Philip Ball

I'm not complaining because I'm privileged to do what I do. But yes, this is it. It's constantly funny what a lot of people think authors make. "But you must get a lot of royalties from all those books!" 🤣

Condensed-matter physics pioneer and Nobel laureate Anthony Leggett dies aged 87 – Physics World Leggett made Nobel-prize-winning contributions to the theory of superfluidity in the 1970s

#RIP Tony Leggett. He was a great physicist, winning the 2003
Nobel Prize in Physics. He contributed to several fields of physics, just look at his papers: journals.aps.org/search/resul...

He was also an outstanding & thoughtful referee for decades.

physicsworld.com/a/condensed-...

Physicists identify unexpected quantum advantage in a permutation parity task – Physics World The list of things that quantum features enable us to do just got a little longer

If you shuffle a deck of cards and then hide most of the labels on the cards, no-one will know what permutations you made. But in the #quantum world, this intuition fails in surprising ways, hinting at deep links between information, symmetry and computation. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/physicists...

That's a bit surreal. But thank you for letting me know!

Some philosophers have tried to make that case - "who'd object to a society that is collectively more intelligent?" But it's a spurious argument, of course.

It frustrates me that people who are so reluctant to accept that there are other species capable of complex cognition or sentience, yet so quick to assign it to their fancy autocorrect.

Thanks - on both counts. I have that book - everything that Larry writes is worth reading.

Hmm. But then, it was always pretty clear Crick was that way inclined, right?

Thanks - looks really interesting. I'm very glad to see some commentary on this.

I guess another question I have is that why, if polygenic screening for complex traits is truly effective, are the screens on offer always for eg "intelligence" and "attractiveness" and never, say, for "empathy" or "compassion"?

And also that even if "the best you can be" had a meaning, the idea that it is to be found in genes is deeply corrosive both scientifically and socially.

The debate that needs to be had (and bioethicists need to understand this) is that screening for monogenic diseases, while a good thing, is not just the first step on a journey towards the pot of gold that is "the best you can be".

Interesting - and I can believe that. I'm fully on board with having religious POVs as part of this discussion, so long as it's clear this alone gives them no special ethical insight and so long as the POV is a scientifically well-informed one.

For more on genomic screening generally, including plenty of discussion relevant to these issues, see here. (There are links to all the recorded talks.)
adelphigenetics.org/events/annua...

YouTube video by CPM Oxford How life works: Dealing with biology’s changing narrative

I talked about some of these issues here. Polygenic PGD was also explicitly the topic of the discussion I chaired at the end of last year for the annual meeting of Sarah's Progress Educational Trust.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzVZ...

What inspires someone to pursue physics for life?

From discovering general relativity to the encouragement of mentors, women in our community share the moments that shaped their journeys.

This #InternationalWomensDay we’re celebrating women advancing physics and inspiring the next generation. 🌟

I think it's clear from pieces like this that companies like Orchid are selling false promises, at a high price. Consumers need protecting too. "It does allow parents to choose their 'best baby'", the article says. No it doesn't FFS. What does that awful phrase even mean? 4/4

But I don't think it will be easy to convey why that is so unless we have a better standard of discourse about genetics more generally. The word eugenics is rightly floated in this context, but we now understand why early ideas about eugenics were scientifically and not just ethically flawed. /3

...is the reasons for scientific scepticism about these techniques. It's not just that it's early days and there's insufficient data; there are fundamental reasons why the effectiveness of polygenic screening for complex traits will be very limited. /2

Hoping for a ‘perfect’ baby? Genetic testing startups lur... Fertility experts say strict UK laws are no bar to accessing a booming industry that has led to concerns about eugenics

Pretty good overview of the non-medical uses of polygenic screening in IVF - good to see comments from Peter Thompson and Sarah Norcross. The legal position is indeed now hard to enforce in the UK, as the article explains. One thing I'd like to see emphasized more...
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

The quest to understand where atoms end Atomic size measurements like van der Waals and covalent radii are central to chemistry, but are they grounded in reality?

From Dalton's wooden spheres to quantum clouds of probability, the concept of atomic size has evolved dramatically. Phil Ball probes the questions that remain unanswered.

My response to the original post that prompted this (with quopte reposts disabled):
Challenge for those who are very confident that their fridge isn't conscious: Explain how human consciousness works.

Rasmussen Retorts | Substack More pandemics and fewer vaccines are not indicators of a healthy democracy. Click to read Rasmussen Retorts, by Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Bhattacharya is the New Lysenko - Starving the NIH through ineptitude, bitterness, and thirst for revenge rasmussenretorts.substack.com?utm_source=n... - an accurate, unflinching assessment by @angierasmussen.bsky.social

Yes, that language was probably too figurative. The picture I get is of the enzyme channeling some of the reaction free energy into specific degrees of freedom, rather than it just being dissipated.

Yes, I've seen discussions like that - Ramin Golestanian, for example, has talked about it in the context of the PE surface. I knew you'd have good ideas about it too!

Some public-health experts and science commentators were saying this at the time. For all the wonders of rapid tests and then vaccines, we could not science our way out of problems that were not science problems at their core.

Ian has a way of getting to the nub. This is basically the kind of thing I wrote to Tim Davie about in 2020, though I had no idea how bad it would get. Most of the media has not the slightest notion how to handle a situation like this, and instead tries desperately to normalize it.

The idea of a link between Maxwell's demon and living organisms goes back a long way. I'm always a bit surprised that Schrödinger missed it in What Is Life?, not least because (as I say in this piece) he corresponded extensively with Frederick Donnan, who suggested it in the 1920s.

Maxwell’s demon might lurk in enzyme behaviour The controversial process of enhanced enzyme diffusion could enable living systems to resist local equilibrium

When enzymes catalyse reactions, sometimes it seems they receive a little motive kick. This "enhanced enzyme diffusion" is strange and controversial, but a new proposal says it makes them like Maxwell's demon. I examined that notion for @chemistryworld.com
www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/maxw...

They'll be very small businesses. Nano businesses.