Best of Science — January 2025

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   Article

   xkcd·1y

   xkcd: Chemical Formulas

   The post shares that xkcd comics are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License, which allows for free copying and sharing without selling. More details are available about the license.

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2. 2
   Article

   xkcd·1y

   xkcd: Muons

   The xkcd comic titled 'Muons' is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License, allowing free copying and sharing, but not selling.

   23
3. 3
   Article

   Hacker News·1y

   All clocks are 30 seconds late

   The author argues that everyday clocks, which show only hours and minutes but not seconds, are essentially 30 seconds late due to truncation. By truncating seconds, these clocks do not accurately represent the current time, leading to an average error of 30 seconds. If clocks rounded to the nearest minute instead, the average error would be zero. The author explores timekeeping conventions at different time scales and suggests that rounding is more intuitive for minutes and seconds.

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4. 4
   Video

   Artem Kirsanov·1y

   How Your Brain Chooses What to Remember

   Our brain constantly decides which memories to keep and which to discard. Recent research highlights how the hippocampus and sharp wave ripples play a crucial role in selecting and consolidating important memories. During sleep, the hippocampus replays experiences in a compressed manner, aiding in memory storage by interacting with the neocortex. Awake ripples tag key events for later consolidation, ensuring efficient and prioritized memory retention.

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