Einstein’s quantum description of light earned him a Nobel prize, but he’s mostly remembered for relativity. At their core, special and general relativity are, in fact, not relative. Explore Einstein’s […]
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All maps tell lies, but this one does it better than most.
“Education must be the only sector that hasn’t already been completely revolutionized by technology,” says Wendy Kopp, the CEO and co-founder of Teach For All, and the founder and chair […]
Around 220 million light years away, the spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 speeds through the galaxy cluster Abell 3627. Hubble captured an image of the distant galaxy. As ESO 137-001 travels, its gas […]
“We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the universe is in us.” – Neil deGrasse […]
A regional division of the NLRB has ruled that Northwestern’s football players are more like employees of the university than students. So they are entitled to unionize and bargain collectively […]
The way they form is amazing enough, but then the time-lapse video left me speechless. “Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There […]
The physics of accurately knowing just how much time has passed. “While friendship itself has an air of eternity about it, seeming to transcend all natural limits, there is hardly any […]
Science and poetry both depend on metaphor. Science typically uses at least two. The first is usually Pythagoras’s astonishingly fruitful, but also limiting, “all things are numbers.” The second shapes […]
More than 20 people are dead and at least 90 are missing and presumed dead after a huge hillside of mud and clay and rock collapsed and slid down into […]
It’s a delicious treat to watch godless libertarians rise to the defense of Protestant evangelicals this week.
In my debut column last week, I discussed how the financing landscape is radically changing through crowdfunding. Naturally, everyone is catching onto this phenomenon, including celebrities. But now that Zach […]
“Regrets, I’ve had a few,” Frank Sinatra warbled in “My Way,” before adding wistfully, “But, then again, too few to mention.” Sinatra sang that song at the end of a […]
Now that the Higgs has been discovered, the Standard Model is complete. But are there any other new particles? “The particle and the planet are subject to the same laws […]
Writers loathe using cliches like “Orwellian” and “Kafkaesque.” But sometimes, it can’t be helped, especially when you’re Christopher Hitchens getting arrested in communist Czechoslovakia. He tells a very “Hitchensian” story […]
While it’s not a Frankenstein’s monster, it’s still an exciting advancement toward creating life from scratch. The journal Science announced that a team of scientists produced a yeast chromosome. The […]
Before there was David Lynch’s Dune, there was Jodorowsky’s Dune. This film project never made it off the ground, but the team that the mad genius avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky […]
When it comes to picking a beverage of choice, it should be water, plain and simple. Our bodies are around 60% water. So why shouldn’t we be chugging our eight […]
The missing Malaysian jet may have ignited a fear of flying in many. Statistically, a missing plane is an extremely rare occurrence. What we should all be terrified of when […]
Anant Agrawal is the president of edX, an online learning platform founded by Harvard and MIT. As Bill Clinton said at the Global Education & Skills Forum, it’s important to […]
Change is hard to do. In fact, for many “change” is a dirty word. Regardless, our society is set-up to embrace change. Every New Years Eve we flaunt our resolutions […]
A while back I wrote a post about the problem of pseudoscience in TED talks and how this problem was made so much worse by the failure across the board […]
In an era of budget, time, and labor constraints, is it possible to sell your ideas and concepts (which often require money, time, and labor to implement) to the CEO, […]
Walking around London, it’s easy to imagine what the city looked like in the 1700s. A project by Redditor Shystone made it much easier to go back in time. Old […]
Tim Harford presents two surprising examples when explaining how recessions work. A contributor to the Financial Times and author of five books, including his latest, The Undercover Economist Strikes Back, […]
An extraordinarily simple explanation of the most mind-boggling concept of modern science. “In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.” -Walt […]
“The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the size of the heavens.” – Copernicus
In 2012, Gregory Harpel, an amateur paleontologist digging around a streambed in Monmouth County, N.J., stumbled upon what he first assumed to be a rock. It turned out that it […]
These dazzling cosmic waves of blue with dark crests can be found in the constellation Orion. They are the product of M78 and other bright reflection nebula. NASA explains their […]
“Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal.” – Sappho