Your cat is leaving a chemical on your face. Its name is F4. The translation is “you’re family,” and cats only leave it on people and animals they trust. F4 was identified in 1998 by a French researcher named Patrick Pageat.
— Anish Moonka (@anishmoonka) April 29, 2026
Pageat found five different chemicals coming out of… https://t.co/E99rR1y0c6
Category Archives: Science And Society
Intelligence Versus Wisdom
Interesting thoughts. One of the purposes of the Senate was to be the wise house, to tamp down the impetuosity of the People’s House. We lost a lot of that with the 17th Amendment.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: “An AI trained on engagement will optimize for engagement. An AI trained on profit will optimize for profit. An AI trained on wisdom would optimize for something else entirely, but we would have to know what wisdom looks like before we could train for it. And we have spent the last century systematically dismantling every institution that once tried to answer that question.”
Project Hail Mary
We saw it a week ago and, while it was a good movie, I wasn’t as blown away by it as many seem to have been. But Matt Shapiro thought it was great.
Cats And Cancer
They could be useful in understanding it for humans as well.
This is of particular current interest, given that we just spent several thousand dollars for surgery for one of the cats to remove a tumor in the small intestine. Fortunately, it appears that they got it all, and the prognosis for the 7YO is good.
Convenient BS
The legacy of Al Gore’s religious polemic, twenty years on.
He, I think more than anyone, was responsible for the politicization of science.
Project Hail Mary
Peter Suderman likes it.
[Afternoon update]
You're watching a $248 million film and not a single green or blue screen was used. The alien is a handmade puppet. The cockpit physically rotates to simulate gravity. I looked at the production tech behind this 95% score, and the engineering is wild.
— Anish Moonka (@AnishA_Moonka) March 20, 2026
Phil Lord and Chris Miller,… https://t.co/dNqGFCikE3
[Late-afternoon update]
Most movies, I leave going “yes, but.”
— Stephen Fleming (@StephenFleming) March 20, 2026
“Yes, but the lighting was too dim.”
“Yes, but the sound mix was terrible.”
“Yes, but they skipped this major plot point.” (If based on a book.)
“Yes, but they completely miscast this character.”
Not “Project Hail Mary.” It hits all the…
Paul Ehrlich
Given a chance, he would have been a greater mass murderer than Mao.
“Because It’s Wrong”
The hard but essential life of the error corrector. I’m that kind of person.
Understanding Space Policy
A long but what looks to be interesting series, by my friend Bhavya Lal. It could eventually be a textbook on the subjectc.
The Fall Of The NGO-Administrative Complex
A comprehensive description of what America has been fighting for decades, even while largely unaware that it existed, by @DataRepublican.