The anthropic principle has some fascinating scientific uses. And abuses, too. For thousands of years, humans have pondered the meaning of our existence. From philosophers who debated whether their minds could […]
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Two Williams pioneered geological mapping in Britain and the United States – but the world only remembers one.
Enough mass in one location will always create a black hole. But not all masses are possible. If you take enough mass and compress it into a small enough volume […]
What we’ve seen isn’t necessarily what we get, but the most common world doesn’t look like ours. There’s a very common myth out there in astronomy: the idea that the Sun […]
It’s massive, it’s transparent, and it’s ubiquitous. But so is our ignorance. When we look out at the Universe, we have two general ways to try and make sense of […]
Here are the best answers science has to a myriad of commonly asked questions. Over the past 12 months, the status of humans on planet Earth has changed dramatically. The […]
“Nothing but naked people: fat ones, thin ones, old, young…”
“Hubble’s Law” is only an approximation, and breaks down when we need it most. From anywhere in the Universe, you can choose to look out at any other galaxy that’s present. […]
Fighting materialized, virtual monsters can be cathartic in stressful and precarious times.
And how it might ensure that future generations won’t have to face anything like this ever again. As of April 6, 2020, more than 1.3 million people worldwide have tested positive […]
There could have been life on Mars in the past, but that’s only the beginning of the story. For as long as humanity has been watching the skies, we’ve been fascinated […]
In our Universe, a left hand reflected in a mirror or pond appears to be a right hand. While most of the laws of nature are symmetric under reflections, obeying […]
Is the “big freeze” our inevitable fate, or can dark energy save us? When we look out at the Universe today, we see sources of light practically everywhere we look. In […]
The more you like, follow and share, the faster you find yourself moving in that political direction.
And either way, is energy or information conserved? When two things in the Universe that “always” occur meet one another, how do you know which one will win? Gravitational waves, […]
The mismatch between theory and experiment is anything but certain. The most exciting moments in a scientist’s life occur when you get a result that defies your expectations. Whether you’re a […]
It’s likely the most complete skeleton that’s ever been discovered of the strange Gondwanatheria mammal group, which roamed the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana alongside dinosaurs.
Quantum physics just keeps getting weirder, even as it gets more fascinating. “Is it a wave or is it a particle?” Never has such a simple question had such a […]
Today, it’s common knowledge, but it took scientists centuries to figure out.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will truly usher in a new era of astronomy. If you want to find the very first galaxy of all, you have to understand not […]
There’s a fortune to be made in data and silicon, and everyone is out for their share. Artificial intelligence is this century’s gold rush. Its promises scintillate in them there […]
What speech is harmful, how do we know, and what do we do if we find out?
It occurred naturally, and scientists know this for certain. Starting in late 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, began infecting human beings for the very first time. Discovered in samples […]
How quickly is it expanding today, and how does that expansion rate change over time? What is the Universe made of? How quickly is it expanding today, and how does that […]
There’s a lot left to understand, ponder, and investigate. And there always will be. For hundreds of thousands of years — nearly all of human history — we had no definitive answers to some of […]
If you think ‘particles are matter’ and ‘antiparticles are antimatter,’ think again. In this Universe, there are certain rules that have never been observed to be broken. Some of these […]
GPS holds the key, but astronomers can’t do it without help. Since 2019, the night sky — as seen by both human eyes and the telescopes we use to enhance our views of […]
Whether they’re gas giants or rocky planets makes all the difference for life. Over the past 30 years, we went from not knowing if there were planets like ours around other […]
Cosmic rays aren’t just limited by the speed of light. Even among non-scientists, it’s well-understood that there’s an ultimate speed limit to the Universe: the speed of light. If you’re a […]
A groundbreaking Stanford University study explains the areas of the brain that are impacted by hypnosis.