Ruben Ruiz Torrubiano

How Elon Musk’s Sci-Fi Hyperloop Failed Before his misadventures in government efficiency, Musk promised to revolutionize commuting with a subway that would speed passengers between DC and Baltimore in a matter of minutes. The project was a...

A year long investigation into the Hyperloop found …

“The truth was far simpler, far dumber, and far more prescient: Musk and his lieutenants truly had no idea what they were doing.”

washingtonian.com/2026/02/12/h...

Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War A statement from our CEO on national security uses of AI

Amodei’s statement today deserves careful reading. @anthropic.com says it refuses to enable mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons on democratic grounds.

One of the largest tech companies is publicly defending civil liberties against government pressure, and this is meaningful.

Quilicura, Chile, one of the communities I wrote about in EMPIRE OF AI, has launched a brilliant initiative to inspire more responsible AI prompting. Today, don't use AI; ask the townspeople instead: quili.ai. So heartened to see this creative act of resistance.

AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it's getting weird fast Moltbook lets 32,000 AI bots trade jokes, tips, and complaints about humans.

Good take on the "Moltbook" story from @benjedwards.com

arstechnica.com/information-...

Another good take I saw on the other site: "more of a fanfic for AGI than actual AGI". This could describe a whole lot of AI misalignment red-teaming....

More like this please 👍

We can’t ignore the largest source of methane Food is the largest source of human-caused methane – we ignore it at our peril

Three facts:

- Methane has caused ~30% of the warming we have seen so far.

- Curbing methane emissions is also one of the fastest ways to bend the curve on future warming. It’s a “emergency brake”.

- And the food system emits over half of global methane emissions.

drawdown.org/insights/we-...

Weierstrass

Context Widows or, of GPUs, LPUs, and Goal Displacement

open.substack.com/pub/artifici...

LLM use in scholarly writing poses a provenance problem - Nature Machine Intelligence Nature Machine Intelligence - LLM use in scholarly writing poses a provenance problem

www.nature.com/articles/s42...

was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans at all levels in the scientific process. So I stood up and protested that what they are doing is evil.

Full post:
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/plea...

From vincentcarchidi.substack.com/p/language-t...

This is really good 😊

Physicists Take the Imaginary Numbers Out of Quantum Mechanics | Quanta Magazine Quantum mechanics has at last been formulated exclusively with real numbers, bringing a mathematical puzzle at the heart of the theory into a new era of inquiry.

www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-t...

🎉 ICML 2026 Call for Papers (& Position Papers) is here! 🎉

📅 Key Dates
Abstract deadline: Jan 23, 2026 AOE
Paper deadline: Jan 28, 2026 AOE

A few key changes this year:
- Attendance for authors of accepted papers is optional
- Originally submitted version of accepted papers will be made public
...

There's a really great MinutePhysics video about the aesthetics- and physics-based reasons for the number of wind turbine blades: youtu.be/pgqkti7yePk

RealClimate: High-resolution ‘fingerprint’ images reveal a weakening Atlantic Ocean circulation (AMOC) The #AMOC is the reason for Europe’s mild climate. Evidence that it is slowing has been piling up over the years – it now is likely at its weakest in at least a millennium, and it may even be approach...

High resolution images from satellite and from eddy-resolving ocean circulation models point to an ongoing decline of the Atlantic overturning circulation, a key ocean current for our climate. Read more about it in my new blog article. 🌊
www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar...

The Origin of the Research University Universities have existed for more than a thousand years — and for almost all of that time, they weren’t centers of research. What changed in 19th century Germany?

excellent essay: The Origin of the Research University open.substack.com/pub/asterisk...

The 🚀 𝟯𝗿𝗱 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽 𝗼𝗻 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘆𝗺𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗦𝗘 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲) 🚀 will take place in Bern on Feb 24, 2026. If you are interested in submitting to the workshop, check the Call for Papers. Submission deadline this year is 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟬, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱. gense-workshop.github.io

Scientific illustration showing a cross-section of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. It features three labelled layers: An ice shell at the top, with visible cracks releasing jets of water vapour into space; an ocean in the middle, depicted as a large body of water beneath the ice; a rocky core at the bottom, shown emitting heat that may drive the jets. In the background, Saturn and its rings are visible in space.

🆕 The discovery of new complex organic molecules at Saturn's #Enceladus enhances the likelihood that the moon is habitable 🪐

On Earth, these molecules are involved in chemical reaction chains that lead to the more complex molecules essential for life.

Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
🔭 🧪 ☄️

I was shocked when I first saw these results from standard climate models used in IPCC reports: for high emissions, the Atlantic overturning circulation #AMOC shuts down in all 9 models that ran past 2100, and is well on the way to shutdown by 2100.
Our paper on that is out today.🧵

I’m an award-winning mathematician. Trump just cut my funding. The “Mozart of Math” tried to stay out of politics. Then it came for his research.

I wrote an op-ed on the world-class STEM research ecosystem in the United States, and how this ecosystem is now under attack on multiple fronts by the current administration: newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-an-awar...

The AI Was Fed Sloppy Code. It Turned Into Something Evil. | Quanta Magazine The new science of “emergent misalignment” explores how PG-13 training data — insecure code, superstitious numbers or even extreme-sports advice — can open the door to AI’s dark side.

www.quantamagazine.org/the-ai-was-f...

New Method Is the Fastest Way To Find the Best Routes | Quanta Magazine A canonical problem in computer science is to find the shortest route to every point in a network. A new approach beats the classic algorithm taught in textbooks.

For the first time in four decades, a new algorithm has improved upon the speed limit for calculating the fastest route to every point in a network. @benbenbrubaker.bsky.social‬ reports: www.quantamagazine.org/new-method-i...

Earth’s Core Appears To Be Leaking Up and Out of Earth’s Surface | Quanta Magazine Strong new evidence suggests that primordial material from the planet’s center is somehow making its way out. Continent-size entities anchored to the core-mantle boundary might be involved.

Strong new evidence suggests that liquid metal from the center of the Earth is making its way up to the planet’s surface, potentially ferried through two monster-size blobs sitting at the core-mantle boundary. @squigglyvolcano.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/earths-core-...

At 17, Hannah Cairo Solved a Major Math Mystery | Quanta Magazine After finding the homeschooling life confining, the teen petitioned her way into a graduate class at Berkeley, where she ended up disproving a 40-year-old conjecture.

Earlier this year, a 17-year-old high school student named Hannah Cairo solved a 40-year-old mystery about how waves behave, surprising and exciting mathematicians. @kevinhartnett.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/at-17-hannah...

Most organic molecules have a mirror-image twin. This concept is known as chirality. 🧵

1/10

Science Retracts ‘Arsenic Life’ Paper 15 Years After Publication Science, a top research journal, said there was no evidence of misconduct by researchers whose finding attracted heavy attention and scrutiny in social media’s early days.

Arsenic life redux! Science magazine has retracted the 2010 paper. nyti.ms/4mcCbT8 At the time, I wrote a couple pieces for Slate on why other experts didn't buy it. slate.com/technology/2... & slate.com/technology/2...

“Staggering” Water Loss Driven by Groundwater Mining Poses Global Threat A new study finds that freshwater resources are rapidly disappearing, creating arid “mega” regions and causing sea levels to rise.

NEW: “Staggering” Water Loss Driven by Groundwater Mining Poses Global Threat

A new study finds that freshwater resources are rapidly disappearing, creating arid “mega” regions and causing sea levels to rise.

By @abrahm.bsky.social

Great column! As always completely on point