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Marco Giancotti

@marco-giancotti.bsky.social

280 followers 330 following 32 posts

Thinking tool artisan. Gardener of aethermug.com and planktonvalhalla.com

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Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · May 8

Determinate Self-Sabotage, or Obsessive Connoisseurship?

aethermug.com/posts/self-...

Determinate Self-Sabotage, or Obsessive Connoisseurship?

On the quandaries of kodawari

aethermug.com

Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · 8d

Indeed.

Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · Aug 15

I Used to Know How to Write in Japanese
(Somehow, though, I can still read it)

aethermug.com/posts/i-use...

I Used to Know How to Write in Japanese

Somehow, though, I can still read it

aethermug.com

Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · Jun 8

A great book by Sean B Carroll on two of my intellectual heroes: Jacques Monod and Albert Camus. Two giants (and friends) who won the @nobelprize.bsky.social but also fought totalitarianism during the Nazi occupation (joining the Resistance) and afterwards. Two great inspirations for these days.

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Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · May 25

I switched from Pocket to Readwise Reader a few years ago and never looked back.

Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Midge @midge.bsky.social · May 16

When the IT guy takes over my computer remotely

Picture of a translucent hooded, caped, skeleton wrapped around an alarmed looking man seeming to move him involuntarily

230 2.7K 23K

Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · May 12

OK, this is wild.

In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them.

It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*.

What the HELL?

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Unsplash image of the Earth, mostly the nightside with a tracery of city lights on every continent.

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Hiroki Sayama @hirokisayama.bsky.social · Apr 24

Clusters - an Asymmetrifcal Particle System with Emergent Patterns
By Jeffrey Ventrella
vimeo.com/1048238799

Clusters - an Asymmetrifcal Particle System with Emergent Patterns

This is a video explaining the Clusters particle algorithm. Explore it in real-time at ventrella.com/clusters

vimeo.com

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Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · May 8

Determinate Self-Sabotage, or Obsessive Connoisseurship?

aethermug.com/posts/self-...

Determinate Self-Sabotage, or Obsessive Connoisseurship?

On the quandaries of kodawari

aethermug.com

Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · May 2

Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · Apr 29

Every year at the end of the semester, I ask the students in my Psych of Language class to create memes about what they've learned. They then vote for their favorites.
Here's the winner about how the idea of a universal grammar is no longer as compelling as it once seemed.
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A meme about Chomsky's notion of universal grammar and how it is no longer as dominant in theories of language acquisition

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social · Apr 29

This is a new image from #JWST.

The bright points with spikes are stars in the Milky Way.

Everything else is a galaxy.

Everything. Else. Is. A. Galaxy.

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · Mar 14

In chaotic systems, the smallest fluctuations get amplified. As scientist Edward Lorenz put it in the 1960s and 70s, even a seagull flapping its wings might eventually make a big difference to the weather. Here's how scientists came to understand what chaos is, and how to wrangle it:

🧵

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · Apr 28

How can biological systems anticipate future events? In our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social, we show how a simple genetic circuit can predict future trends through a simple (and perhaps widespread) mechanism @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @koseskalab.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · Apr 19

Bertrand Russell, writing on the other side of two world wars, on how to heal an ailing and divided world – it is not too late www.themarginalian.org/2019/11/13/e...

Bertrand Russell on How to Heal an Ailing and Divided World

“What is needed in our very complex modern society is calm consideration, with readiness to call dogmas in question and freedom of mind to do justice to the most diverse points of view.”…

www.themarginalian.org

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Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · Apr 17

One thing is to say "thank you", another thing is to imply it even without saying it out loud. Which is not possible in most languages.

What if Gratitude Was Built Into the Grammar?

New post on Aether Mug: aethermug.com/posts/what-...

What if Gratitude Was Built Into the Grammar?

Another Japanese marvel

aethermug.com

Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Nautilus Magazine @nautil.us · Apr 17

Researchers think a single strand of RNA could have done the work of a contemporary protein enzyme. It might even have been capable of replicating itself, helping to explain the origin of life. 🧪

The Incredible Conundrum of Life's Origin

How to solve biology’s chicken-or-egg dilemma

nautil.us

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · Apr 17

Gorgeous vintage Japanese illustrations of animals and scientific phenomena www.themarginalian.org/2019/12/12/k...

Gorgeous Vintage Japanese Illustrations of Animals and Scientific Phenomena

A vibrant minimalist celebration of nature, from the scale of cells and atoms to the scale of elephants and the Moon.

www.themarginalian.org

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Apr 16

Norbert Wieiner, who was a central figure within the field of cybernetics—a precursor to complexity science—is describing below the implications of the compression that automatization entails. Outsourcing a computation to a machine explicitly or implicitly involves the creation of and investment in—

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Steven Strogatz @stevenstrogatz.com · Mar 29

Another day, another proof of the Riemann hypothesis in my inbox

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Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · Mar 27

The responsibility is reciprocal: I'm bad at socials and socials are bad at me.

Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · Mar 25

Thank you for sharing. This send to correspond to the thesis of the book "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids" by Bryan Caplan.

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Reut Avinun, PhD @reutavinun.bsky.social · Mar 24

1/🧵 The biggest parenting myth? That our behavior has ENORMOUS influence on our children. Almost every trait kids develop gets blamed on something parents did (usually mom...). This belief creates massive anxiety. But what does the SCIENCE actually say? #ParentingTips #MomTok

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Marco Giancotti @marco-giancotti.bsky.social · Mar 20

An Aphantasic's Observations on the Imagination of Shapes

aethermug.com/posts/an-aph...

An Aphantasic's Observations on the Imagination of Shapes

Log entry of a scientific test subject

aethermug.com

Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Mike Feigin 🥯 @mikefeigin.bsky.social · Mar 20

This will never stop blowing my mind.

Jake Wintermute @synbio1.bsky.social · Mar 3

I know that the mRNA is larger than the protein it codes for but I don't believe it

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Reposted by Marco Giancotti

Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · Mar 15

How to know that there's life on a planet? What biosignatures can be detected? In a 1993 @nature.com paper, Carl Sagan and his team turned Galileo's spacecraft towards our planet. Here's what they found and the lessons for future exoplanet research nature.com/articles/365...

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