Aug 21, 2026 · 4 min listen · Last updated August 21, 2026
From storyflo. This is your daily audio brief. Chloe, August 21st. The morning read — ten things in health worth the eight minutes. Let's get into it. First, from Big Think. Terance Tao: Understanding 6 essential mathematical concepts. Terence Tao has spent decades solving problems most people can’t even state, and he says he’s never had a single eureka moment.
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Daily Science Brief · August 21st
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Terence Tao has spent decades solving problems most people can’t even state, and he says he’s never had a single eureka moment. In this conversation, the UCLA mathematician and Fields Medalist breaks math down to six essential ideas: numbers, algebra, geometry, probability, analysis, and dynamics. This video Terance Tao: Understanding 6 essential mathematical concepts is featured on Big Think.
Ask Ethan: Does uneven cosmic expansion change our fate?
One of the greatest achievements of the past 100 years is learning our place in the Universe: where it came from, how it got to be the way it is today, and what its ultimate fate will be. A century ago, we didn’t even know that the Universe was expanding; today, we know: - how fast it’s expanding, - how fast it was expanding all throughout cosmic history, - what the Universe is made of (dark energy, dark matter, normal matter, and a little bit of radiation and neutrinos), - that it began with the inflation-triggeres hot Big Bang, - and how the Universe should end: in a heat death, driven by…
NASA abandons orbit-boost attempt to rescue Swift space telescope
The mission to rescue NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory space telescope may be in need of some rescuing itself. Due to multiple malfunctions in the LINK spacecraft's attitude control system, space engineers have decided to abandon the boost attempt. Category: Space Systems, Engineering Tags: Swift Satellite, NASA, Satellite
Hermit crabs and cockroaches emerge as unlikely seed dispersers on a Japanese island
In the humid, coastal forests of Japan’s Ishigaki Island, near Okinawa, a parasitic plant relies on some unusual allies to spread its seeds: land hermit crabs and cockroaches, according to a recent study. The plant, fungus root (Balanophora fungosa), is non-photosynthetic, meaning it lacks chlorophyll and can’t make its own food. Instead, it grows as a parasite on the roots of trees in island forests across Asia, Australia and the Pacific. The mushroom-like plant has fleshy, dull-colored fruits with millions of seeds inside.
AI-driven literature mining speeds discovery of heat-stable lead-free dielectric materials
Artificial intelligence has analyzed data scattered across hundreds of research papers to discover new lead-free dielectric materials that maintain stable performance even at high temperatures. The study presents a new approach that could transform materials discovery from a trial-and-error process into a data-driven one.
Global access to food crops is affected by transport costs and economic inequality
Producing enough food is only one part of ensuring global food security. A new study shows that transport networks and economic inequality are important factors in determining global food accessibility. A research team led by the University of Oulu, together with researchers from Aalto University and Pellervo Economic Research (PTT), Finland, developed a new spatial accessibility framework to examine how effectively global transport systems connect food supply with demand under different economic and disruption scenarios.
Large Hadron Collider Reveals an Atomic Nucleus Shaped Like a Bowling Pin
Every atom of matter in the Universe is built around a nucleus. It's a tightly packed bundle of protons and neutrons that makes up the atomic core, defines its elemental identity, and contains most of its mass. Textbooks often depict this blob of particles as a sort of spherical raspberry, around which electrons whirl in a series of orbits – but that isn't always the most accurate picture. Now, in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, physicists have found evidence of one of those shapes: a nucleus structured like a bowling pin lurking inside every atom of neon.
America's First Legal Psilocybin Program Treated 346 People. Here's What Happened.
For those living in the shadow of mental health conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression, finding a way forward can sometimes feel impossible – especially when conventional treatments have offered little succor. Psilocybin, a psychoactive chemical found in some mushrooms, spent decades being demonized as an illicit drug. But now, results from the first state-regulated psilocybin program in the US suggest the drug could offer a glimmer of hope beyond the confines of clinical trials.
We are above full employment and have been for years. That means we have plenty of jobs. So it is a bit perplexing why we are using tax money to attract low wage, POVERTY GENERATING jobs. How exactly is tax money involved? Many companies are brought to or encouraged to stay in South Dakota through “economic development” organizations affiliated with our state, county, city (Aberdeen, Mitchell, Rapid City, Sioux Falls), and township governments. These “economic development” organizations are funded by our tax dollars.
COVID-19 Vaccines And Excess Mortality - Why Does Scientific Correction Take Such A Long Time?
In 2024, I wrote about a really bad paper that had just been published. It was causing a massive hubbub because the authors of the study were claiming that COVID-19 vaccines had likely caused a lot of deaths across the world in 2021 and 2022, and that COVID-19 itself was mostly harmless. While that was a common claim during the pandemic, this was a paper published in the leading journal BMJ Public Health, lending the ideas significant credibility. The paper itself was terrible.