1. Anaximander And the Birth of Science by Carlo Rovelli. Anaximander was among the first to suggest that events in the world were due to natural forces, not supernatural ones. In his search for knowledge he was not afraid to question his teachers (for example, Thales’ assumption — and general consensus at the time  —  that the earth was a disk) — a then novel habit that has had a lasting impact on the progress of science. As Rovelli states: “Contrary to a common image, scientific thinking is never established: It is constantly subversive, visionary, and evolutionary.”
  2. Designing for How People Think by John Whalen. In his book, Whalen explains the cognitive processes behind user experience. Based on his proposed categorization into six processes he elaborates how to lead contextual interviews, and how to organize and categorize the findings. Would have preferred more depth but it is a decent introductory read.
  3. Virtual Reality Poses the Same Riddles as the Cosmic Multiverse by Joelle Dahm for Nautilus. Many of the big questions surrounding our existence are the same for multiverse theory and virtual reality. But we may never be able to find some of those answers. “The argument for living in a simulation is based on the laws of physics and logic. But if we are living a simulation, we can’t trust those laws, so we have no basis to conclude we are living in a simulation.”
  4. Young CSF restores oligodendrogenesis and memory in aged mice via Fgf17 by Iram et al. (2022) in Nature. The paper found that putting cerebral spinal fluid from young mice into the brains of old mice improved the old mice’ memory function. This seems to be because young CSF aides  the growth of oligodendrocytes, which help braincells transmit their signals.
  5. Record 420,000 Children a Month in England Treated for Mental Health Problems by Denis Campbell for The Guardian. Many years into the pandemic, a higher number than ever  are treated for issues such as anxiety, depression and self-harm. There is a 54% increase from February 2020 to February 2022.
  6. Graph Machine Learning at Airbnb by Devin Soni for The Airbnb Tech Blog. While being a bit under-utilized, many machine learning problems in the actual world can be framed as graph problems. Soni shows how Graph Machine Learning can be used with a practical Airbnb use case.
  7. Refactoring UI by Steve Schoger. Lately being quite involved on the design side, I decided it was time to extend my education about user interfaces. A good friend and brilliant designer, Natalie, recommended Refactoring UI, a very hands-on guide to UI that I read in one sitting.