Disease Forecasts, AI Goes Nuclear, and Daniel Dennett

Cloudy with a Chance of Measles (Harvard Public Health)
by Chris Berdik
What if we could predict the spread of disease like the weather? A new federal initiative is working on doing just that, using data ranging from pathogen levels in wastewater to cell phone location tracking.

The Uncertain Marriage of Big Tech and Nuclear Power (NPR)
by Geoff Brumfiel
The artificial intelligence boom has thrown big tech companies off their carbon-emission goals. Now, some are looking to nuclear power as a possible solution. But the two industries operate in fundamentally different ways, putting the partnership at risk.

The Long War on Sex Work (The New Yorker)
by Rebecca Mead
At home and abroad, American authorities have long sought to stem the “social evil” of sex work—sometimes with moralizing and other times with regulation. And debates over whether to target workers or their clients are nothing new.

What Dennett Gave Philosophy (Aeon)
by Tim Bayne
When the hugely influential philosopher Daniel C. Dennett died this year, he left behind a public legacy of bringing neuroscience into the philosophy of consciousness. But his work also relied on stories that take ordinary people’s “folk psychology” seriously.

Exploring a Sunken Land (Hakai Magazine)
by Tristan McConnell
Around 12,000 years ago, an area known as Doggerland connected what’s now Britain with mainland Europe. Archaeologists studying the landscape, now sunk 20 to 30 meters below the surface of the North Sea, are developing an increasingly clear picture of what life there may have been like.

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