Practical Magic

504 papers · Page 5 of 6

Social acceptance of same-sex couples is a primary driver of high-skilled 'brain drain' between cities.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

Upgrading your home's energy efficiency makes your neighbors use less energy for over a decade, but only if the upgrade is visible.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

AI agents in banks are 'inventing' their own business rules that no human ever approved, and standard controls can't detect it.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

Anything you type into an AI for legal research is likely 'discoverable' by your legal opponents in court.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

Companies led by female CEOs are significantly less likely to suffer from data breaches and cyberattacks than those led by men.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

Hedge funds and private equity firms are now buying the legal 'right to sue' from insurance companies after climate disasters.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

Simply asking a person how much they are willing to pay for a product makes them significantly more likely to adopt and use it for years, even if they never buy it.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

The #MeToo movement improved the technical accuracy of female stock analysts by breaking down gender-gated barriers to corporate information.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

Governments can force courts to uphold illegal policies by making them intentionally extreme and disruptive.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

Bumpy, poorly maintained road transitions onto bridges can actually make structural safety sensors more accurate.

Economics ssrn | Mar 31

Everyday 5G cell towers can be repurposed as a massive radar system capable of tracking drones hidden in urban noise.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 1

Future wireless signals could be boosted by walls that physically shift and morph their shape to bounce waves toward your phone.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 1

Your smartphone can identify mystery liquids just by vibrating them.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

You can perform a million AI calculations at once using just an LCD screen and a patterned piece of plastic.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

Researchers have turned a gas of 'giant' atoms into a radio receiver that can pick up signals without needing a traditional reference oscillator.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

You can build a functioning neutrino detector in your kitchen using a microwave and simple grocery store ingredients.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

The ultimate limit to AI growth may not be data or chips, but the literal boiling point of the Earth.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

A new software package allows scientists to 'hear' what different materials sound like based on their atomic vibrations.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

Researchers have designed a way to build 'sound lasers' that shoot synchronized beams of coherent vibrations instead of light.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

A new 'quantum battery' design could store energy perfectly forever without any of the leaks or degradation found in normal batteries.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

Astronomers have proposed a new cryptocurrency called 'GalaxyCoin' that pays researchers for discovering new galaxies.

Space & Astronomy arxiv | Apr 1

Researchers have discovered how to use laser light to 'sculpt' microscopic plastic blobs into porcupines and pineapples.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

Scientists successfully turned a single molecule's light on and off by moving just one atom inside it.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

A massive physics simulation has 'proven' that the most successful way to survive the stock market is to follow the trend like water.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

A new naming system gives every tiny patch of the night sky a unique, three-word address.

Space & Astronomy arxiv | Apr 1

Scientists have created a 'severance' system that uses digital clones to read and discuss daily physics papers so humans don't have to.

Space & Astronomy arxiv | Apr 1

Exposing graphene to a burst of deep-UV light makes it 100 times cleaner, instantly revealing 'hidden' states of matter.

Physics arxiv | Apr 1

A new engineered virus can deliver gene therapy to the brain 2,000 times more effectively than current methods.

Life Science biorxiv | Apr 1

Scientists adapted Wall Street financial risk models to predict exactly when tuberculosis patients are going 'biologically bankrupt.'

Life Science biorxiv | Apr 1

Common medications like statins and antidepressants can accidentally shield 'superbugs' from antibiotics.

Life Science biorxiv | Apr 1

Combining common nerve pain and blood pressure drugs doubles dementia risk—but only if you start them in a specific order.

Health & Medicine medrxiv | Apr 1

Giving an AI a human-like voice makes women more likely to believe the sexist stereotypes the AI repeats.

Psychology psyarxiv | Apr 1

To get people to take action on climate change, you have to make them feel positive and negative emotions at the same time.

Psychology psyarxiv | Apr 1

AI will likely never fully automate most jobs because the cost of making AI near-perfect is exponentially higher than just keeping humans to fix its mistakes.

Economics arxiv | Apr 1

When towns team up to manage their water systems to save money, they actually end up with more leaky pipes over time.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Having exactly one stock analyst follow a company is more important for its price stability than having ten more join later.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

The primary bottleneck for European community-scale green energy isn't a lack of funding or tech, but the legal absence of a specific 'aggregator' license.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Legalizing online sports betting actually lowers the interest rates that state governments pay on their debt.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

TikTok videos that focus on community and lifestyle drive five times more retail sales than videos that actually try to sell products.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Taking a sick day triggers a chain reaction that causes your colleagues to also get sick.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

The high cost of international money transfers isn't caused by slow technology or messaging systems like SWIFT, but by a 'settlement-capacity' problem where banks must keep billions of dollars sitting idle.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Paying artists for AI training isn't just about fairness; if platforms don't pay, the AI will eventually 'starve' from eating its own low-quality output.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

A tiny match-fixing scandal involving only a few players can permanently depress stadium attendance for an entire sports league.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

For crypto startups, choosing a funding structure that makes it harder for the founder to get paid is a reliable signal of high project quality.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Subtle shifts in the writing style of mandatory SEC filings can predict a company's future stock returns even if the financial numbers haven't changed.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Reducing paperwork and red tape at national borders creates as much wealth as building massive new physical highways.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Companies that build 'smart' products perform better if the head office leaves the AI development entirely to individual business units.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

In emerging markets, the number of different people buying a stock is a better predictor of its success than how much money they actually spent.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

The standard 'soap bubble' test used to find gas leaks in homes is unable to detect the majority of methane emissions.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Mass AI surveillance of digital communications makes it harder, not easier, to catch actual criminals.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Equipping bus routes with wireless charging infrastructure is 20% cheaper over the long run than traditional plug-in charging.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

U.S. trade barriers designed to protect the domestic solar industry actually caused Chinese firms to massively increase their foreign investment and expansion.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Hiring multiple competing audit firms to oversee different parts of the same organization results in higher quality audits and lower fees.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

When local governments are pressured to hit tax revenue targets, industrial pollution in their region significantly increases.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Taking low-dose aspirin occasionally for heart health is actually riskier than taking no aspirin at all.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Stripping unions of their power to collect mandatory fees had almost no impact on how much workers actually earn.

Economics ssrn | Apr 1

Forget weighing yourself every morning—recording a quick voice memo could be way better at spotting a heart failure flare-up before it happens.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 2

Imagine headphones that let you 'mute' a crying baby or a leaf blower while keeping the rest of the world sounding perfectly clear.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 2

Engineers built a drone with bendy arms that steers by literally morphing its own body while it's in mid-air.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

To make things like bridges and atoms more stable, it turns out you just need to add a little bit of random chaos into the math.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

AI agents just ran a full-blown physics experiment and wrote the entire scientific paper themselves without any human help.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

A new math trick just turned weeks of supercomputer work into seconds, making nuclear fusion research move 30,000 times faster.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

We have new radar that can map out a high-res 3D image of an object without even knowing how far away it is.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

Researchers literally built a working quantum computer simulator using nothing but maple syrup, Scotch tape, and some cat lasers.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

The laws of gravity and the way space is 'built' actually set a hard speed limit on how fast any computer can ever think.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

There’s a new math tool that can take a tiny historical storm and show exactly how it could have been nudged into a monster hurricane.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

AI just designed a new type of 'armor' for spaceships that’s almost half the weight of anything humans have ever come up with.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

We can now use the tiny particles coming off radioactive rocks to take a 3D 'X-ray' of what's happening deep inside the Earth.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

We can make atomic clocks even more accurate by just ignoring the atoms that 'die' the wrong way.

Physics arxiv | Apr 2

We found a way to run stats in 'superposition,' so a computer can check every possible version of a dataset at the same time.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 2

New AI lets those little two-legged robots show if they're happy or sad just by changing the way they walk.

Physics engrxiv | Apr 2

Cutting just one specific amino acid out of a male mouse's diet made him live 23% longer.

Life Science biorxiv | Apr 2

Some dementia symptoms are just caused by a bad mix of common drugs, and they’re actually completely reversible.

Health & Medicine medrxiv | Apr 2

Products that stay in production for decades usually survive because of government lobbying, not because they're actually well-designed.

Economics ssrn | Apr 2

Sending family members to work in the city is actually one of the best ways to stop farmers from overgrazing their land.

Economics ssrn | Apr 2

Monopoly banks intentionally stop lending to rival companies just so they don't waste money on 'innovation arms races.'

Economics ssrn | Apr 2

If your team is losing a big golf tournament, the best math strategy is to pair your best players directly against their best players.

Economics ssrn | Apr 2

Intentionally slowing down trading apps with a bit of 'friction' can actually stop people from making dumb, biased mistakes.

Economics ssrn | Apr 2

Opening violence prevention centers stops women from being killed, but it also causes women to stop reporting crimes to the police.

Economics ssrn | Apr 2

Forcing banks to wait just four more months before taking a home actually helps people land higher-paying jobs.

Economics ssrn | Apr 2

A cheap plastic sheet on your camera lens creates a "fingerprint" that even the smartest AI can't fake.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 3

A new AI can spot every single protein inside a human cell using just a few basic landmarks.

Life Science biorxiv | Apr 3

Engineers just cut energy loss in magnets by 98%, which could make wireless chargers and the power grid nearly perfect.

Economics ssrn | Apr 3

We don’t need to build a massive new power grid to go green; we just need better software to run the one we’ve already got.

Physics arxiv | Apr 3

We can now make sustainable jet fuel at the same temperature as a hot cup of tea.

Economics ssrn | Apr 3

The electricity in the air can tell you a massive dust storm is coming an hour before the first grain of sand even hits you.

Economics ssrn | Apr 3

A new system can make pure green fuel using ten times less pressure than current technology.

Economics ssrn | Apr 3

Industrial aluminum waste can now be reused to scrub toxic pollution out of mine water.

Economics ssrn | Apr 3

AI is officially better at spotting security holes in software than the actual human experts who get paid to find them.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 3

We can finally tell which tiny glitches in your blood are totally harmless and which ones are ticking time bombs for a heart attack or cancer.

Health & Medicine medrxiv | Apr 6

An AI just went through the whole doctor's routine—from figuring out what's wrong to picking the cure—and it was right 95% of the time in a real clinic.

Health & Medicine medrxiv | Apr 6

Your Wi-Fi router is basically becoming a set of X-ray eyes that can see through smoke and walls to map out exactly where your furniture is.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 6

A laser-mapping job that used to take two full weeks of work can now be finished in just 30 minutes.

Physics arxiv | Apr 6

The gear we're using to bring the internet to remote villages is so unsecure it's basically turned into a giant, open playground for hackers.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 6

We're getting close to designing futuristic quantum materials right on a basic laptop instead of needing a supercomputer the size of a living room.

Physics arxiv | Apr 6

Scientists made a paper-thin lens that can hold 4,000 different pictures; you just swap the color of the light to flip through them like a slideshow.

Physics arxiv | Apr 6

An AI just took a massive, 500-page math textbook that would break a human's brain and turned the whole thing into computer code in seven days.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 6

You can trick a scanner into seeing a totally different car just by clipping a basic, boring accessory to your license plate.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 6

You can finally let an AI remember all your private files without the company that built it ever getting a peek at what it's searching.

AI & ML arxiv | Apr 6

Hospitals can finally take a medical AI that's failing at their specific clinic and 'tune' it to work perfectly without having to rebuild the whole thing from scratch.

AI & ML medrxiv | Apr 6