A live-blog event happened a week ago, but you can catch the entire thing anew here, right now! “We have never observed infinity in nature. Whenever you have infinities in […]
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We have electric charges and currents in electromagnetism, so why not magnetic ones, too? “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is […]
And, at a fundamental level, it can never be one. “Even when Darwin’s teaching first made its appearance, it became clear at once that its scientific, materialist core, its teaching concerning […]
In Munich last week, physicists and philosophers debate what makes for a scientific theory. Surprisingly, no one agrees. This piece was written by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized […]
And are there independent ways to check? “Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” –Stanislaw Jerzy Lec Each week at Starts With A Bang, […]
The “constant points of light” in the sky are often anything but. “To be is to be the value of a variable.” –Willard Van Orman Quine We look up at […]
The most powerful telescope in history will never see the farthest galaxy. “No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded […]
How one of the first tests of special relativity might lead to the greatest particle accelerator of all-time. “One feels that the past stays the way you left it, whereas […]
Can the world’s most fantastic and speculative “theory of everything” candidate shed light on the Universe’s most invisible objects? “I just think too many nice things have happened in string […]
Scientific debate is important for the questions it raises, not the early conclusions it reaches. “Even when Darwin’s teaching first made its appearance, it became clear at once that its […]
In the United States, the FDA has the power to fine drug companies $10,000 a day for failing to publish clinical trials, yet most clinical trials still never see the light of day.
We have electric charges and fields, but only magnetic fields. Could there be magnetic charges in our Universe? “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is […]
Is there a way to see past the barrier the Universe puts up before it became transparent to light? Image credit: Mark Kamionkowski, of gravitational waves. “From earliest times, humans — explorers […]
With all the matter-and-energy so close together and so dense at the moment of the Big Bang, why didn’t it recollapse? Image credit: Mark A. Garlick / University of Warwick. […]
There are many reasons and good approaches, but this advice applies to everyone. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”-Maya Angelou Each one of us […]
What happens when honey bees feed on M&Ms? “My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished […]
Keep politics out of science? Of course. But think what we could achieve with more science in our politics. “One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree […]
It’s the greatest cosmic masquerade of all: a star that fakes its own death! “If you are a dreamer come inIf you are a dreamer a wisher a liarA hoper a […]
Someday, the Sun will expand, engulfing Mercury and Venus, and then some. Will we survive? “They do not see what lies ahead, when Sun has faded and Moon is dead.”-J.R.R. Tolkien […]
You’ll be investing 5-to-7 years of your life. What will you get back? “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” –Benjamin Franklin Recently, a number of people — of widely different ages […]
If you had never heard of global warming before, how would you figure out whether it’s happening? “There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point […]
Back in August I wrote a post covering a rash of reports on the worrying rise of bad science in TED talks. A couple of months later TED pulled the following […]
A new math curriculum is needed to move us from the knowledge economy to "the computational knowledge economy where high-level math is integral to what everyone does."
This is the first of two posts on the topic of the market for second trimester abortions. Later on in the week we will talk about the impact of government […]
In Monday’s GOP primary debate, Newt Gingrich earned praise from conservatives while drawing justifiable anger from many for his labeling of Barack Obama as the “food stamp president.” As the […]
The idea of a coming Singularity refers to a point in time of radical exponential progress, beyond which our minds can't imagine—the technological counterpart to an event horizon in a black hole.
Alan Boyle, the science editor for MSNBC.com, answers our questions about science, the mainstream media and the fallout of the Chilean earthquake coverage.
nn So, there has been a lot of talk about “volcano monitoring” over the last 24 hours, now hasn’t there? nn Now, I’m not going to revisit this discussion, but […]