3 ms·

I don't enjoy the science writing at Quanta. Their articles in fields I know something about are so inarticulate and misleading that I have to doubt whether the

I don't enjoy the science writing at Quanta. Their articles in fields I know something about are so inarticulate and misleading that I have to doubt whether their reporting in fields to which I am largely ignorant (particularly the publication's namesake, quantum mechanics) would stand up to scrutiny. In this case, you should know that the phagocytic model of endosymbiosis has been radically upended since the successful culturing of a Lokiarchaeota in (ecto)symbiosis with a delta-proteobacterium in 2019 by Imachi et al. "Isolation of an archaeon at the prokaryote–eukaryote interface" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1916-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1916-6 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1916-6 The striking images of the branching, filamentous prokaryotic Lokiarchaeotum grappling its metabolic partner resembled nothing I had ever seen in biology before, save maybe the mycorrhizal root nodules of a legume at a ~2000x smaller scale. The prevailing model of the process of eukaryotic endosymbiosis is now "entangle-engulf-endogenize", rather than phagocytosis, which might be a secondary post-mitochondrial lifestyle adaptation. If the Nature paper is difficult for you to read or access, this summary is well written and provides better citations than the Quanta article. "Challenging Eukaryogenesis: The Story of the Eukaryotic Ancestor" https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.06608 https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.06608 doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2008.06608 If you are interested in this topic, I cannot praise Nick Lane's nonfiction trilogy of books on mitochondria and evolution highly enough: • "Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World" (2002) https://www.amazon.com/Oxygen-Molecule-that-Made-World/dp/0198508034 • "Sex, Power, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life" (2005) https://www.amazon.com/Power-Sex-Suicide-Mitochondria-Meaning/dp/0192804812 • "The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life" (2015) https://www.amazon.com/Vital-Question-Evolution-Origins-Complex/dp/0393088812

btrettel 4y ago
Gell-Mann amnesia is a huge reason why I don't trust the popular science press in general, not just Quanta Magazine. In fluid dynamics, their pages on why turbulence is hard [0] don't mention the actual reason turbulence is hard: It has a really high computational complexity. There is no mystery here. The math behind it is pretty simple. I guess this doesn't sell the article though, so a journalist won't say that. Though I'm not sure the people at Quanta Magazine are aware! Quanta Magazine also spends an extremely disproportionate amount of articles on the (constant viscosity) Navier-Stokes existence and uniqueness problem [1]. This is essentially a pure math problem, in my view, of no practical consequence [2]. Contrary to what Quanta Magazine writes, this has nothing to do with turbulence beyond that both use the Navier-Stokes equations. [0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-trouble-with-turbulence-20190128/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-trouble-with-turbulence-2... https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-makes-the-hardest-equations-in-physics-so-difficult-20180116/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-makes-the-hardest-equati... [1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/deep-learning-poised-to-blow-up-famed-fluid-equations-20220412/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/deep-learning-poised-to-blow-... https://www.quantamagazine.org/famous-fluid-equations-spring-a-leak-20191218/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/famous-fluid-equations-spring... https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-fluid-equations-a-steady-flow-of-progress-20200113/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-fluid-equations-a-steady-... https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-makes-the-hardest-equations-in-physics-so-difficult-20180116/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-makes-the-hardest-equati... https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-find-wrinkle-in-famed-fluid-equations-20171221/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-find-wrinkle-i... https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-fluid-new-path-in-grand-math-challenge-20140224/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-fluid-new-path-in-grand-mat... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31049535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31049535
peter303 4y ago
I second this trilogy, particularly the second book. Particularly the hypothesis that sex was a Faustian bargain that was accompanied by programmed death.

btrettel 4y ago

Gell-Mann amnesia is a huge reason why I don't trust the popular science press in general, not just Quanta Magazine. In fluid dynamics, their pages on why turbulence is hard [0] don't mention the actual reason turbulence is hard: It has a really high computational complexity. There is no mystery here. The math behind it is pretty simple. I guess this doesn't sell the article though, so a journalist won't say that. Though I'm not sure the people at Quanta Magazine are aware! Quanta Magazine also spends an extremely disproportionate amount of articles on the (constant viscosity) Navier-Stokes existence and uniqueness problem [1]. This is essentially a pure math problem, in my view, of no practical consequence [2]. Contrary to what Quanta Magazine writes, this has nothing to do with turbulence beyond that both use the Navier-Stokes equations. [0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-trouble-with-turbulence-20190128/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-trouble-with-turbulence-2... https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-makes-the-hardest-equations-in-physics-so-difficult-20180116/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-makes-the-hardest-equati... [1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/deep-learning-poised-to-blow-up-famed-fluid-equations-20220412/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/deep-learning-poised-to-blow-... https://www.quantamagazine.org/famous-fluid-equations-spring-a-leak-20191218/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/famous-fluid-equations-spring... https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-fluid-equations-a-steady-flow-of-progress-20200113/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-fluid-equations-a-steady-... https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-makes-the-hardest-equations-in-physics-so-difficult-20180116/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-makes-the-hardest-equati... https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-find-wrinkle-in-famed-fluid-equations-20171221/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-find-wrinkle-i... https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-fluid-new-path-in-grand-math-challenge-20140224/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-fluid-new-path-in-grand-mat... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31049535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31049535

peter303 4y ago

I second this trilogy, particularly the second book. Particularly the hypothesis that sex was a Faustian bargain that was accompanied by programmed death.