# this and that (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 3 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover this and that. Page: Feed: --- ## [Breakthrough: New Type of Matter Discovered](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/breakthrough-new-type-of-matter.html) _2026-08-20 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ Scientists have discovered a new type of matter. Inside a cooled crystal, structures spontaneously arranged themselves into a three dimensional weave, and they did it at around room temperature. The researchers can even rewrite parts of the pattern with a laser. News like this doesn't come every day. Let's take a look. ## [New Universes Can Form Inside Dying Stars, Physicists Show](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/new-universes-can-form-inside-dying.html) _2026-08-19 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ Could our universe have been born inside a collapsing star? That idea recently made headlines, and I got a lot of questions about it. The paper behind them describes a new solution to Einstein's equations in which a collapsing star expands on the inside and never forms a black hole. Let's take a look. ## [Alien Spacecraft Are On the Moon, Astronomers Claim. Seriously now?](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/alien-spacecraft-are-on-moon.html) _2026-08-18 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ A group of astronomers say they've spotted more than twenty giant unidentified objects racing around the Moon, some of them forty kilometres across, and that the Moon serves as a base for them. The daily mail loved it. My bullshit meter did not survive it. But underneath all this nonsense there's a serious question that almost nobody is looking into. Let's take a look. ## [Two Dimensions of Time Explain Quantum Physics, Physicist Argues](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/two-dimensions-of-time-explain-quantum.html) _2026-08-17 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ You've probably heard that quantum mechanics is spooky, that measuring one particle instantly affects another across any distance. A physicist now says there's a reason: the universe doesn't have one dimension of time, but two. It sounds absurd, but he's got the maths and even a way to test it. Genius or nonsense? Let's take a look. ## [Plot Twist: Life on Earth had TWO Origins!](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/plot-twist-life-on-earth-had-two-origins.html) _2026-08-16 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ The origin of life is one of the biggest mysteries left in science. Now a group of researchers says there wasn't just one originsttr, there were two. And I want to explain why, despite how impossibly long ago it all happened, I'm actually optimistic that we'll one day work out how life began. Let's take a look. ## [Scientists Solve Mystery of Earth’s Continents](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/scientists-solve-mystery-of-earths.html) _2026-08-15 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ How special is Earth? It's one of those questions that runs through all of science, and here's a version of it most people have never thought about: why does our planet even have continents? A group of geologists now says the answer lies somewhere unexpected, in the shape of the Milky Way itself. Let's take a look. ## [The War on AI Has Begun](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-war-on-ai-has-begun.html) _2026-08-13 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ The war on artificial intelligence is no longer just online arguments and complaints about data centers. Something has shifted, and law enforcement has noticed. Where did this new anti-technology movement come from, who's behind it, and where is it heading next? Let's take a look. ## [Neuroscientists Have Been Misreading Brain Scans for Decades](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/neuroscientists-have-been-misreading.html) _2026-08-12 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ Neuroscientists have long assumed that when a brain region becomes more active, more blood flows to it. That assumption is the entire basis of functional magnetic resonance imaging. A new paper now says it's wrong for about 40% of the signals, and it isn't the only recent study to find that a lot of what we thought we knew about the brain rests on bad measurements. Let's take a look. ## [Dunning Kruger Effect Wrong, Scientists Claim](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/dunning-kruger-effect-wrong-scientists.html) _2026-08-11 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ The dumber you are, the more certain you are that you aren't. That's the Dunning-Kruger effect, and it's been used to explain everything from bad politicians to the state of social media. Now psychologists have gone back to the biggest dataset we have and come out with the opposite conclusion. But there's a reason both sides can look at the same dots and see the opposite thing. Let's take a look. ## [Our Most Dangerous Labs Have a Problem No One Wants to Fix](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/our-most-dangerous-labs-have-problem-no.html) _2026-08-07 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ A worker at a US government lab got bitten by a monkey carrying a deadly virus, and it turned out nobody knew what to do about it. Around the same time, someone from the same lab tried to smuggle outbreak samples into the country. All of this while everyone's worried about AI making bioweapons. Let's take a look. ## [Ship software peacefully (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/9zdLrmDjy0Qd) _2026-08-07 · **Sponsored**_ Connect your repo and deploy instantly — Railway handles config, scaling, and monitoring. ## [The Fermi Paradox Just Got Much Worse](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-fermi-paradox-just-got-much-worse.html) _2026-08-06 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Physicists Say They’ve Found The Origin Of Causality](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/physicists-say-theyve-found-origin-of.html) _2026-08-04 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Origin of Time Tested in Experiment With Mini-Universe](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/origin-of-time-tested-in-experiment.html) _2026-08-02 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Russia Is Drilling 8 km Down to Prove Oil Never Runs Out](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/08/russia-is-drilling-8-km-down-to-prove.html) _2026-08-01 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [(untitled)](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/everywhere-it-turns-out-is-warming.html) _2026-07-31 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [(untitled)](http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/everywhere-it-turns-out-is-warming.html) _2026-07-31 · Sabine Hossenfelder · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ Everywhere, it turns out, is warming faster than the rest of the world. Every region, every country, all of them, faster than the rest. You may sense a slight problem with this. The headlines are real, the papers are real, and yet something doesn't add up. Let's take a look. ## [You probably misunderstand the double slit experiment](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/you-probably-misunderstand-double-slit.html) _2026-07-20 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Academia's Dirty Secret Is Going to Court](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/academias-dirty-secret-is-going-to-court.html) _2026-07-19 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Scientists Have Figured Out How to Make Antigravity](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/scientists-have-figured-out-how-to-make.html) _2026-07-17 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Aliens Can Talk To Us Through Psychedelics, Scientists Claim](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/aliens-can-talk-to-us-through.html) _2026-07-16 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Ship everywhere from one CLI (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/yVcY6U2ungHe) _2026-07-16 · **Sponsored**_ One codebase, hosted runners, encrypted credentials, and automated submissions across stores ## [Mathematicians Explain The Universe’s Expansion Without Dark Matter](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/mathematicians-explain-universes.html) _2026-07-14 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [The Electric Car Revolution Is Not Going Well](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-electric-car-revolution-is-not.html) _2026-07-12 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [This New Laser Is Based On Black Hole Physics](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/this-new-laser-is-based-on-black-hole.html) _2026-07-11 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Physicists Just Broke One Of Quantum Physics’ Biggest Restraints](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/physicists-just-broke-one-of-quantum.html) _2026-07-09 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Our Solar System Lost Two Planets](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/our-solar-system-lost-two-planets.html) _2026-07-08 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Physicists Say They Know the Origin of Gravity](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/physicists-say-they-know-origin-of.html) _2026-07-07 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [The Biggest Argument for Dark Matter Just Died](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-biggest-argument-for-dark-matter.html) _2026-07-02 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Strange Things Are Happening in Quantum Computing](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/06/strange-things-are-happening-in-quantum.html) _2026-06-30 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [Consciousness Comes From Quantum Processes, Physicist Claims](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/06/what-if-your-consciousness-comes-from.html) _2026-06-27 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [The Future of AI No One Wants to Talk About](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-future-of-ai-no-one-wants-to-talk.html) _2026-06-24 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_ ## [AI News Summaries & Audio (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/kfCa9SeYJclU) _2026-06-24 · **Sponsored**_ Tap an article for an AI summary and an audio briefing. ## [Controversy Erupts over Expansion of Universe: Nobel Prize Awarded in Error?](https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2026/06/controversy-erupts-over-expansion-of.html) _2026-06-23 · noreply@blogger.com (Sabine Hossenfelder) · Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction_