The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library introduces nonfiction to the beginning reader and serves as a great resource to help teachers make abstract scientific concepts come to life! As the students are entertained by the intriguing stories, they will also learn about fascinating facts that will keep them reading to learn even more.
The History of Ions: Unveiling the Electric Charge
"Around 1830, Faraday posited the existence of charged particles within molecules that migrate between electrodes during electrolysis—an idea ahead of its time."
#Image attribution: Science History Institute, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Faraday_-_Man_of_Science_-_DPLA_-_5f2b65726e7d4bb523e98ae61828bc11_(page_6).jpg
AI deception: A survey of examples, risks, and potential solutions
"Large language models and other AI systems have already learned, from their training, the ability to deceive via techniques such as manipulation, sycophancy, and cheating the safety test. AI’s increasing capabilities at deception pose serious risks, ranging from short-term risks, such as fraud and election tampering, to long-term risks, such as losing control of AI systems."
AI deception: A survey of examples, risks, and potential solutions
"Large language models and other AI systems have already learned, from their training, the ability to deceive via techniques such as manipulation, sycophancy, and cheating the safety test. AI’s increasing capabilities at deception pose serious risks, ranging from short-term risks, such as fraud and election tampering, to long-term risks, such as losing control of AI systems."
"Researchers publish largest-ever dataset of neural connections
A cubic millimeter of brain tissue may not sound like much. But considering that that tiny square contains 57,000 cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and 150 million synapses, all amounting to 1,400 terabytes of data, Harvard and Google researchers have just accomplished something stupendous."
DeepMind’s AI can ‘predict how all of life’s molecules interact with each other’
"AlphaFold 3 is able to envision how the complex shapes and networks of molecules – present in every cell in the human body – are connected and how the smallest of changes in these can affect biological functions that can lead to diseases."
"...our data suggested that the Japanese population could be best modeled by admixtures of three ancestral components (hereafter K1 to K3). K1 to K3 were the highest in Okinawa, Northeast, and West, respectively (Fig. 1D and table S4). K1 (Okinawa) component maintains a relatively stable fraction of around 12% in Hondo subgroups, except for South (which is a region adjacent to Okinawa), with a higher proportion of 22%. K2 (Northeast) and K3 (West) components showed a cline from West to East."
Xiaoxi Liu et al., Decoding triancestral origins, archaic introgression, and natural selection in the Japanese population by whole-genome sequencing. Sci. Adv. 10, eadi8419 (2024). DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi8419
"What starts off as a simple desire to get a macro shot of a droplet of water freezing quickly leads George to the very edge of scientific knowledge and a shocking fact about most of the water on Earth."
"As I set out to write a book on honey bee biology, I kept Humboldt as an aspirational model. Rather than write the typical biology text that reflected an excavation of levels of biological organization like taxonomy, biogeography, physiology, anatomy, etc., I built chapters around themes relating to honey bee impacts, behavior, and ecology."
In Conversation with Mariana Mazzucato, Tim O’Reilly and Ilan Strauss on Algorithmic Attention Rents
"A conversation about how today’s big tech platforms use the power they hold over the attention of billions of users to shape the markets in which they participate for their own benefit."
"Space has fascinated authors, scientists, storytellers, and children alike. From a brief history of the moon to a collection of diverse stories connected to the stars, our Space Day reading list will deepen your love and appreciation of the cosmos."