July 10, 2023
In this week’s crossword, we take a tour of the elements in the periodic table. There are 118 of them, for now.
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Some 55 million light-years away lies the giant galaxy Messier 87. Its supermassive black hole, inside and out, looks better than ever.
The material is both stronger and lighter than those used to make conventional power plant turbines.
When done right, dark humor can help us face inconvenient truths and question stifling social conventions.
But it’s still challenging to build a 22,000-mile elevator.
Science news presents a flood of breakthroughs and discoveries that promise to change our lives. They rarely do.
![a photo of a [dog breed] on a pink background.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/dog2.jpg)
A dog’s breed isn’t as predictive of behavior as many think it is. Environment and upbringing play a much larger role.
Sophia, the humanoid robot, is not just mirroring emotions; she’s leading a revolution in emotional intelligence.
Roosevelt had become president but not in the way he wanted. Still, he understood that he had been given the rare opportunity to make history.
Headlines have blared that quasar ticking confirms that time passed more slowly in the early Universe. That’s not how any of this works.
A 2020 study revived a longstanding controversy over Christopher Columbus’ claims of marauding cannibals in the Caribbean.
Perhaps there was something theatrically satisfying about a learned man waving around a flask of pee, looking at it from all angles, sniffing it, and making bold proclamations.
Despite the claims of speed reading apps, it turns out that you actually have to read the book if you want to learn from it.
If you want to write and speak well, use common words, not grandiose ones. Unless you’re Shakespeare, you’re more likely to annoy people.
Math can explain why your laces spontaneously come untied — and how to stop it.
Your brain is trying to show you the future.
Your expectations form the way you experience the world.
People discovered prehistoric fossils long before Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species.” The remains of these unknown creatures often puzzled their discoverers.
Functional complex systems arise from functional simple systems. Failing to heed this advice can and will lead to disaster.
Debate is a verbal sport with winners and losers. As such, it is less about the truth and more about who looks and sounds the best.
For thousands of years, we puzzled at how far away the Moon was. Today we know its distance, at any time, to within millimeters.
A philosophical debate spanning creation, free will, and a sneaky teapot.
Boys are four times as likely as girls to develop autism. Girls are nearly twice as likely to experience depression. The immune system may be a player in these and other brain-health disparities.
Dante’s epic journey through hell and heaven reveal how the poet felt about his own country.
It’s like combining Google Translate with a time machine.
We all spend way too much time worrying what other people think of us — it’s time to cut loose.
When you turn a map of East Asia upside down, Beijing’s geographic constraints and regional ambitions become much clearer.
You become the main protagonist in these novels.
July 3, 2023
French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” This month’s crossword addresses the many aspects of love and the agony and ecstasy that it can bring.