“Éloge: Evelyn Fox Keller and the new biology” by Philip Ball doi.org/10.1177/030801…

Neat! Once again, there's evident value in applying a machine metaphor to structures like this - not least because it really is designed!

Why did Monet have no black paint, though?
And how many kinds of black did Hals think there were?
What are aniline dyes and how were they discovered?
The answers are all in my book Bright Earth.

Really interesting. This crucial developmental process is seemingly determined (i) combinatorially, and (ii) according not so much by what is expressed (good old BMP) but for *how long*. #HowLifeWorks

I've just published an edited extract from my book How Life Works in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ny…

Very impressive, and promising.

LIGO operates with less quantum noise than the standard uncertainty relation seems to make possible. (This doesn't violate any quantum principles; it's a clever trick.)
arxiv.org/abs/2404.14569

It's a question you've often asked yourself. Now, finally, definitively answers, kind of: shepherd.com/best-books/sci…

Handy overview of exoplanet biosignatures.
arxiv.org/abs/2404.15431

The impact of late-might mahjong sessions on marital relationships. Sorry folks, it doesn't look good.
arxiv.org/abs/2404.16871

The shape of the universe could be totally bonkers, like a 3-torus. 'Imagine distorting a cube by bending a pair of opposite sides around until they face each other and then gluing them together. Then imagine the same for the other two pairs.'
physics.aps.org/articles/v17/74