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Patchen Barss

@patchenbarss.bsky.social
1.5K followers 899 following 1.2K posts

Journalist and author. Science, mathematics. "Smarter Than Us" coming March 2027 “The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius” available now: shorturl.at/ixUY9

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Reposted by Patchen Barss
Louigi Addario-Berry @louigi.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I'm proud to announce the creation of the Association for Human Mathematics. We aim to protect mathematics as a human endeavour against the threat of AI and to maintain the independence of the mathematical community from corporate interests. www.ahmath.org
ahmath.org
AHM
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Reposted by Patchen Barss
Be Giant @be-giant.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A viral 2025 post by Toronto-based mathematician @littmath.bsky.social sparked a bet that by 2030, an AI could write a paper good enough to be published in The Annals of Mathematics. Last week, Litt conceded. @patchenbarss.bsky.social spoke to him to find out why: www.begiant.ca/stories/peop...
A portrait of Daniel Litt with the words "Why this prof bet against AI’s math skills – and then suddenly changed his mind"
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Canadian pre-order info here: www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/835891...
penguinrandomhouse.ca
Smarter Than Us by Geoffrey Hinton with Patchen Barss | Penguin Random House Canada
The British Canadian Nobel Prize–winning “godfather of AI” delivers a landmark reckoning with the technology he helped create—and what humanity must do before it surpasses us.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
UK pre-order info here: www.penguin.co.uk/books/483320...
penguin.co.uk
Smarter Than Us
When Geoffrey Hinton, the pioneering architect of artificial neural networks, resigned from Google in 2023 following an epiphany about the dangers of artificial intelligence, it made headlines around ...
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
US pre-order info here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/835891...
penguinrandomhouse.com
Smarter Than Us by Geoffrey Hinton, Patchen Barss: 9798217379682 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
The Nobel Prize–winning "godfather of AI" delivers a landmark reckoning with the technology he helped create—and what humanity must do before it surpasses us. Geoffrey Hinton is one of the...
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Some news on my next project.
US cover of Smarter Than Us: Superintelligence and the Future of Humanity
Text: On Sale March 30, 2027
Cover Text: SMARTER THAN US: Superintelligence and the Future of Humanity. Nobel Prize Winner Geoffrey Hinton with Patchen Barss
Image depicts an ancient sculpture of a man’s head with everything above the nose — the part where the brain goes — removed.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I'm so excited about this. I can't imagine a writer and a topic better suited to one another.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Appreciate the recommendation. I just subscribed.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
"So you're telling me the food and air go in the same orifice, and if one of those goes ever so slightly off course and falls down the wrong tube, it can be fatal..."
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Reposted by Patchen Barss
Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 01/07/2026
Meet SpudCell, a synthetic cell made from lifeless ingredients that feeds, grows, divides, and experiences selection. If it doesn't have all the hallmarks of life, it has a lot! Here's my story. Gift link: nyti.ms/4vCbTih
A series of images of a dividing synthetic cell
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
I asked this exact question here last year. Consensus was, it’s the publisher’s job to get you there. I researched festivals myself, found a pile I wanted to go to, asked my publisher for help, and ended up at two. So, limited success, but great experiences all the same.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
FWIW, I appreciate what you do to protect yourself and your community and to encourage others to do the same. So … thanks for all your thankless work.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
I was delighted when I learned (as an adult) that most visible stars are reasonably close and still burning bright (as opposed to what I learned as a kid that most stars we see are millions of light years away and burnt out long ago).
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Reposted by Patchen Barss
Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 14/06/2026
In her Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1983, the octogenarian geneticist Barbara McClintock asked the question, “What does a cell know of itself?” Forty years later, scientists are realizing that the answer might be: Much more than we thought. www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-a-c...
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Hey, I've been trying to get "flatte" coined as a word meaning "decaf latte" for years. Is there synergy here?
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Reposted by Patchen Barss
Dianna Gunn Does (Fictional) Murders 🇨🇦 @diannalgunn.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
TORONTO/GTA FRIENDS: The government has a public consultation survey about expanding the Billy Bishop airport. Tell them this is a terrible idea that threatens all of the wildlife along the waterfront & will also be extremely disruptive for local humans tc.canada.ca/en/corporate...
tc.canada.ca
Public consultation on the future of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport
Consultation collecting feedback on the future of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport
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Reposted by Patchen Barss
Boston Tom Levenson @tomlevenson.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Publication day! You can now get Pox on Fools wherever books are sold! As RFK Jr.'s war on vaccines progresses, this book is way too timely. your circle includes vax-hesitant folks (not the die-hards), A Pox... can help you talk to them—or help them work through their concerns directly.
penguinrandomhouse.com
A Pox on Fools by Thomas Levenson: 9798217155002 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
An urgent and profound history of vaccine skepticism, seeking to understand how our three most common fears about vaccines hardened into a lethal ideology—from a leading science writer “Brimming...
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Reposted by Patchen Barss
Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Photo of the editors with the first hard copy.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Hey, I’ve got this as an ebook, but I was in my local bookstore today and though @chanda.blacksky.app might enjoy seeing this is out in the wild here in Canada.
The Edge of Space-Time by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein on a display table at Book City in Toronto.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Thanks for always being a force for good.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
I liked the old musicals when I was a kid — used to have Singin' in the Rain pretty much memorized.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Guys, I'm excited to be at @ilfdublin.bsky.social this year! I'm taking part in four events, focused on writing biography, the war on science, AI, and game theory. Check out the programme — so many amazing talks and events. What a thrill to be a part of it.
ilfdublin.com
Festival Archives
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
I too am looking forward to this conversation and to the whole festival. So many fascinating people and events. Can't wait.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
When my kids were small, I resolved to never tell them about the existence of the internet. Part of me still wishes I could have found a way to follow through.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Never worry about promoting your book. I just preordered thanks to this post. Congratulations! I’m looking forward to it.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
If I recall correctly from a later season of @audacityofdespair.bsky.social's The Wire, "evacuated" doesn't mean what this headline thinks it means. (Or possibly does — details still forthcoming, I guess.)
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
I used to occasionally write a note of appreciation to an author whose work I admire whom I’ve never met. That’s been spoiled now too.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
FWIW, I’ve received those same spam/scam messages via the contact form on my site as well as via email. So frustrating.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
I once heard someone suggest a reverse-Indiana-Jones plot where the heist was at a museum and the holdings were returned to the peoples from whom they were originally plundered. I’d watch that, probably.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
You’re living the dream! Congratulations.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Tooling around Ottawa after hours in a jeep with former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge and Nobel prizewinning economist George Akerlof shooting the breeze about whether the value of money is nothing more than a fragile product of human society’s collective imagination.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
I bought a copy as a gift for my Dad — really a beautiful work. Congratulations.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
I remember when that kind of thing was the greatest show on Earth. Savour it — it's fleeting!
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Woo.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Couldn’t we just build our houses in stilts or some such? Rope bridges instead of streets?
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
If I never saw someone vomit in a movie or on TV again, and if I never saw some toughie dressing their own wounds, I would be just fine.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Feels Ike “butterfly” belongs on this category as it is both an anagram and a spoonerism of “flutter by.”
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I wrote a novel for my kid with a main character named Squeaky Paneer. I chose it so people could say things like, “Squeaky Paneer! It’s so good you’re here!”
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
I also am reading this book ATM. Dogged reporting and great writing.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Thanks for being a force for good.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
I will put in a plug for my second-most-recent book, Flow, Spin, Grow, all about the beauty and science lurking behind patterns in nature.
shop.owlkids.com
Flow, Spin, Grow
Look around you and discover nature's incredible patterns Branching, spiraling, spinning—you can find patterns almost anywhere in nature, if you look for them. This book is a starting point that intro...
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Endorse.
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Reposted by Patchen Barss
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 04/04/2026
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
penguinrandomhouse.com
The Edge of Space-Time by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: 9780593701683 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A fresh, charming, socially conscious tour of the mysteries of space-time, from the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos “With this extraordinary book, Prescod-Weinstein cements her status.....
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
I appreciate this thread. I always feel as though I'm supposed to be excited about crewed missions like this, at least on behalf of all the scientists and kids I know who are aspiring astronauts. But, well, I hope they get some nice pictures and stuff.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Taskmaster. So warm and funny and kind. And there are 20 seasons!
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Reposted by Patchen Barss
The Linnean Society of London @linneansociety.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
📣 Call for writers! Are you an early career researcher? University student? Science communicator? Know someone who is? We're always looking for new Guest Bloggers to contribute to our journal blog The Paper Trail! Have a read below, or check out our vacancies page to apply. buff.ly/7IohkLQ
A screenshot of the Paper Trail blog series webpage, showing four blog thumbnails with striking photographs of different animals. The first is a brightly coloured spider for the blog "The Politics of Taxonomy - Tangled in a Web of Inequalities". The second is of two mouse lemurs looking sweetly up to the left, over the blog "Out on a Limb: How Primates Jump in the Trees". The third is of an elephant emerging from behind a tree in tall grass in soft lighting, above the blog "Elephant Poo is a World Class Fertilizer... Sometimes". The final one is a blue-lit beetle, proud and mysterious, almost mirroring the posture and form of the elephant to its right, above the blog "Ghosts of the Past: How DNA Reveals an Extinct Island Lineage".
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
What would you say the lower age-appropriate age would be for the Blues Brothers? Been waiting to share it with my kids.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
I don't go for aimless drives, but I cannot visualize apples. Always have a song in my head.
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
I'd just like to thank everyone in this thread for helping to reassure me I made the right choice to go bald. Very low maintenance!
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Patchen Barss @patchenbarss.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
You may be equally pleased to know that “edit” derived from “editor” and not the other way around.
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