Around the Web 28

The Origin of Goosebumps 🦆, Color Blindness 🎨, and Why Numbers Don’t Lie 🔢

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For books I have read, reviewed, or currently read, go to the end of the newsletter.

[Talking🗣️points for your next outing📍]

🦆 Why do human get goosebumps

✝The first millennial saint?

💻May 2024: US tech job market is wild

🦷The world’s first tooth-regrowing drug

[Long Read 📰 / Video 🎥]

[I]: Coleman Hughes on Color Blindness

Commentary on race in America, race & culture in general.

[II]: Recommended Movies

Two very fine movies I have seen recently: The Anatomy of a Fall  &  A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

[III]: The Mystical Hermit of Alaska

I have watched a few videos from this relatively new YouTube channel, called Harmony. I like their documentaries. If you are an (Orthodox)  Christian, you will probably enjoy it better. This one is about Saint Herman a monk who ventured to Alaska in the year 1794.

[IV]:  Rare Genetic Variation Protects against Alzheimer’s Disease

Very interesting work here: The researchers discovered protective genetic variations in elderly individuals carrying the APOEε4 allele, which is linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). By analyzing whole-genome sequencing data, they identified rare variants in genes related to the extracellular matrix (ECM), particularly FN1 and COL6A2, which are expressed at the blood-brain barrier. A specific variant in FN1 was found to protect against AD and delay its onset. This discovery suggests that targeting ECM-related pathways could offer new strategies to mitigate AD risk in APOEε4 carriers.

[V]: Do Numbers Exist?  

I very much enjoyed this short video debate between two eminent philosophers, Peter Van Inwagen and William Lane Craig about whether numbers do in fact exist.

Van Inwagen is the Platonist, he believes that abstract objects like numbers are just as real as the fundamental physical entities like electrons (I suppose a scientific antirealist might not even agree that electrons are real, but that is a separate kettle of fish, one we can certainly fry at a later date). He argues that we cannot get along without affirming the truth of sentences quantifying over abstracta and that their truth commits us to the reality of such entities.

Craig, in the debate makes an antirealist case for the existence of numbers. I have an essay in the works based on this discussion, I can’t wait to publish it.  

[VI]: AI Writing and Illustrating Produce Fewer Carbon Emissions

The carbon emissions of writing and illustrating are lower for AI than for humans

“As AI systems proliferate, their greenhouse gas emissions are an increasingly important concern for human societies. In this article, we present a comparative analysis of the carbon emissions associated with AI systems (ChatGPT, BLOOM, DALL-E2, Midjourney) and human individuals performing equivalent writing and illustrating tasks. Our findings reveal that AI systems emit between 130 and 1500 times less CO2e per page of text generated compared to human writers, while AI illustration systems emit between 310 and 2900 times less CO2e per image than their human counterparts. Emissions analyses do not account for social impacts such as professional displacement, legality, and rebound effects. In addition, AI is not a substitute for all human tasks. Nevertheless, at present, the use of AI holds the potential to carry out several major activities at much lower emission levels than can humans.”

[Books 📚]

Book(s) recently completed:

-       All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot [Review]

-       Numbers Don’t Lie by Vaclav Smil [Review]

-       Build by Tony Fadell [Review]

What I am currently reading:

The Master and His Emissary