I wrote a thing! Rates of evolution have always confused me a bit. Like, which is faster, evolving drug resistance in bacteria or domesticating animals? Here, I compare rates using a unified scale (# of generations) that makes them all comparable: asimov.press/p/metaphors-evo…

I wrote a thing! If you're interested in the speeds at which things happen in molecular biology, check out the second entry of my quantitative metaphors series in Asimov Press:

Another year, another set of book reviews. Here are the books I read in 2025, and my thoughts about them. medium.com/@samredhaired/my-… Top book: "Embassytown" by China Miéville. Close second: "The Best of Greg Egan" by Greg Egan (20 short stories by the master).

My latest article for Asimov Press is out!

Just put out an article with Asimov Press breaking down the economic value of a bacteria's physical parts. If you enjoy unusual, quantitative thought experiments, you might enjoy this one.

A decade of op-eds and news pieces about who needs to reduce water usage and why, yet somehow I've never seen this good a breakdown of where our water actually goes. Construction Physics keeps putting out wonderfully useful pieces. construction-physics.com/p/h…

Ever wonder just how much sunlight energy the earth gets and where it goes? Here's what I found out: asimov.press/p/sunlight-budg…

Over the years, scientists have inserted chloroplasts into mammalian cells & zebrafish—a step towards "photosynthetic animals." But @ClamonsSam ran the numbers. A mammal can't get all of its energy from photosynthesis, unless it is super tiny and lives in the Sahara! New Blog🔻

Has anyone observed a successful double-crux between an AI doomer and an AI apologist? I'm unsettled by the degree to which people on both sides (myself included) are convinced that the other side's are nonsense.

Quick heads up for friends—I'm switching email accounts, so don't be alarmed if you get messaged by sclamons@proton.me.

Testing out DeepSeek-R1's ability to do "science" in one-shot. I asked it to critique my 2017 R01 proposal which was scored Impact 26, 10% percentile, and funded by NINDS. (I wrote the proposal, I have the rights to share it with anyone or anything). I uploaded a PDF of my Specific Aims and Research Strategy with the following, off-the-cuff prompt. It spit out a credible critique indistinguishable from a median quality reviewer's submission after 10 seconds of thought. Overall impact score 2. Thank you! If this is what a free tool can do TODAY in 10 seconds of inference, on the first shot with zero iteration in prompting or followup, what actual role are humans going to play in the process of science going forward? Would you rather have your multi-million dollar, career milestone proposal be critiqued by a super-intelligent AI agent, or by a tired, over-worked, potentially biased human? It seems quite plausible that generating new, evidence-supported hypotheses and experimental plans could already be better accomplished by frontier models (with or perhaps without human prompting) than by humans alone. What do we do now?

I just published My 2024, in books link.medium.com/ziJuSweAiQb.

I fear my good friend David Brown has been subsumed by the rapidly-approaching singularity.

Proud to put my fan love of Greg Egan to work today in the latest issue of Imaginary Papers ("a quarterly newsletter about science fiction worldbuilding, futures thinking, and the imagination"). Check it out here! mailchi.mp/asu.edu/imaginary…

Consider the alternative baking measure system where we rename everything as fractions of a cup - tablespoons become 1/16 cup (or 16ths) and teaspoons become 1/48 cups (or 1/48ths). Better or worse than what we have now?

Calling econ twitter! What's the literature out there on stochastic models of supply and demand? I'd love to see someone simulate a bunch of idealized buyers and sellers and have them decide whether or not to trade, then compare the results to classic supply-demand equilibrium.

Inside the Laboratory for Extraordinary Microbes An estimated 0.001% of microbes have been discovered. And only a small percentage of those have ever been grown and studied in the lab. Imagine the molecular tools we might discover if scientists could work with a broader palette of lifeforms. I had a lot of fun visiting @CultivariumFRO and writing about their work. Here are my favorite excerpts: *** Humanity has discovered an estimated 0.001 percent of all microbes, and many of biology’s most useful tools have come from the “weird” ones. Consider that scientists found one of the first restriction enzymes, used to “cut” and “stitch” DNA molecules together, in a pathogenic bacterium hiding out in the respiratory tracts of children, called Haemophilus influenzae. Alexander Fleming, upon returning from holiday, discovered penicillin antibiotics after a little-known mold destroyed his Streptococcus colonies. And an enzyme isolated from a microbe growing in the boiling waters of a Yellowstone National Park geyser enabled modern polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. ... Cultivarium builds tools to grow, transform, and engineer “extraordinary” microbes: the salt lovers, heat tolerators, and geyser growers that have long been inaccessible to scientists. Studying such organisms might lead to better gene-editing tools or medicines. And regardless of whether Cultivarium’s engineering efforts succeed or fail, they give all their knowledge away for free, in the expectation that the next biological breakthrough will come from these overlooked microbes. ... The trial-and-error nature of microbial cultivation has not changed much in the last century-and-a-half. In 1860, Louis Pasteur brewed the first liquid artificial culturemedium. His initial concoction consisted of a “yeast soup,” made by crushing cells with a mortar and pestle and mixing them with ash, candy sugar, and ammonium salts. He aimed to assemble a broth with all the elements needed to support growth; ammonium salts for nitrogen, sugar for carbon, and ash for vitamins. Microbes added to this mixture sometimes grew, but more often didn’t. ... The Hubble Telescope and CERN both cost billions of dollars to build and required resources that far exceeded those available to an academic laboratory. Neither of these indispensable technologies turn the kind of profit that would attract venture capitalist funding, either. This is why scientific moonshots that could improve humanity, but which cost too much money to get up-and-running or are unlikely to return investments, often die at the idea stage. Focused research organizations (FROs)—Cultivarium included—are designed to fill that gap. FROs tackle technical objectives that require resources greater than most academic laboratories can muster. They are not (at least initially) for-profit. Instead, FROs operate over a five-year period, make as much progress as they can, and then give away their findings or inventions to spur wider progress in a scientific field. This scientific structure is growing in popularity as people recognize the chasm between academic laboratories on the one hand and venture-backed startups on the other. @Convergent_FROs, the non-profit organization that helped spin up Cultivarium and six other FROs, matches scientific proposals with potential funders who want to make them happen.

To use the Montreal subway, you tap a paper ticket against the turnstile and it opens. But how does it work? And how can the ticket be so cheap that it's disposable? I opened up the tiny NFC chip inside to find out more... 1/15

Hi Friends, I'm excited to announce that I set up a crowdfunding campaign for my sugar selection system for antibiotic-free cloning! Finally formalizing this project; it's been a dream for too long now. Every penny counts; please RT! 💚🍬🦠 experiment.com/projects/towa…

The first book from @AsimovPress is finally here! Printed on Cougar White Vellum paper (good) with smyth-sewn bindings. All profits are donated to Malaria Consortium, an organization that vaccinates children against malaria. Click here to purchase: buy.stripe.com/00g6pi4pYdjA2…