A Year on the Sun — May 4, 2013

A Year on the Sun

The picture above is a composite of 25 images recorded in extreme ultraviolet light by the Solar Dynamics Observatory over the course of the past year.

bigthinkeditor

The picture above is a composite of 25 images recorded in extreme ultraviolet light by the Solar Dynamics Observatory over the course of the past year.

Image Credit: NASA, Solar Dynamics Observatory

Hard Science

Plants perform quantum mechanics feats that scientists can only do at ultra-cold temperatures

Plants at room temperature show properties we had only seen near absolute zero.

The Past

The 1920s plan to make criminals confess to a terrifying skeleton

Would you confess your crimes to a skeleton with “an unnatural ghastly glow”? One inventor thought you would.

Smart Skills

Swamped by too much info? Here’s how to beat the “noise bottleneck”

It’s the paradoxical observation that the more we try to process, the less we actually can.

a painting of a woman shaking hands with a man.

Thinking

Philosophy obsesses about death. Instead, we need “natality” — a focus on birth

A philosophy of birth can offset the prevailing narrative around extinction and mortality.

a flock of pink birds flying through a cloudy sky.

The Well

Groupthink is for mindless pawns, but group thinking will push humanity further

“Groupthink” gets a bad rap. In reality, we need groups to focus our thinking and to build on the ideas of others.

Up Next

Personal Growth

Minutes After Meditating, Your Genetic Profile Improves

Just minutes after meditating, participants in a recent experiment showed beneficial changes to their genetic profile with helpful genes becoming more active and harmful ones becoming less so.