- Thanks to AI, Computers Can Now See Your Health Problems - Diagnoses that took months, or even years, can now be done by smart computer and intelligence systems in a few minutes. This is something that should revolutionise healthcare.
If this all feels a little scarily sci-fi to you, it’s useful to remember that doctors have been trusting computers with your diagnoses for a long time. That’s because machines are much more sensitive at both detecting and analyzing the many subtle indications that our bodies are misbehaving.
In that way, machines are an extension of what medicine has always been: A science that grows more powerful with every new data point. - Here’s What You Get When You Design a Chair With Algorithms - As a follow-up to the previous piece, this.
The software churned out hundreds of designs, optimizing as it went. It shaved dead weight and adjusted joint placement to improve load-bearing abilities, creating thinner, more intricate structures. The look and feel of the final object did not originate in the designer’s mind, but it requires his sign-off.
- What’s the Strangest Thing You’ve Found in a Library Book? - Delightful list. Here’s my favourite.
$100. When I called the most recent patron, she wasn’t home, but her husband took the call. Respecting privacy, I simply said, “We have something at the front desk that she may have left in a book.” His response, “Has she been using cash as a bookmark again?” - Why it’s impossible to herd cats - Evolution says it! Cats see no benefit in living together, and thus they live alone. This is a nicely articulated piece.
- One Last Pilgrimage Before Dying - This is about a place in Varanasi, India (woot, I have international subscribers now!) called Mumukshu Bhavan, which is a place people come to when they are dying. Dying in Varanasi is supposed to be auspicious, and this place is unique; not a hospice, not a hospital, just a place to be and die.
- Can Your Language Influence Your Spending, Eating, and Smoking Habits? - The classic correlation-causation debate. This is an interesting article!
Chen wondered whether languages with weak future tenses would be more thoughtful about the future because they consider it, grammatically, equivalent to the present. He mapped stronger and weak future-tense languages across Europe and correlated the data with future-oriented behaviors like saving, smoking, and using condoms. - Meet the Robin Hood of Science - The world of science and academia is supposed to be communal, nice and rosy, but it isn’t. This is the story of Alexandra Elbakyan, a Kazakh researcher, who has brought many of the walls in science crashing down with Sci-Hub, a service that has truly democratised research.
- Preserving Hong Kong’s Vanishing Martial Arts - Kung fu is under threat in the very city that gave the world Bruce Lee. Can an ambitious new digital project preserve some of its arcane forms or even revive interest in it among a new generation?
- The Disease of Being Busy - This is from On Being, a philosophical blog that I quite like.
Let us insist on a type of human-to-human connection where when one of us responds by saying, “I am just so busy,” we can follow up by saying, “I know, love. We all are. But I want to know how your heart is doing.” - A Nauseous Nocturne by Bill Watterson - Something I only found now. Rhyme and Calvin and Hobbes, things I like best.
Have a great week ahead. :)