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Sam Kean

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Articles

  • The Would-Be Saint's Battle over Down Syndrome

    2 weeks ago | player.fm | Sam Kean |Chris Ryan |Jon Grilz |Rose Eveleth

    After scientists had a handle on how many chromosomes humans have, other researchers began exploring whether certain ailments might be caused by chromosomal abnormalities. To this end, a French cardiologist discovered that Down syndrome was caused by the presence of an extra chromosome in humans. But a colleague stole credit for her work, and the battle over their legacies continues to this day, in part because the colleague is on track to become a certified Catholic saint.

  • ‘Starved for Light’ Review: A Disease of Deficiency

    Dec 8, 2024 | wsj.com | Sam Kean

    Rickets is one of those diseases that seem incredibly old-fashioned. It’s difficult to comprehend, now, how widespread this bone ailment once was: In some cities less than a century ago, 90% of children showed symptoms of rickets during wintertime. But ubiquity has its benefits. In “Starved for Light,” Christian Warren convincingly argues that modern medicine would be unrecognizable without the many advances in treatment that trace their roots to this once-widespread disease.

  • A History of Teeth That's Chock-Full of Trivia to Chew On

    Aug 13, 2024 | nytimes.com | Sam Kean

    BITE: An Incisive History of Teeth, From Hagfish to Humans, by Bill SchuttMark Twain once marveled about science, "One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."Indeed, the 19th-century French biologist Georges Cuvier bragged that he could reconstruct an entire extinct species by looking at a single tooth.

  • We Are the Borg - The American Scholar

    Jun 3, 2024 | theamericanscholar.org | Sam Kean |Ray Kurzweil

    The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil; Viking, 432 pp., $35In the fall of 2014, an MIT cognitive scientist named Tomaso Poggio predicted that humankind was at least 20 years away from building computers that could interpret images on their own. Doing so, declared Poggio, “would be one of the most intellectually challenging things … for a machine to do.” One month later, Google released an AI program that did exactly what he’d deemed impossible.

  • Hot or cold? Hear, hear

    May 19, 2024 | telegraphindia.com | Sam Kean

    Most people are quite good at distinguishing between the sound of a hot liquid and the sound of a cold one being poured, even if they don’t realise it Sam Kean Published 20.05.24, 07:32 AM Most people are quite good at distinguishing between the sound of a hot liquid and the sound of a cold one being poured, even if they don’t realise it.

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