December 9, 2025 • #
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
— Immanuel Kant
Topic / science
46 posts ⎈
September 12, 2025 • #
In LibertyRPF’s latest newsletter, he makes brief mention of the “Humongous fungus”, an Armillaria ostoyae fungus that covers roughly 2,385 acres of Oregon forest, and weighs an estimated 35,000 tons.
When you read enough about mycology, you find some science fiction-level stuff:
Most of this giant fungus is underground as a network of mycelium and rhizomorphs, black or dark brown structures that are kind of like roots or shoelaces.
The mushrooms you might see on a hike in the forest are just temporary fruiting bodies, like apples on a tree. The real organism is this vast, interconnected web beneath the forest floor that slowly spreads by feeding on tree roots.
Why are we looking for aliens in space? They’re already here on Earth.
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May 2, 2024 • #
Differentiating two different variants of The Enlightenment:
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April 18, 2024 • #
Kármán vortex streets in nature.
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April 7, 2024 • #
Map of humanmetabolic pathways.
(via @burny_tech)
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Hot Dogs and Process Replication
April 4, 2024 • #Confounding details interfere with honest science.
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February 22, 2024 • #
Illustrations by naturalistErnst Haeckel.
From his collection Kunstformen der Natur.
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The Two Enlightenments
February 20, 2024 • #David Deutsch's two enlightenments: the British vs. the Continental model.
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Why Evolution Has No Goal
October 26, 2023 • #We should be teaching the mechanisms of evolution.
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Interview with Richard Rhodes, on the Making of the Atomic Bomb
May 23, 2023 • #An interview with author Richard Rhodes on the Manhattan Project, nuclear weapons, AI, and more.
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Lessons from the Invention of the Thermometer
November 10, 2022 • #Invention requires the right combination of environment, timing, and purpose.
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Patrick Collison on Progress Studies
September 29, 2022 • #A deep dive interview on what progress studies is all about.
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BigThink's Progress Issue
September 23, 2022 • #BigThink's complete issue dedicated to progress studies.
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Portals Into Earth
September 21, 2022 • #From John McPhee's 'Annals of the Former World'.
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Subterranean Trees of Magma
September 15, 2021 • #Superheated plumes of magma, hotspots, and the composition of the mantle.
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Weekend Reading: Liberal Science, Roam42, and JTBD Examples
February 6, 2021 • #Defending liberal science, keyboarding in Roam with Roam42, and how to write effective Jobs to Be Done examples.
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Science: The Endless Frontier
October 21, 2020 • #Vannevar Bush's seminal report.
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Why Did It Take So Long to Invent X?
October 5, 2020 • #Roots of Progress's list of inventions and why they were discovered when they were.
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Progress is Not Automatic
September 23, 2020 • #Innovation doesn't happen while we wait around, it's something that we choose to pursue, even if it doesn't always look that way.
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Science, Innovation, and Longevity
July 28, 2020 • #Venture Stories interview with Jose Luis Ricon.
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Weekend Reading: Invading Markets, Sleep Deprivation, and the Observer Effect
June 13, 2020 • #Commandos, infantry, or police for markets, why sleep deprivation kills, and how Marc Andreessen works.
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Weekend Reading: Dracones, Calendars, and Science 2.0
June 6, 2020 • #Adam Elkus on the current state of culture, Devon Zuegel on using calendars, and Robin Hanson on skepticism.
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The Distribution of Scientific Discoveries
May 7, 2020 • #Did Christensen and Kuhn get it wrong in describing scientific innovation in such a binary way?
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Funding Models for Science
April 23, 2020 • #✦
Ken Burns Presents: The Gene
April 8, 2020 • #✦
Wernher von Braun and the Moon Landing
January 13, 2020 • #Scientist Wernher von Braun explains how we might one day reach the moon.
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Blood is Thicker Than Water
December 26, 2019 • #Steve Stewart-Williams on kin selection and altruism.
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Microgravity Will Change How We Make Everything
December 4, 2019 • #Using space and microgravity as a new center of manufacturing.
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Weekend Reading: Figma Multiplayer, Rice vs. Wheat, and Tuft Cells
November 23, 2019 • #How Figma built their multiplayer tech, rice vs. wheat and influence on culture, and how tuft cells communicate threats to the immune system.
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A Network of Science
November 22, 2019 • #Visualizing the interconnected record of 150 years of scientific research.
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Weekend Reading: Blot, Hand-Drawn Visualizations, and Megafire Detection
November 9, 2019 • #A new blogging tool, the complexity of hand-drawn visualizations, and detecting wildfires from satellites.
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Age of Invention
October 6, 2019 • #A newsletter on innovation and the history of technological progress.
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Does Invention Come from Deprivation or Plenty?
August 27, 2019 • #Do we see more progress during the hard times or the good? Speculation on what generates inventions.
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The Simple Idea Behind Einstein’s Greatest Discoveries
August 11, 2019 • #Predicting symmetries in the laws of physics, and sometimes not.
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The Bacteria Light of the Future
July 25, 2019 • #A startup company is working on light generation using bacterial sources of bioluminescence.
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Have Clock, Will Travel
July 2, 2019 • #BLDGBLOG on navigating through deep space and time.
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Watch Karl Friston Explain Free Energy
June 28, 2019 • #Neuroscientist Karl Friston explaining the free energy principle.
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Surfing Uncertainty
June 17, 2019 • #A book review becomes a great insight into how the brain works.
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Fermat's Library
June 14, 2019 • #A group building tools for sharing and collaborating on academic papers.
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Process Not Products
April 14, 2019 • #On 'Loonshots' and how phase transitions apply to companies.
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Weekend Reading: T Cells, Creating Proteins, and SNI Awards
April 6, 2019 • #T cells for immunotherapy, engineering new proteins with Jupyter Notebooks, and Spatial Networks named as a top workplace.
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The Origin and Transmutation of Species
February 10, 2019 • #Reviewing David Quammen's 'The Tangled Tree', rethinking new discoveries in evolutionary biology.
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Cargo Cult Science
February 3, 2019 • #Text of Richard Feynman's 1974 commencement address on cargo cult science.
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Language and Progress
December 11, 2018 • #“A conversation with Steven Pinker and John McWhorter on linguistics, and much more.”
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Bits & Genes
March 14, 2017 • #✦
Underwater Flight
August 12, 2012 • #Graham Hawkes wants to fly beneath the waves.
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