These sources are a mixed set of research papers and science writing. Pages describe what each reports, and none of them is medical advice. This page lists fourteen sources, oldest first where dated.
Spontaneous Emergence of Hierarchy in Biological Systems
The thesis collects six research chapters under advisor Michael Deem. Topics range from protein networks to world trade, influenza, CRISPR and antibody genes. The evidence is computational analysis of sequence, network and trade data.
Psychological impact of polygamous marriage on women and children: a systematic review and meta-analysis
The review pools 23 cross-sectional studies from a few countries. It reports higher depression among women and higher symptom scores among children in polygamous marriages. The authors say causation cannot be shown and most studies come from Arab societies.
Ten Basic Clouds
This is an educational page from NOAA's JetStream site. It lists ten cloud types in three height bands, with a short definition of each. The definitions come from the World Meteorological Organization's cloud atlas. The page is reference text with no experiments.
A primer on molecular dynamics
The post is a self-taught explainer written after about a month of study. It walks through system setup, force fields, equilibration, production runs and free energy. It then reads two published papers using these ideas.
Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss
The paper combines human fat biopsies with a detailed mouse study of fat cells. It reports lasting changes in gene activity and chromatin marks after weight loss. Mice carrying these changes regained weight faster on a high-fat diet. The authors state that causation is not proven.
First baby born in UK to woman with transplanted womb
The thread has 300 points and comments from many users. Much of it drifts from the news into debates on gender, cloning and evolution. It offers opinion, anecdote and a few links, not new evidence.
A generic non-invasive neuromotor interface for human-computer interaction
The paper comes from CTRL-labs at Reality Labs. It reports a wristband, a large training set and tests with new users. Evidence includes offline accuracy, closed-loop speeds and comparisons with a trackpad and a game controller.
Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk" letter to Gottfried Leibniz
The post presents a partly transcribed letter from the Royal Society archives. The author argues it shows an early hacker mindset. Evidence is one letter, a few quotes, and the author's own reading.
Brain has five 'eras' with adult mode not starting until early 30s
The thread has 324 points and comments from many users. It mixes personal stories, doubts about the study and side debates on parenting and law. It offers anecdote and argument, not new data.
FDA approves first gene therapy for treatment of genetic hearing loss
The source is a long thread, not the press release. It mixes medical caveats, personal stories and heated exchanges. Topics include federal policy and Deaf culture. The FDA release supplies the trial figures.
Atomically precise mechanosynthesis of carbon structures on hydrogenated Si(100) by inverted-mode STM
The paper describes placing C2 units on hydrogen-covered silicon at 4 K. Evidence is microscope images matched to simulations, plus outcome counts from hundreds of attempts. The authors work for the company that funded the study.
How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really?
The essay tallies particles under different counting rules, from 17 up to 995.5. It draws on interviews with four physicists and one 2011 theorem. It describes the counts but does not prove them.
We accidentally built a synthetic cell factory
The CEO of b.next tells how an open toolkit became a factory. The post is a company narrative with photos and a few counts. It offers no performance data for the kits.
Animals could easily be talking to us if we tried
The post is two short paragraphs. It proposes a wearable rig that sends a dog's brain data to an AI. The AI would predict speech. It offers argument only, with no test or prototype.
Connections to other subjects
These links are this wiki's own reading, not claims the sources make.
- Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk" letter to Gottfried Leibniz and Ideonomy: A Science of Ideas, from Mind, attention and practice. Leibniz wanted a language that would automate scientific reasoning. Gunkel wanted ideas listed and combined by rule. Kind argues language models can now do what Gunkel could not. Has the old dream returned, with statistics in place of logic?
- Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss and Agents Don't Need Memory. They Need Documentation., from File-based agent memory. Liao says stale snippets survive because retrieval ranks by similarity, not currency. Hinte and colleagues find fat cells keeping obesity-linked marks after weight loss. Memory can outlast the reason for it. Neither system seems able to mark an entry as outdated.
Glossary
- AAV vector
- A harmless virus used to carry a gene into cells.
- Adipose tissue
- Body fat, made mostly of fat-storing cells called adipocytes.
- Antiparticle
- A twin of a particle with opposite electric charge.
- ATAC-seq
- A method that finds regions of DNA that are open and accessible.
- Atomically precise fabrication
- Building structures with every atom placed at a chosen position.
- Bariatric surgery
- Stomach surgery used to cause large weight loss.
- Boson
- A particle that carries a force, or the Higgs particle.
- Brain eras
- The study's name for periods of brain organization that change at certain ages.
- Brain-computer interface
- A system that turns nerve or brain signals into computer commands.
- Character error rate
- The share of typed characters that differ from the intended text.
- Characteristica Universalis
- Leibniz's planned universal symbolic language for expressing and mechanising reasoning.
- Chirality
- A left or right handedness of matter particles, which are mirror images.
- Closed-loop
- Tested live, with the user seeing the result of the decoder in real time.
- Codependency
- A pattern of imbalanced relationships where one person enables another's harmful behavior.
- Compositional age
- A thesis method that dates a protein by how many old amino acids it contains.
- Confidence interval
- A range that shows the uncertainty around an estimate.
- Corona
- A coloured ring close around the sun or moon.
- CRISPR
- A bacterial immune system that stores snippets of virus DNA as spacers.
- Cross-sectional study
- A study that measures people at a single point in time.
- Cybernetics
- The study of control and communication in machines and living things, named by Norbert Wiener.
- Cyberpunk
- A science fiction genre about high technology, urban sprawl and do-it-yourself counterculture.
- Cytosol
- The post's name for PURE-like defined materials sold as kits for building synthetic cells.
- Dangling bond
- An unpaired bond on a surface atom that can react.
- Deaf culture
- The shared language and community of many people who are Deaf, centered on sign language.
- Degrees of freedom
- The independent ways a field or particle can vary.
- Enhanced sampling
- Tricks that change the simulation rules to explore molecular states faster.
- Enhancer
- A DNA stretch that boosts the activity of a gene.
- Epigenetic
- Chemical marks on DNA or its packaging that alter gene activity, not the sequence.
- Equilibration
- A warm-up stage that brings the system to the target temperature and pressure.
- Femtosecond
- One millionth of a billionth of a second, the usual simulation time step.
- Fermion
- A matter particle, such as an electron or a quark.
- Force field
- A set of equations and constants that give the energy of a molecular system.
- Functional ultrasound
- A non-invasive imaging method that tracks changes in blood flow in the brain.
- Gene regulatory network
- The web of genes that switch each other on and off during development.
- Gene therapy
- A treatment that gives cells a working copy of a faulty gene.
- Gluon
- The particle that carries the strong force between quarks.
- Halo
- A ring of light seen around the sun or moon.
- Histone mark
- A chemical tag on DNA-packaging proteins that can turn genes up or down.
- Hydrogen-passivated
- Covered with hydrogen atoms so the surface is unreactive.
- Immunosuppressants
- Drugs that weaken the immune system so it does not reject a transplant.
- IVF
- In vitro fertilization, where an egg is fertilized outside the body.
- Longitudinal study
- A study that follows the same people over time.
- Mechanosynthesis
- Building chemical bonds by positioning molecules with mechanical motion, not heat or light.
- Meta-analysis
- A statistical pooling of results from several studies.
- Microchimerism
- A few cells from another person, such as a fetus, living in the body.
- Modularity
- The degree to which a network splits into groups that link mostly inside themselves.
- Molecular dynamics
- A computer method that simulates how atoms move over time under physical forces.
- Motor unit action potential
- The electrical pulse from one nerve cell and the muscle fibres it drives.
- MRKH syndrome
- A rare condition where the womb is missing or underdeveloped from birth.
- Odds ratio
- A measure comparing how likely an outcome is in one group against another.
- OTOF
- A gene needed for otoferlin, a protein that passes sound signals in the ear.
- Plasmid
- A small DNA loop used to carry a gene into a host.
- Polygamy
- Marriage involving more than two spouses, mostly one husband with several wives in these studies.
- Prefrontal cortex
- The front part of the brain linked to planning and self-control.
- Promoter
- A DNA stretch near a gene where its reading begins.
- PURE system
- A defined mix of purified proteins, tRNA and ribosomes that makes proteins in a tube.
- QM/MM
- A simulation method combining quantum mechanics near the reaction with simpler mechanics elsewhere.
- Quantum field theory
- A mathematical framework treating particles as ripples in fields that fill space.
- Ribosome
- The molecular machine that builds proteins from genetic instructions.
- Royal Society
- A learned society of scientists founded in England in the 17th century.
- Scanning tunnelling microscope (STM)
- An instrument that images surfaces atom by atom with a current through a sharp tip.
- SCL-90
- A 90-item questionnaire that scores a range of psychological symptoms.
- SEMG
- Surface electromyography, which records muscle electrical signals through the skin.
- Si(100)
- A common flat face of a silicon crystal.
- Single-arm trial
- A study with no control group, compared against known outcomes.
- Single-nucleus RNA sequencing
- A method that reads which genes are active in each cell nucleus.
- Standard Model
- The set of equations describing all known elementary particles and their interactions except gravity.
- Synthetic cell
- A cell-like system built from defined parts rather than grown from a living cell.
- Systematic review
- A review that searches for and screens studies by set rules.
- TRNA
- Short RNA molecules that bring amino acids to the ribosome during protein making.
- VDJ recombination
- The shuffling of gene segments that creates varied antibodies.
- Virga
- Streaks of rain that evaporate before reaching the ground.
- Voice AI
- Software that turns data or text into spoken audio.
- WMO
- The World Meteorological Organization, which sets worldwide standards for weather observation.
- Womb transplant
- A surgery that places a donor uterus in a recipient to carry a pregnancy.