Тред. Коллективное поведение. ⬇️ 1. В природе мы находим множество изящных узоров и завораживающих движений. Одной из полезнейших и удивительных способностей мозга является распознавание паттернов. Оно позволяет нам восхищаться красотой и извлекать информацию из паттернов.

28% of students across the OECD say classmates are distracted by digital devices during most or all science lessons. But the new PISA shows schools with phones bans or subject-specific rules tend to report lower levels of distraction. Learn more: oecd.org/en/publications/202…

A cat co-authored a scientific paper in 1975, when his owner, a physicist named Jack H. Hetherington, decided to add him as a second author to avoid changing the plural pronouns in his manuscript. The cat’s name was Chester, and he was given the pen name F.D.C. Willard, which stood for Felix Domesticus, Chester. Willard was also the name of Chester’s father. The paper was about atomic behavior at different temperatures, and it was published in Physical Review Letters, a prestigious physics journal. Chester’s co-authorship was revealed when Hetherington sent some signed copies of the paper to his friends and colleagues, and included the cat’s paw prints as his signature. The story became widely known and amused many people in the scientific community. Chester even published another paper as the sole author in 1980, in a French popular science magazine. He died in 1982, but he is still remembered as the first and only cat to have authored a published scientific paper.

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The people most confident in their political views know the least about politics (FOK = feeling of knowing; CJ = confidence judgments.) stevestewartwilliams.com/p/t…

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Прогулка по кампусу. Осеннее. 🍁

Хочется выучить иностранный язык.

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From my daughter

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Hold up your hands. They look almost identical. But put one on top of the other and they don’t match. Molecules can behave the same way. Two molecules can contain exactly the same atoms, connected in exactly the same way, yet exist as mirror images of each other. Chemists call them enantiomers. And biology cares enormously which “hand” it gets. Proteins are built almost exclusively from L-amino acids. Enzymes and receptors are themselves chiral, so one enantiomer of a molecule can interact with them very differently from its mirror image. That creates a huge challenge for chemists. Make a chiral molecule without controlling the reaction and you can end up with both hands. But when you’re making a medicine, you often want one. The 2026 #NobelPrize in Chemistry recognises work by Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai that helped chemists understand and control how one handedness can dominate. Same atoms. Same bonds. Mirror images. Completely different consequences. That’s the beauty of chemistry.

BREAKING NEWS The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2026 #NobelPrize in Chemistry to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.”

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Autumn skies

Python running on dual CPU hardware. Still sluggish.

20 years ago, Anna Politkovskaya was murdered for speaking truth to power in Putin’s Russia. She exposed the brutality of war. She gave a voice to its victims. And she refused to be intimidated into silence. This cost her life. But her memory is carried by so many to this day. Press freedom in Russia has now only been crushed further. But Anna’s voice continues to travel far beyond Russia’s borders. She remains a symbol of courage, of fearless journalism and of the power of truth in the face of oppression. Today, we honour Anna’s legacy. And we think of all those who continue the work she gave her life for.

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Thanks to the discoveries that are being recognised by the #NobelPrize in Chemistry 2026, chemists have gained fundamental new tools for use in their daily work but, above all, these discoveries have contributed to solving one of chemistry’s greatest mysteries: how homochirality – like that found in all living beings – can be created. The Soai reaction – developed by 2026 laureate Kenso Soai – has awakened new enthusiasm in chemists who want to understand the life’s origins. Around the world, researchers are now trying to repeat Soai’s achievement, but with the aim of producing homochiral amino acids and sugars. The non-linear effects that fellow laureate Henri B. Kagan discovered have become an important tool for chemists when they design new reactions. The fact that a reaction is non-linear provides chemists with information about how it occurs. This information can be used to optimise the reaction, so they can obtain the purest possible enantiomers of the product. This is vital for every company that manufactures substances that are intended to interact with living beings, such as pharmaceuticals, flavours, scents and agricultural chemicals. In some cases, it is also important in the production of new materials.