Wow, an email from sci-fi legend Larry Niven! I mean, it's obviously Larry himself, right, and it's just a weird coincidence that he writes exactly like a bad chatbot?
Philip Ball
@philipcball.bsky.social
Science writer and author of books including Bright Earth, The Music Instinct, Beyond Weird, How Life Works.
"the rocket’s second stage remained in space, floating aimlessly among thousands of other pieces of space junk that active satellites must steer clear of." Just a reminder that there's an ethos behind all of this, and it's not one of stewardship. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
SpaceX rocket thought to have crashed into the moon in unintentional collision
Four-tonne piece of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket believed to have hit lunar surface on Wednesday at 5,400 miles an hour
theguardian.com
Great interview: On @quantamagazine.org's podcast, Samir Patel speaks with @philipcball.bsky.social about what makes living things different from inorganic material. Living entities appear to do stuff "for reasons"...as though they have agency... so what does that mean, exactly? #science #philosophy
For those who may be interested, I interviewed Riskin earlier this year: buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/the-power-...
The Power of Life
My conversation with science historian Jessica Riskin
buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com
Think we need a rain dance rn. www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3gc...
Rain
YouTube video by HollowHead
youtube.com
Book review 📚 The secret relationships that govern life on Earth go.nature.com/455Qum1
The secret relationships that govern life on Earth
Books on parasitism and symbiosis inspire wonder at the strange ways in which species’ lives intertwine.
go.nature.com
I worked for New York’s largest medical center at the start of the pandemic. There were morgue trucks on the streets. They set up emergency medical tents in Central Park. Healthcare worker colleagues died. It is horrific that RFK Jr is on national TV lying that ICUs were empty.
I had planned posting something on bizarre rewriting of history on school closures, in particular the ludicrous argument that approaches were totally polarised. However @philipcball.bsky.social has said everything I would have. & everything we said at time is on record @independentsage.bsky.social
Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · 3d agoCan't repost with comments for the thread by @chrischirp.bsky.social I just reposted, on school closures during Covid, but I'd say this: I think Christina's comments are spot on. School closures were one of the worst aspects of lockdown, and hard to discuss in a balanced way now. /1
‘Immediately stop all outdoor activities’: South Korea records its highest ever temperature - 42.5C #climatecrisis www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
‘Stop all outdoor activities’: South Korea records its highest ever temperature
Authorities issue alert saying indoor spaces without airconditioning are ‘dangerous’ as temperatures pass 40C for fifth straight day
theguardian.com
Climate change sceptics have lost the plot as Europe burns - Reading the Telegraph, it’s hard to work out whether their climate columns are a work of satire, writes @arusbridger.bsky.social #climatecrisis www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/enviro...
Climate change sceptics have lost the plot as Europe burns
Reading the Telegraph, it’s hard to work out whether their climate columns are a work of satire
prospectmagazine.co.uk
Fascinating paper from Frank Jülicher looking at a continuous (as opposed to cellular automaton) version of the Game of Life, and finding Turing-like patterns. arxiv.org/abs/2607.27402
Continuous Game of Life: cell emergence and self-organization at the edge of growth
Conway's Game of Life shows that simple rules can generate a rich diversity of emerging structures. This cellular automaton has been translated to continuous space by Rafler (2011) in a simulation cal...
arxiv.org
A fascinating little snippet on Schrödinger: Helge Kragh analyses his poetry and prose. arxiv.org/abs/2607.29497
Erwin Schroedinger: His Poetry and Fragment of a Galilean Dialogue
While Erwin Schroedinger's contributions to quantum mechanics and other areas of theoretical physics are very well known, his works as a poet and literary writer are usually ignored. In this paper I r...
arxiv.org
Can't repost with comments for the thread by @chrischirp.bsky.social I just reposted, on school closures during Covid, but I'd say this: I think Christina's comments are spot on. School closures were one of the worst aspects of lockdown, and hard to discuss in a balanced way now. /1
🧵On @thenewsagents.co.uk yesterday, school closures and the lab leak theory were offered as two examples of legitimate questions that were hard to ask. Both have in fact been asked constantly since 2020. But here's a thread on why I think they were wrong and dangerous on school closures 1/12
"For Hesse, metaphors were not passive representations of things but constituted conceptual tools actively shaping scientific thought." This is precisely why I've cited Hesse in my (much less profound) writing on scientific metaphor. aeon.co/essays/why-a...
aeon.co
BBC World at One today is all about "Preparing for our AI future". In it, I explain why AI is vanishingly unlikely to be conscious, and why the anthropomorphic language we use (e.g., "going rogue") makes the challenge of alignment/control much harder than it already is. www.bbc.com/audio/play/m...
BBC Audio | The World This Weekend | Preparing for the future of increasingly intelligent AI?
As AI models jump the guardrails, how tough it is to legislate for the future of mankind?
bbc.com
And if you have any interest in music whatsoever, definitely watch the whole documentary series (10 episodes in all), covering the entire history of music. The whole thing is here: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... Very positively reviewed by the Guardian too: www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
For the Record: An Incomplete History of Music review – it’s amazing that this staggering show exists
Charlotte Ritchie presents a wildly ambitious and unapologetically brainy YouTube documentary that takes in Big Bang soundwaves, singing dolphins and an astonishing amount in between. Don’t miss it fo...
theguardian.com
Here's a nice, thoughtful review of Mel Challenger's splendid new book Alive. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
Alive by Melanie Challenger review – a maverick study of what it means to have a body
In this disorienting book, a poet argues we have been looking at nature – and ourselves – the wrong way
theguardian.com
Despite the endless talk in Westminster about how well Kemi Badenoch is doing, the Conservatives were beaten into *fifth* place here, and were over 5,000 votes behind Restore UK. At some point delusions around Badenoch need to make contact with reality.
Keeping schools open is a goal not a policy. A blanket "never close schools" is a bad lesson. I suggest these: 1. Do not prejudge next pandemic which will be a different virus and could have very different age profile of who it attacks 9/12
Today in "You must be raking it in with royalties from all those books". 🤨
These stories are often being presented as "cunning AI escapes its test room". I can't see why. It's simply the case that the sandbox was not well isolated by the testing companies. Put the agency and responsibility where it belongs. cyberscoop.com/anthropic-cl...
Anthropic says its AI accidentally hacked three companies during safety tests
Anthropic revealed its Claude AI models accidentally breached three real companies during safety testing after a vendor configuration error exposed live systems.
cyberscoop.com
How does nature find Turing patterns? Check in @pnas.org this beautful paper led by @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social Robert Endres on how evolution can search in high-dimensional parameter spaces using oscillations: www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.... And here's my comment: www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....
The evidence supports the alt theory of a spillover from animals sold at the market. Spillovers also happen to account for all other novel infectious disease epidemics. I'm tired of writing about this since I'm tired of the harassment. Pretty much every science writer I know feels the same.
Bringing things up to date with my columns for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social. First, this one on Anish Kapoor's latest show in London and his extraordinary Vantablack. www.thenewworld.co.uk/philip-ball-...
Anish Kapoor’s dark matter
The Hayward Gallery’s new exhibition showcases artworks so black that they seem to undermine the very rules by which we perceive the world
thenewworld.co.uk
This week is a reversal: @adambecker.bsky.social is interviewed by Jack Stilgoe, professor of science and technology studies at University College London. #datmpodcast #ai #MoreEverythingForever #author #london #interview
Shame that right-wing scholars need a leg up from DEI schemes, but there you go.
Quinn Slobodian@quinnslobodian.com · 4mo agoSad to see Hayek from 1949 proved wrong in 2026: “I have yet to come across a single instance where such a scientific pseudo-reputation has been bestowed for political reason on a scholar of more conservative leanings.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
Hm, I'd like to do a thread on this gnarly item too - will aim to do so soon. It's cool experimental work.
Nature@nature.com · last wk.Nature research paper: Non-Gaussian statistics of the order parameter across a phase transition go.nature.com/45r3Au9
(Like, I’m very very anti-AI in general:) bsky.app/profile/patr...
Pat Savage@patrickesavage.bsky.social · 2w agoI completely re-wrote the AI section of my guide to academic reading/writing to be much stricter and more negative (now titled "AI-generated fabrications as academic misconduct"). Please use/share with your students, and let me know if you have any more changes to suggest! doi.org/10.31234/osf...