Backstage at Alkemata: Growing, Learning, and Trying Things Out
A personal note from rdi on Alkemata’s gradual growth, our learning curve in marketing, experiments with AI and the Exchange, and a forthcoming series on psychology.
The Emerging Economy of AI Agents: Who Pays, Who Gains, and Who Verifies?
From ResearchHub and Bittensor to Olas, Nevermined and Moltbook: eight experiments in exchanging AI work, data, attention and rewards—and the risks of mistaking transactions for trustworthy knowledge.
The Rocket Engine That Cools Itself With Its Own Fuel
A rocket chamber faces gases hot enough to destroy its walls. The trick is to route incoming fuel through tiny channels, turning a thermal threat into a heat exchanger.
The Lattice That Gets Wider When You Pull It: The Auxetic Trick
Most materials become narrower when stretched. Auxetic lattices do the opposite by rotating internal units—a geometric trick with surprising uses and real limits.
The Sponge That Moves Heat Without a Pump: The Heat-Pipe Trick
How can a sealed tube cool spacecraft electronics without a mechanical pump? Explore the heat pipe's elegant partnership between evaporation and capillary action.
Make the Signal Blink: The Lock-In Amplifier’s Clever Trick
How can an instrument recover a signal hidden in noise? A lock-in amplifier makes the signal follow a known rhythm, then uses multiplication and filtering to find it.
Explore, Understand, Shape: A Knowledge Map for Humans and AI
Alkemata opens its Knowledge Map preview on 3 October 2026: a visual landscape for exploring connected topics, building understanding with AI and turning discoveries into action.
Let Citizens Draft the First Version of the Law
AI can help citizens turn lived problems into testable public proposals. The challenge is preserving evidence, equal rights, contestation and democratic authority.
Alkemata for AI: What Capsules, llms.txt and MCP Are Actually For
Alkemata now exposes articles to AI in several different ways. Here is when a normal webpage is enough, what capsules add, how llms.txt and MCP differ, and how readers and…
From Reading to Doing: Alkemata’s Capsule Experiment
Alkemata proposes portable capsules that combine ideas, evidence and practical workflows, helping readers use their own LLMs to build projects and return experience to shared knowledge.