A personal daily by Patrick and Travis, written with a little help from AI.
The long edition: every Sunday, the week's stories in full.
Sunday · Lead
OpenAI announced the proof; mathematicians are now working through a 49-page version, and the famous original problem stays unsolved.
Some math problems are famous because they are hard. The Riemann hypothesis has been hard since 1859 and is still unsolved.
Read the original at Quanta Magazine: AI proved the quasi-Riemann hypothesis. What happens now? →
Feel-Good
"Extreme poverty" sounds vague until someone draws the line. Here the line is the World Bank's $3 a day: if what you live on falls below it, you count as extremely poor. One fixed bar lets you compare a country with itself across decades.
Read the original at Our World in Data: China reduced extreme poverty fast, but Indonesia hasn't been far behind →
The Universe
Every element comes in versions called isotopes: atoms that behave the same chemically but weigh slightly different amounts. The mix of isotopes in a rock works like an accent. It tells you, roughly, where the material grew up.
Read the original at ScienceDaily (ETH Zurich, Science Advances): Bennu, Ryugu and meteorites share a cosmic-dust fingerprint →
Feel-Good
The idea is simple: if animals keep crossing a highway, give them their own way across, then use fences to steer them toward it. On I-25 between Castle Rock and Monument, Colorado built the full version.
Read the original at Smithsonian Magazine: How Colorado's wildlife mitigation efforts are making everyone safer →
The Universe
On Mars the wind is the sculptor. Over very long stretches of time it can carve rock into long, parallel ridges called yardangs, a bit like a sandblaster working slowly along a wall and leaving the tougher strips standing.
Read the original at ScienceDaily (NASA JPL): Curiosity panorama of yardangs on Mount Sharp →Earlier