Article archive
Published news and blog articles, organized by category. Browse older coverage by month or search for a topic. Undated blog guides appear after dated news.
323 articles · Newest first
What the endocrine system teaches us about the world
Broader lessons from the endocrine system about selective boundaries, distributed governance, feedback, time delays, context, interdependence and resilience.
Balance explained: the ideas that matter
Balance becomes clearer when its few durable ideas are separated: force, torque, center of mass, equilibrium and feedback. Together they explain why objects tip, settle, spin and sometimes appear to defy intuition.
Circadian rhythms explained: the ideas that matter
The essential circadian ideas are simple once the vocabulary is separated: an internal oscillator, environmental synchronizers, phase, period, and timed outputs across the body.
Hearing explained: the ideas that matter
A compact model of hearing needs a few distinctions: frequency is not loudness, the cochlea is not a microphone, and the brain hears sources by combining signal, timing and context.
How balance works
Balance is not a single sense or a fixed pose. It is a continuously updated negotiation among the inner ear, vision, muscles, joints and a brain that predicts what the body will do next.
How circadian rhythms work
Circadian rhythms are biological timekeeping systems: internal oscillators that coordinate sleep, hormones, metabolism, and behavior while resetting themselves to the world’s light–dark cycle.
How hearing works
Hearing is a chain of transformations: pressure waves become vibration, vibration becomes fluid motion, and fluid motion becomes neural evidence that the brain interprets as sound.
The engineering challenge behind balance
A machine stays balanced only when sensing, mechanics and control agree quickly enough. The hard part is not making a system stand once; it is keeping it stable while the world pushes back.
The engineering challenge behind circadian rhythms
A circadian system must generate a stable cycle, synchronize to light and behavior, distribute phase information across tissues, and remain flexible enough to adapt when the day changes.
The engineering challenge behind hearing
Hearing is an engineering problem hidden inside biology: detect weak signals, preserve timing, separate sources, limit damage and adapt to a changing environment without overwhelming the user.
The hidden history of balance
Every fair trade, laboratory result and engineering drawing depends on an agreement about what a quantity means. The history of balance is the history of turning local acts of comparison into shared standards.
The hidden history of circadian rhythms
The history of circadian rhythms runs from leaf movements observed in darkness to controlled experiments, a master clock in the brain, and molecular feedback loops recognized by a Nobel Prize.
The hidden history of hearing
The history of hearing is a story of anatomical clues, instruments, disputed theories and patient observation—moving from the ear as a passive funnel to the ear as a living analyzer.
What balance teaches us about the world
Across bodies, machines and ecosystems, balance is less like a perfect midpoint than a capacity to absorb change. The durable lesson is not stillness—it is relationship, feedback and resilience.
What circadian rhythms teach us about the world
Circadian biology reveals a world organized by timing: organisms anticipate recurring conditions, coordinate many local processes, and remain adaptable without becoming perfectly predictable.
What hearing teaches us about the world
Hearing reveals a world that is physical but never delivered raw: the brain selects sources, fills gaps and uses context to turn pressure changes into a shared environment.
Dreaming explained: the ideas that matter
Dream science is less a single answer than a set of useful distinctions: REM is not identical to dreaming, dream content is not a codebook, and a compelling story is not the same as a tested mechanism.
How dreams work
A dream feels like a private film, but its machinery is public biology: cycling sleep stages, shifting neuromodulators, active memory networks and a brain that must build a coherent scene from incomplete signals.
How the gut immune system works
A practical tour of gut immunity: barriers, sensors, lymphoid sites, secretory IgA and microbiota work together to defend the intestine without attacking every harmless encounter.
How the vestibular system works
A practical tour of the inner-ear sensors, neural reflexes, and multisensory computations that keep a moving body oriented.
The engineering challenge behind dreaming
To influence a dream, an engineer must first detect a fragile internal state without waking the sleeper, then intervene precisely and measure what changed. The hard part is not the gadget; it is the closed loop.
The engineering challenge behind the gut immune system
Viewed as an engineering problem, gut immunity is distributed control under uncertainty: barriers, sensors, signals, antibodies and repair loops must protect tissue without destroying a useful ecosystem.
The engineering challenge behind the vestibular system
The inner ear solves a hard sensing problem: estimate orientation and motion from tiny fluid forces while the body itself is constantly moving.
The gut immune system explained: the ideas that matter
Six organizing ideas make gut immunity easier to understand: a selective barrier, active tolerance, contextual danger, compartmentalized control, microbial feedback and memory.
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