The best argument against German Unification came from French writer François Mauriac: “J’aime tellement l’Allemagne que je préfère qu’il y en ait deux”. It takes an American to propel that […]
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Plus a bonus: perhaps the single most important achievement to all of humanity. “What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the Moon, […]
Given all the stars, galaxies and what we know about the laws governing reality, how many planets are there in our observable Universe? “Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as […]
Saturn, Venus, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter will all be visible in the August night skies, as will the annual Perseid meteors. A number of nebulas will also be easy to find among the constellations.
This time-lapse video, recorded by the Messenger spacecraft en route to Mercury, shows what it looks like to say goodbye to planet Earth.
Why the kind of knowledge you get by asking the Universe questions about itself is the most valuable type of knowledge there is. “I’m also uncomfortable with dogmatic believers; to my […]
The Sun — like nearly all stars — burns bright through its nuclear reactions, sending light, heat and energy out into the Universe over a timespan of billions of years. But how? “The sun is […]
There is a cheap, safe, chemopreventive agent for prostate cancer. It’s called selenium. But virtually nothing has been done to get the word out.
Five score and seventeen years ago, the United States was a boxy, silver-coloured dog with a chunky tail of dark gold. That bizarre image, embedded in the familiar outline of […]
While you might be less dumb than your ancestors, you are nonetheless guilty of backwards thinking all the time.
If we scaled the entire Universe’s history from the Big Bang until now to be “one Universe year,” what would our future look like? “The way to love anything is to […]
What everyone should know about where our matter-and-radiation-filled Universe came from. “I don’t think at this point we have any way of knowing where the laws of physics came from. We […]
At least that’s the claim being made by a new study: The likelihood of a red dwarf star housing a habitable super-Earth increases significantly when cloud behavior is considered.
It’s the first arrangement of its kind to be discovered in the hunt for exoplanets that could support life. These planets are among several that orbit Gliese 667C, one star in a trinary star system.
Located 1,200 light-years from here, in the northern constellation Lyra, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered two planets whose size and orbits make them the exoplanets most similar to Earth yet.
1. “First the pope and now Andrew Mason!?!” Andrew Mason continued the popular Silicon Valley “I’ve just been fired” meme with a blunt note to employees at Groupon: “After four and a […]
With the slow death of “appointment television” comes an increasing tendency for spoilers to pop up in unexpected places. Writer Sean T. Collins discusses fans’ and critics’ attempts to preserve the suspense.
The world just lost a brilliant and fearless journalist. Michael Hastings did more in his short life than most people do in an entire lifetime. As information continues to come […]
A report out from the EPA this week says that only one in five rivers and streams are in good condition, and just over half are in poor condition.
The twisting path to becoming less dumb has led to many stops.
A new study regarding a high-profile risk…mercury…has two important findings; there may be an association between in-utero mercury exposure and ADHD as kids grow up, but the children of […]
To answer my own headline, not likely. The National Rifle Association seems to lead an “Even I Can’t Kill Me” charmed existence as the most powerful lobby in DC, and […]
Andy Warhol looked for fame any place he could find it, so news that a crater on the surface of the planet Mercury has been named in his honor comes […]
As I’m writing this post, NASA’s latest Mars mission – the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity – is just hours away from its destination. By the time you […]
In 1962, the latest and greatest form of artificial illumination was invented; the light emitting diode (LED). In recent years, they have reached a level of illumination suitable for most applications of indoor lighting.
The constant tug-of-war between governmental bodies over environmental policy, and industry’s endless stream of legal challenges, create substantial economic waste.
As I have written here before, many of us are more worried about some environmental risks than the evidence suggests we need to be – mercury, bisphenol a, nuclear […]
In about five billion years, scientists estimate, the Earth will be engulfed and burned up in the expanding radius of the Sun as it evolves into its slightly cooler but much larger phase.
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Robert Greenberg — pianist, music historian, and author of How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to Its History, Culture, and […]
Here’s some bad news for those of you who like to think you can think rationally about risk. You can’t. You know all those thoughtfully considered views you have […]