All posts filed under: Science

Information Algorithms Are Proving Deadly in this Pandemic

May 7, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Science

The Internet and its communications technologies are allowing us to work from home in the midst of this pandemic, to stay in touch with each other and “shelter in place” in ways that simply wouldn’t have been possible even 10 years ago. But like most technological advances, it’s become a veritable Sword of Damocles. It has developed so quickly that we simply haven’t had time to adapt completely to what it makes possible. That’s particularly […]

NYT: Coronavirus Antibody Tests: Can You Trust the Results?

April 26, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Science

Before we can re-open things and start the recovery phase of this pandemic, we need to know if people have had COVID-19 and recovered, or if they are still susceptible. I’ve seen speculation about issuing people who’ve recovered some sort of digital certificate of immunity. Possessing the certificate would allow the bearer to enter buildings, return to work, go to church, etc. But there’s a problem. Apparently there are a number of inadequate tests being […]

Rhode Island COVID-19 and the Tuesday jump

April 22, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Rhode Island / Science

Yesterday Rhode Island reported its highest number of new positive tests for coronavirus so far. But is this a cause for worry that things are unexpectedly going sideways, or is it something else? “Dr. Drang”, an engineer and data expert, has noticed a consistent bump in the national numbers every Tuesday for almost a month now: The Tuesday jump – All this: These plots are for the daily figures, and you can see by the […]

Stephen Hawking – a life that pointed to something beyond.

March 14, 2018
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Science

I woke up to the news this morning that Prof. Hawking had died. It’s hard to express the deep admiration people had for his work and the way he surmounted challenges in a way that few others have managed. There will be plenty of articles written about his scientific legacy. But I found this quote at the end of an article by Robert Barr to be the most evocative: Lucy Hawking said her father had […]

Could Self-Driving Trucks lead to more jobs? – The Atlantic

February 1, 2018
by Nicholas Knisely
Futurism / Science

“We’ve been disappointed over the last year to see a lot of stories about how self-driving trucks are going to be this huge problem for truck drivers,” says Alden Woodrow, the product lead for self-driving trucks at Uber. “That’s not at all what we think the outcome is going to be.” For one, Uber does not believe that self-driving trucks will be doing “dock to dock” runs for a very long time. They see a […]

Grace for Creation: free!

April 2, 2016
by Nicholas Knisely
Climate Change / Religion / Science / SOSc / Uncategorized

We have a great tradition of holding classes for parishioners in Lent, but once Easter comes, and Spring springs, we tend to focus on other things. But, what would happen if we tried an Easter class – like a Lent class, but later? Have I got a deal for you: In 2011, the Episcopal Church House of Bishops issued a pastoral letter on the environment. In response, a five-week study course titled A Life of Grace […]

“Science alone cannot save the planet”

November 3, 2015
by Nicholas Knisely
Religion / Science

Anglicans and Orthodox believers are organizing in advance of the upcoming UN Summit on Climate Change: Science alone cannot save the planet the spiritual leader of an estimated 300 million Orthodox Christians has insisted, as he joined forces with the Archbishop of Canterbury urging followers around the world to fight climate change. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, insisted that global warming is a “moral crisis” requiring millions of people to change their day-to-day […]

‘Zeno effect’ verified—atoms won’t move while you watch

October 24, 2015
by Nicholas Knisely
Science

From the Weeping Angels developmental lab: One of the oddest predictions of quantum theory – that a system can’t change while you’re watching it – has been confirmed in an experiment by Cornell physicists. Their work opens the door to a fundamentally new method to control and manipulate the quantum states of atoms and could lead to new kinds of sensors. The experiments were performed in the Utracold Lab of Mukund Vengalattore, assistant professor of […]

Lucas Mix: Toward a definition of Life

October 19, 2015
by Nicholas Knisely
Religion / Science / SOSc

My friend Lucas Mix, who is Warden of the North American Chapter of the Religious Order of which I am a member is working on a definition of “life” – a project which is taking on new significance now that we have found water on Mars… He writes in introduction to a series of posts he’s planning: I would like to suggest five prominent approaches to how we model life. I do not claim these […]