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As a gentle reminder that you will have an hour of sleep robbed from you tonight, enjoy this episode on Daylight Saving Time Myths from the archives!

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Chris Maddison was just an intern when he started working on the Go-playing AI that would eventually become AlphaGo. A decade later, he talks about that match against Lee Sedol and what came next

It's been 10 years since Go champion Lee Sedol lost to DeepMind's AlphaGo. Has the technology lived up to its potential?

Today’s Picture of the Week, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), seems to have captured a cosmic hawk as it spans its wings.

NASA’s DART mission slammed into the small asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, and the impact slowed its orbit around the larger Didymos – and also the pair’s path around the sun

Looking for molecular evidence of life on other worlds is tricky, but a test based on the reactivity of carbon compounds could be a useful indicator

Persistent inflammation in the gut, lungs and skin might lead to Alzheimer's disease, but lifestyle choices - from getting vaccinated to eating well - can keep inflammation under control

I need a life—even if that is a life outside of writing for this website. That’s by way of informing you that posting here may be a bit light for about a week. I have a writing assignment, which is to answer Michael Shermer’s response to my own post on this site taking issue with his claim (also in his new book Truth) that we have a form of free will.  (My response will appear at Skeptic.) I can do no other than answer a form of compatibilism that gives us free will simply by redefining the folk notion of free will in an un-refutable way so that that we do have free will even if all our behaviors and thoughts derive from and are compatible with the laws of physics. But I digress.

My second task is to go shopping for much-needed Chinese groceries (I ran out of everything during the cold spell), but, most important, to meet my friend origami master and engineer Robert Lang, who’s invited me for splendid dinner at Next. Next is a sister restaurant of Alinea—surely one of America’s most famous restaurants. Next is equally highly rated. Both Next and Alinea are run by the same chef, Grant Achatz (see a Facebook interview with him here). Robert’s in town for an origami convention, and the trip to Next is prompted by his rare appearance in Chicago and the felicitous fact that Robert’s niece happens to be the general manager of Next.  I think that’s how we got reservations given that the site says, “On any given night, there can be 10,000+ guests on our waitlist.”

Next is so named because it changes menus to a new theme every few months.  This most recent theme is Japan, and I have the menu, which has nine courses that look fabulous (Earlier, Robert provided some origami for the menu.)  I’ll save the food experience for a post (with photos) tomorrow or Sunday. There will also be a wine pairing with the many courses, and I’m sure that a great and bibulous time will be had by all.

Stay tuned. As always, I’ll do my best, both at table and at this site. Oh, and don’t forget to set your clocks forward on Saturday night.

A new book from Rebecca Solnit, promising to bring us hope in these “difficult times”, is among our pick of popular science titles out this month – along with a guide on how to talk to AI, and a look at modern warfare

Models show that as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation gets weaker, the Gulf Stream will drift northwards. There are signs that this is already happening, and a more abrupt shift could warn of more severe climate impacts

I told you that Matthew’s new biography of Francis Crick was good! Now Crick: A Mind in Motion has been given the imprimatur of quality by winning a big book prize in England.  Matthew sent me his Bluehair post below, and when I asked him what prize he won, he replied:

Hatchard’s First Biography Prize. Hatchards is a posh bookshop on Piccadilly where the King buys his books. I will get a proper cheque. £2.5k! 

It is a big check—in both senses:

I won! I have a big cheque!

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-03-05T19:23:03.888Z

Below is the site for the prize (click to go there). Note, too that Matthew’s book beat out the John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs, a book about Lennon and McCartney and Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealisme, a kiss-and-tell memoirSarah Wynn-Williams, who used to work for Facebook and who has been clobbered with lawsuits by that company and other people. 

And the site’s announcement:

Hatchards has teamed up with The Biographers’ Club to support the Best First Biography Prize.

The prize awards £2,500 to the best biography or memoir published that year, and has been won in recent years by Daniel Finkelstein, Katherine Rundell and Osman Yousefzada, Lea Ypi, Heather Clark, Jonathan Phillips, Bart van Es, Edmund Gordon and Hisham Matar.

This year’s winner is Crick by Matthew Cobb.

Go buy it, or take it out from the library to read it. (This advice is for people who are interested in science, but if you’re not, you shouldn’t be reading here.)

Congratulations to Matthew! I told him to use the £2500 prize to treat himself to something nice, like a vacation.

It’s tough sometimes, living with a tempestuous star. Modern human civilization and technology lives at the whim of the Sun, as it sends solar storms and punishing coronal mass ejections our way. And while we understand the overall pitch of the 11 year solar cycle, it's hard to predict exactly what the Sun is going to do next. Now, a recent study has reached back and examined over a century of solar observations, in an effort to make more accurate near-term predictions of solar activity.

Reader Todd Martin sent some photos from the Yucatán (don’t miss the Ocellated Turkey!).  Todd’s captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

WEIT Yucatán

Here are some photos from a trip in November to the Yucatán in Mexico. The original purpose of the trip was to see Mayan ruins, but the natural beauty of the area turned out to be equally remarkable.

The first few pictures were taken during a boat tour of the mangroves in the Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve along the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The tour began at dawn and we were greeted by the rising sun and a welcoming committee of Monohelea maya, a species of predaceous midge discovered with some fanfare by scientists in 2000 (and with somewhat less fanfare on this very morning by myself):

The reserve is home to many species of birds, the most famous of which is the American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), which can be observed trawling for brine-shrimp in the brackish water:

This is a Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens). The male is easily recognized by the bright red throat pouch which looks like a life vest when inflated but actually serves to attract females. The females can be recognized by their frequent calls of ‘Well, if you’re so magnificent why can’t you take out the trash’:

The largest avian species we saw was this haughtily regal Brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis):

This is a Neotropic Cormorant (Nannopterum brasilianum) a diving bird sometimes used by the indigenous people of Bolivia and Peru to catch fish:

Hopefully this Wood Stork (Mycteria americana) has a good personality because it is (as my grandmother might have quipped) ‘not conventionally attractive’. It is, however, the only native stork in North America:

The Osprey (Pandion Haliaetus) is sometimes known as a fish hawk because fish make up the majority of its diet (not unlike Kevin Bacon or the singer Meatloaf):

Some birds are naturally elegant like this Great Egret (Ardea alba).In case you want to know how to avoid confusing it with a Snowy Egret … a Great Egret has a yellow bill and black feet, while the smaller Snowy Egret has a black bill and yellow feet:

Green Heron (Butorides virescens). Here’s a fun fact I cribbed from Wiki: “Green herons are one of the few species of bird known to use tools. In particular, they commonly use bread crusts, insects, or other items as bait. The bait is dropped onto the surface of a body of water to lure fish. When a fish takes the bait, the green heron then grabs and eats the fish”:

This American White Ibis (Eudocimus albus) was quite accustomed to people, which allowed me to get a pretty good close-up:

Morelet’s crocodile (Crocodylus moreletii). They look somewhat fearsome, but our one-armed tour boat operator said this one was ‘practically domesticated’”

Yucatan Jay (Cyanocorax yucatanicus) Jays are the noisy, argumentative neighbors of the animal kingdom. They are often described as ‘gregarious’ which I take to mean that they’ll take food from your plate without asking:

Those who frequented Glamour Shots in the 1980’s might confuse this photo with others of the genre, but it’s an Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata). The bird was the original inspiration for the marketing tag-line ‘taste the rainbow’. Unfortunately the bird is considered ‘Near Threatened’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with numbers that are sadly on the decline:

Whoever named the Black Spiny-tailed Iguana (Ctenosaura similis) wasn’t particularly creative, but I’m inclined to give them a pass because … that spiny tail!:

Finally – we stopped by Florida before returning home and my wife couldn’t resist adopting one of those hairless sphynx cats from the local shelter (Alligator mississippiensis). We love him very much, though he does have the unusual habit of sleeping in his water dish:

Asteroids are critical to unlock our understanding of the early solar system. These chunks of rock and dust were around at the very beginning, and they haven’t been as modified by planetary formation processes as, say, Earth has been. So scientists were really excited to get ahold of samples from Ryugu when they were returned by Hayabusa-2 a few years ago. However, when they started analyzing the magnetic properties of those samples, different research groups came up with different answers. Theorizing those conflicting results came from small sample sizes, a new paper recently published in JGR Planets from Masahiko Sato and their colleagues at the University of Tokyo used many more samples to finally dig into the magnetic history of these first ever returned asteroid samples.

Since 2014, the planet has been warming by about 0.36°C per decade, according to an analysis of five temperature datasets, raising fears that climate tipping points could be crossed earlier than expected

If we are going to have an enduring presence on either the Moon or Mars, or anyplace off of Earth, we will need to grow food there. It is simply too expensive, inconvenient, and fragile to be dependent on food entirely from Earth. In fact, any off-Earth habitat will need to be able to recycle most if not all of its resources. You basically need a reliable source of energy, sufficient food, water, and oxygen (consumables) to sustain all inhabitants, and the ability to endlessly recycle that food, water, and oxygen.

The ISS has achieved 98% recycling of water, which is what NASA claims is the threshold for sustainability of long space missions. The ISS also recycles about 40% of its oxygen. However, the ISS grows none of its food. It is all delivered from Earth, with a 6 month supply aboard the ISS. There are experiments to grow plants on the ISS, and these have been successful, but this is not a significant source of nutrition for the astronauts.

Doing the same on the Moon is not practical for long missions, although we will certainly be doing this for a time. But the goal, if we are to have a lunar base as NASA hopes (NASA plans a lunar base at the Moon’s south pole by 2030) is to grow food on the Moon (and eventually on Mars). On the ISS the big limiting factor is microgravity. The Moon has lower gravity than Earth, but it has some gravity and so that will likely not be a major problem, especially since we can grow plants on the ISS. We can also grow plants hydroponically pretty much anywhere, and I suspect this will happen on any lunar base. But a fully hydroponic system has its limits as well.

Hydroponics on the Moon would be challenging for several reasons. First, it is energy intensive, and energy may be a premium on a lunar base, especially early on. Second, it requires a precise balance of nutrients in the water, and those nutrients would have to be sourced from Earth. So it doesn’t really solve the problem of dependence on Earth. And third, hydroponics requires a lot of equipment which would have to be shipped from Earth. We could theoretically leach nutrients from lunar regolith, and this might help a bit, but is also energy intensive and would not be a source of nitrogen.

Therefore – NASA and others are looking into the possibility of growing plants in lunar regolith. This could have multiple advantages. It requires much less equipment, energy, and water than hydroponics. Many of the nutrients would come from the regolith itself. This would reduce dependence on supplies from Earth. A soil-based system can also more easily recycle nutrients from food waste and human waste. Likely, a lunar base would have a hybrid hydroponic and soil-based system. As a side benefit, if such a base grew enough food to feed its human inhabitants, this would also recycle CO2 and produce more than enough oxygen for them to breath. In fact, they would have to figure out something to do with the extra oxygen to keep it from building up (likely not a problem – oxygen has many uses).

The major hurdle to growing food in lunar regolith is that – well, you can’t. Plants do not grow well in lunar regolith. It lacks nitrogen and other nutrients, it lacks organic matter, and it contains toxic compounds. Experimentally, plants will not grow sufficiently in simulated lunar regolith. But, we can treat the regolith to turn it into soil that can grow plants, and that is the focus of the current study mentioned in the headline. Scientists have used simulated regolith, modified by adding organic matter (vermicompost) created by red wiggler earthworms composting organic waste, and were able to grow chickpeas in the resulting soil. They tried various mixtures, and found that 75% regolith to 25% soil was the limit – more than 75% regolith and the plants would not survive. They also coated the chickpeas with arbuscular mycorrhizae before planting. The fungus is symbiotic, increasing the uptake of some nutrients while decreasing the uptake of some toxins like heavy metals.

The experiment was considered a success – the chickpea plants grew, survived, and produced chickpeas. However, they have not yet tested the chickpeas to see if they are safe and edible. They need to be tested for any toxic compounds. This is also not the first such study, there have been dozens of others. They generally show that crops will grow in modified simulated Martian and Lunar regolith. But questions remain about how good the simulated regoliths are.

There has also been one study using actual unmodified lunar regolith (brought back by the Apollo missions). In this study the plants grew, but showed signs of severe stress and were morphologically altered. That they grew at all, however, is amazing and encouraging.

What does all this mean for the future of lunar and Martian bases? They will very likely include some growing of food in modified regolith. The implication of the research is that we can likely develop a self-sustaining system in which plants are grown in modified soil using mostly native regolith. These plants produce food and oxygen while using CO2. The soil can then be fertilized using compost from any organic waste generated by the base, including humanure. You can even recycle urine in order to source nitrogen. In short, we can envision a system in which everything is recycled to locally produce food and air. We can also recycle 98% of the water in the system, perhaps eventually even more. You just need to kickstart the system with initial resources, and maybe need to top them off from time to time, but otherwise the system is self-sustaining.

It is also likely that the more the lunar or Martian regolith is used to grow food, the more it will look like Earth soil. The percentage of organic matter will increase, it will develop an ecosystem of microorganisms, and any toxins will be leached out over time. This high quality soil can then be used to expand the farm, and generate more modified soil from regolith.

It is also likely that such a lunar farm would exist underground, probably within a lava tube. This means that all the light with be artificial, but that’s not a big problem – we can do grow lights. Having a farm under a dome on the surface is likely not worth it. This would provide free sunlight, but only half the time, and not in a typical circadian cycle, but roughly 14 days of sunlight followed by 14 days of darkness. It would also be susceptible to radiation and micrometeors. Better to be in the safety of a lava tube, deep under ground, and just use grow lights.

Finally, one factor I have not mentioned yet is the potential to alter the plants themselves to adapt them to growing on the Moon, or on Mars or on a space station. Through some combination of cultivation and genetic engineering, we may be able to adapt crops to the lower gravity and the modified lunar soil. This could optimize productivity, safety, and nutrition.

While there is a lot of work to be done, the research so far shows that farming the Moon or Mars is feasible, which is good if we plan to have long term bases on either.

The post Scientists Grow Chickpeas In Lunar(ish) Soil first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

What do a 20th-century physicist, an 18th-century statistician and an ancient Greek philosopher have in common? They all knew how to extrapolate with incredible accuracy. Columnist Jacob Aron explains how to combine their methods to improve your ability to guess

Everyone knows Yuri Gagarin as the first person to go to space. But was he? Literary historian Vladimir Brljak tells the tale of the intrepid balloonists who first flew beyond the blue terrestrial sky, challenging the definition of where our world begins to end

For decades, astronomers wondered why most nearby galaxies are speeding away from the Milky Way instead of being pulled in by its gravity. New simulations reveal the answer: our galaxy sits in a gigantic, flat sheet of matter surrounded by huge empty voids. This hidden structure—dominated by dark matter—balances gravitational forces and lets neighboring galaxies drift outward. The discovery finally explains the puzzling motions of galaxies just beyond our Local Group.

Electrons in solar materials can be launched across molecules almost as fast as nature allows, thanks to tiny atomic vibrations acting like a “molecular catapult.” In experiments lasting just 18 femtoseconds, researchers at the University of Cambridge observed electrons blasting across a boundary in a single burst, far faster than long-standing theories predicted. Instead of slow, random movement, the electron rides the natural vibrations of the molecule itself, challenging decades of design rules for solar materials.