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Fire and Cooking: The First Energy Revolution

Fire and Cooking: The First Energy Revolution

Fire and Cooking: The First Energy Revolution Around two million years ago, our ancestors did something no other species had done: they harnessed fire. This wasn't just a convenience. It wasn't just warmth and protection from predators. Fire was humanity's first energy technology, and

The Caloric Brain: Why Thinking Costs Food

The Caloric Brain: Why Thinking Costs Food

Why Eating Less Extends Life: The Science of Caloric Restriction Series: Longevity Science | Part: 5 of 7 Primary Tag: FRONTIER SCIENCE Keywords: caloric restriction, intermittent fasting, mTOR, AMPK, sirtuins, longevity, metabolism In 1935, a nutritionist at Cornell named Clive McCay reported something remarkable. Rats fed a diet with 30-40% fewer

The Energy of Civilization

The Energy of Civilization

The Energy of Civilization Every leap in human capacity has been an energy leap. Fire. Agriculture. Coal. Oil. Electricity. Nuclear. Each transition expanded what humanity could do—not through cleverness alone, but through access to more power. The story of civilization is, in large part, the story of energy. This

Synthesis: Intelligence Is Expensive

Synthesis: Intelligence Is Expensive

Synthesis: Intelligence Is Expensive We've traveled from the compute ceiling to Landauer's limit, from the brain's 20 watts to organoid wetware, from neuromorphic chips to nuclear plants to fusion dreams, from tungsten mines to reversible computing. Now let's pull it together. What

Reversible Computing: Escaping Landauer

Reversible Computing: Escaping Landauer

Reversible Computing: Escaping Landauer We've talked about Landauer's limit—the thermodynamic floor on computation that says every bit erased releases heat. At room temperature, that's about 2.8 × 10⁻²¹ joules per bit. Tiny, but non-negotiable. Physics doesn't care about your engineering. But

Fusion Dreams: Tokamaks Meet Training Runs

Fusion Dreams: Tokamaks Meet Training Runs

Fusion Dreams: Tokamaks Meet Training Runs "Fusion is thirty years away, and always has been." This joke has circulated among physicists for decades. It captures the field's history of perpetual promise and perpetual delay. Since the 1950s, fusion—the process that powers the sun—has been

Tungsten and the Chip Supply Chain

Tungsten and the Chip Supply Chain

Tungsten and the Chip Supply Chain The compute ceiling isn't just about energy. It's also about stuff—the physical materials that go into making chips. And one of the most critical, least discussed materials is tungsten. Tungsten is everywhere in semiconductors. It's in the