Sometimes, what nature gives you is even better than what you hoped for. “Science doesn’t always go forwards. It’s a bit like doing a Rubik’s cube. You sometimes have to make […]
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With President Trump appointing officials who want to abolish the departments they hope to lead, one might ask, “What is the rationale for this?”. Milton Friedman offers us an answer.
Chemical poisons are often used by farmers to control animals that destroy their crops but these chemicals are very harmful to the environment. An innovative project called LIFE Laser Fence is addressing this problem by substituting the use of poisons with lasers that will shoo animals away.
Researchers at MIT have developed a system that can read a person’s emotions, even hidden ones, at a distance.
The DOOR CLOSE button on your elevator is there only to make you feel better since it doesn’t actually work.
Mary Roach, author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans in War, talks about ear cuffs, a new military-grade technology that will help soldiers preserve their hearing and minimize deafness and hearing disability among veterans.
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Rumors of a terrorist gunman escalated at LAX. A panicked crowd trampled an old woman, snapping her femur. In our best Dick Cheney voice: “If you allow blind fear to disrupt society, the terrorists have already won.”
How a telescope 100 times the size of Hubble is going to change everything. “For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like […]
How sure are we that what we’re looking at is cosmic, rather than galactic? “Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hideout, every word also a […]
Philosopher Alva Noë explains why neuroscientists assume the answer to an old philosophical question that really can’t be resolved.
Irish scientists make an unexpected discovery about light by devising a new experiment.
A new study suggests that 70% of the time scientists see brain activity on an fMRI, they aren’t.
In the depths of intergalactic space, the Big Bang’s leftover glow is just 2.73 K. But this spot in our own galaxy is even colder. “If you want your boomerang to […]
The way to greatness requires us to look forwards, not backwards. “Whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, […]
SETI researchers have found a major radio telescope signal and are trying to nail down where it’s from.
How Polling botched the 2016 election “Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge.” –Nate Silver On the eve of the 2016 election, Nate Silver’s 538 site […]
Time travel has titillated scientists and science-fiction fans alike ever since HG Wells first conceived of it in the 19th century. But it plausible? Princeton astrophysicist John Richard Gott III discusses the two ways that it might be.
Psychologist and writer Maria Konnikova looks at the mechanisms of human nature that have allowed con artists, religious authorities, and cult leaders to prevail for thousands of years.
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You are already a cyborg! Here’s 10 ways you could merge even more with technology in the coming decade.
What’s the best advice novelist Joshua Cohen has for aspiring writers? It’s not to kill your darlings but kill your distractions. And get in touch with your deepest animal impulses.
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The Big Bang’s leftover glow tells us a lot more than just where we came from. “Cosmology is the study of the origin, evolution, and fate of objects in the observable […]
It’s the ‘nightmare scenario’ for some. But for Sabine Hossenfelder, it might be a dream come true. This article was authored by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in […]
From obesity and heart attacks to mental disorders and compromised immune systems, a lack of sleep is deadly.
The Achilles heel of AI is an inability to discriminate between sources of knowledge that are trustworthy and those that are deceitful and manipulative.
The science behind choosing the right music for being productive.
A new security technology identifies people by the sound of their skulls.
Merging black holes are some of the most extreme events in the Universe. Could a modified event horizon reveal quantum gravity? “The bedrock nature of space and time and the unification […]
Can the art of communal bathing teach us to be more social animals?
The GOP wants to repeal the Johnson Amendment, once again uniting church and state.
You know how, when you cook one of your favorite meals, humans express their satisfaction with “Mmmm” and, “Lovely!” and other vocalizations? Turns out, gorillas do something like that, too.