The Quantastic Quarterly
Issue March 2025 (ISSN: 3035–8000)
Dear Quantastic readers,
this is our first quarterly, where I like to share with you some good news and a few exciting articles published in the first quarter of this year.
While we are on the verge of reaching 3K followers, our reader-to-visitor ratio remains at about 60%. Meanwhile, our boost/nomination ratio continues to satisfy with 80%, which makes us rank in the 25% top rank. We further established the rubric to feature one selected article every week with the help of Medium, worth noting that the criteria to get featured are different from those to get nominated.
While we continued to cater our existing authors even better with services such as editing, creative design, simulation/animations, LaTeX formatting and much more, we also invited and welcomed new, enthusiastic writers who are experts in their fields. Particularly, we like to continue onboarding younger talents, supporting them, and giving them a voice in science and tech.
The prerequisite for good science writing is to be a good science reader, so if you want to be a writer with us, begin with reading. That means, as a good science reader, you always have a chance to eventually become a good science writer as well. So if you love to read, consider writing your first science story with us, in your area of expertise and experience. But what is a good science story?—There is at least one principle at the forefront of my mind: the story must be written for the reader, not for the writer themselves. It should offer a unique and distinguished hack that cannot be easily found by a clever and educated reader with a simple mouse click on the internet, on Wikipedia, or from an AI prompt. — (editor)
Greenland Calling: Beware of Map Projections. Be Aware of Them
What kind of map will we be looking at when someone thinks about “buying Greenland”?
— by read here…
“Only a globe can correctly portray size, shape, distance and direction correctly all at once. Any flat map — every flat map distorts one or more of those aspects of the globe. Since Greenland is in the news lately, we’ll use that as a good example.”
Minkowski’s Magic, Moving Magnets and Conductors
Einstein’s Special Relativity “officially” resolved the famous 19th Century moving magnet/ conductor and charge conundrum. But his “answer” was tangled, lacking the crisp insight that Hermann Minkowski gave us in his beautiful, clear modern conception of this dilemma.
—by read here…
“There is no such thing as a magnetic field alone or an electric field alone. They are ‘not’ vectors (in the transformation / tensor analysis sense). You can’t transform them between frames individually.”
Teaching Your Robot Cat To Land On Her Feet
A deep dive into the mechanics of the cat righting reflex….
— by read here…
“Composite, isolated (i.e. not pushing against anything) systems CAN re-orient themselves in space by making cyclic changes to their shape (the relative orientation of their component parts) in a motion that still completely conserves angular momentum.”
Tree Bark: The Beauty and Importance of Nature’s Skin—Scientists have only scratched the surface of this topic
—by read here…
“Bark is a resource in so many ways, and we’d be fools not to take advantage of what it offers. At the same time, we need to preserve the environment. Depleted forests should be allowed to regenerate naturally. Reciprocation is paramount. We have to give back if we’re going to take bark’s gifts.”
Armor-Wearing Ants, Iron-Pooping Whales, and Terraforming Lightning
How living and non-living things intermingle to enrich the planet
— by read here…
“It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is.” — from The Analytical Language of John Wilkins, a 1942 essay by Jorge Luis Borges
Are Humans Still Evolving?
How to debate an evolution denier and other musings on the state of human evolution.
—by read here…
“Among other things, evolution deniers are ignorant of or ignore the underlying mechanisms of evolution.”
Spirituality Has a Biological Basis Because Humans Have Brains
What does the evidence about spirituality say so far and can it tell us why it’s pervasive across human societies?
— by read here…
“Claiming the existence of a mystical or metaphysical reality is like arguing for the existence of god(s). No scientific evidence exists to show the presence of god(s), only human interpretations and representations. All we can say is that humans have the sensory and emotional experiences of god(s) and spirits.”
The Kansas Tuberculosis Crisis Is a Wake-Up Call We Can’t Ignore
One of our oldest bacterial foes continues to wreak havoc in an era of antibiotics and vaccines.
—by read here…
“For now, Kansas officials continue working to contain the spread. But this outbreak is a stark reminder that TB hasn’t gone away. It certainly has never left my life, even though I’ve never been sick with it. Not just for me, but for everyone, TB lurks in the background, waiting for gaps in our defenses.”
The History of Hantavirus and Why You’re Reading a Lot About It in 2025
It’s everywhere in the news, so let me share its history along with a story of my own.
—by read here…
“Sure, it’s scary and can be pretty deadly. But it’s incredibly rare. Or go ahead and worry, but make sure you have all your vaccines, you see your healthcare provider regularly, you get good food and good rest, and you find ways to not doomscroll about the deaths of celebrities.”
Human Consciousness Emerged from Our Brain’s Navigation System—Will AI Consciousness Emerge the Same Way?
— by read here…
“Consciousness has evolved over many years in a way that is similar to the evolution of intelligence. Intelligence and consciousness are different but related aspects of the mind. Intelligence is more about how well you interact with the world by learning strategies to solve problems.…”
The evolution of intelligence and self-awareness in animals seems likely to be repeated, perhaps analogously, in AI humanoid robots. What do you think — will conscious AI humanoid robots become a reality? And how will that change our understanding of consciousness itself? Would you accept a robot as a friend, family member, fellow citizen?
>>> and to read more from our brilliant authors, visit and follow us on Medium at The Quantastic Journal
