Articles tagged with "matter"

Microsoft released a video last week claiming they have created a new state of matter, a base building block for their efforts to make a new type of quantum computer using “topological superconductors”:

This one surprised me a little. I fed GPT-2 about a dozen holy texts, with the intention of generating some text that was their distilled, combined wisdom. Instead, what I received each time I ran the generator was an attempt to recreate text from just one of the books I'd trained it on. The results are impressive - although the text generated by deep learning doesn't always make a huge amount of sense, I think it could be reasonably argued that the same is the case for genuine holy texts!

In case you've missed it there is an awful lot going on in the Skeptical world all the time, right here in New Zealand.

Luke Oldfield discusses the art of engaging with a 'Non-Opinion'

Having a basic knowledge of the principles of chemistry can help one evade the pitfalls of many pseudosciences - but it's not infallible. This article is based on a presentation to the 2011 NZ Skeptics Conference.

Apparently mediums and the paranormal have replaced cop shows as the latest television drama genre of choice -- if you are to believe TV3's marketing, whether news or promo puff pieces, there's fact behind the fiction. Yeah right....

WE WERE skeptical. We demanded you respond to our clarion call for pithy pieces -- but only a few of you pithed on us. For this we are grateful and we have sent suitable telepathic gifts to all of you, for which you should be grateful. But seriously, a couple of readers have queried our policy on the format of submissions which they've interpreted as meaning we don't accept handwritten copy. Wrong. Our eyesight is sometimes challenged by the individualistic handwriting styles we sometimes see, so we prefer typed or disc-supplied copy because we can then guarantee accuracy. But above all, we encourage you enthusiastically to send interesting forum pieces in whatever format you have available. The only criteria we use in selecting pieces for the forum is their value and interest to readers. The writer of the best piece published in the next issue will receive the definitive volume on proven homeopathic remedies.

On the National Programme recently, Vicki Hyde mentioned a claim that a bird had changed one element to another inside one of its vital organs.

In your November 1987 issue, Dennis Dutton (page 3) asks whether it matters that sick people, especially cancer sufferers, are not discouraged from using "alternative" or "complementary" treatments, The answer of course is the one that he himself has given: it does and it doesn't.