattractor technology uses deep brain stimulation to guide rats into virtual cages