Surprising Science — April 4, 2014

Exploring Parallel Universes

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Here at Big Think, we’re big fans of believing in the existence of parallel universes. Our resident expert Dr. Michio Kaku even explains how to escape into one. But what’s the science behind parallel universes? MinutePhysics explains:

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Black and white image of a classic flying saucer-shaped object in the sky, tilting to one side with a faint cloudy backdrop.

Books

Science fiction, Project Blue Book, and the beginnings of the UFO craze

In this preview from “The Saucerian,” author Gabriel McKee explains how the combination of fantastical stories and obscure bureaucracy launched the “space age of the imagination.”

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Starts With A Bang

The evidence for biosignatures on K2-18b is flimsy, at best

A Cambridge-based team claims to find molecules on an exoplanet that are only produced by life on Earth. Don’t fall for the unfounded hype.

Starts With A Bang

Science’s best answer to “where did the Universe come from?”

Perhaps no existential question looms larger than that of our ultimate cosmic origins. At long last, science has provided the answers.

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: Couldn’t COVID-19 have originated in a Chinese lab?

In theory, scientists could’ve produced a deadly virus that accidentally infected lab workers. In practice, we know that didn’t happen.

An older man with a white beard sits in a room, wearing a light blue shirt, hands clasped together. Bookshelves and artwork are visible in the background.

The Future

Kevin Kelly points a new way forward into the Age of AI

One of the most original and optimistic thinkers in America sketches some big ideas about what’s possible with AI in the next 25 years.

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