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What makes the Sun shine? For decades, the science didn’t add up. “Every time we get slapped down, we can say, ‘Thank you, Mother Nature,’ because it means we’re about […]

If you ever saw a spiral galaxy where one side looked darker than another, prepare yourself: now we know why! “With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, […]

The first human colonies might not be on the surface of Mars, but amidst the clouds of Venus. “I remember as a kid having a balloon and accidentally letting the […]

Even the dead stars still shine today, and will for a long time. But they, too, will fade to black. “As the blackness of the night recedes so does the […]

On January 1, 2016, one of the most infamous books of the 20th century — Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf — enters public domain and can be published by anyone in Germany for the first time since the end of World War II. Seventy years after the fall of the Nazis, people still debate allowing that particularly evil genii out of the bottle to influence young minds. Others argue that the genii’s been out of the bottle all along, either through underground sources or, more recently, the Internet. More controllable, however, have been the propaganda films of the Nazis, whose chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, announced in 1941 that, “Film is our most important medium for propaganda.” Felix Moeller’s new documentary Forbidden Films: The Hidden Legacy of Nazi Film examines this question of allowing new generations to see these banned films and, if so, how to show them without that evil history repeating itself.

The death of any given person is just a lack of connectedness to future experiences. 

The future of stars like our own, in a story only pictures can tell. “I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. I cry at night. I […]

Light up your holidays with the greatest natural show the sky has to offer! “Bethany: Is your house on fire, Clark?Clark: No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.”–National Lampoon’s […]

Remember the “Pillars of Creation,” the star-forming nursery in the heart of the Eagle Nebula? You’ve never seen it like this. “The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly […]

Scientific debate is important for the questions it raises, not the early conclusions it reaches. “Even when Darwin’s teaching first made its appearance, it became clear at once that its […]

Now that New Horizons has flown by the Plutonian system, can it be considered a planet after all? “Words are the source of misunderstandings.” –Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Back in 1930, […]

The standard line against painter John Singer Sargent goes like this: a very good painter of incredible technique, but little substance who flattered the rich and famous with decadently beautiful portraiture — a Victorian Andrea del Sarto of sorts whose reach rarely exceeded his considerable artistic grasp. A new exhibition of Sargent’s work and the accompanying catalogues argue that he was much more than a painter of pretty faces. Instead, the exhibition Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends and catalogues challenge us to see Sargent’s omnivorous mind, which swallowed up nascent modernist movements not just in painting, but also in literature, music, and theater. Sargent the omnivore’s dilemma thus lies in being too many things at once and tasking us to multitask with him.

While no piece of technology can instantly put someone to sleep, various forms of research are making strides toward better sleep efficiency and other improvements.

The Universe contains black holes billions of times as massive as our Sun. “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you […]

Eliminating the estate tax makes no sense in a meritocratic system, yet most Americans are against the so-called “death tax.” The reasons why range from the hypocritical to the woefully ignorant.

The anatomy and science of what’s required for such a spectacular show. “Celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it.” –Summer of 4 ft. […]

All long-term relationships take commitment and work. New York Mag’s Ann Friedman points out that the relationship you have with yourself is by far the longest you’ll ever have. So work on it.

Keats explains an experiment in which he opened a restaurant for plants and how it helped spur an exploration of cuisine as cultural trademark.

Psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD are being researched again after a 40-year hiatus, and the results are promising, from both a scientific and spiritual perspective. 

Treadmill desks shouldn’t be considered an end-all-be-all fitness solution — it’s a way to promote health and lessen the amount of time you sit on a daily basis.

Live-streamed from Perimeter Institute, & exclusive real-time commentary! “Every generation of physicists solves some old puzzles and finds some new ones.” –Dr. Kendrick Smith I want you to think back […]

In the story of where all this comes from, our closest world was a mystery for millennia. But now we know! “But even when the moon looks like it’s waning…it’s […]

When vaccine skeptics are presented with statements about the benign nature of vaccines, they double down on their skepticism rather than softening their bias.

What happened when researchers strapped fake WiFi routers to people’s heads to test if electromagnetic sensitivity is real or imagined?

Just open your eyes, full-screen it, and watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD2XgQOyCCk “Exploring this set I certainly never had the feeling of invention. I never had the feeling that my imagination was rich […]

A once and a lifetime event has come into our field of view. New Year’s celebrators should be able to easily spot Comet Lovejoy skirting past the constellation Orion in the night sky till mid January.

There are three things an idea must do to become a full-fledged scientific theory. How does the Multiverse stack up? “It’s hard to build models of inflation that don’t lead […]

Either there’s an unseen source of mass, or the laws of gravity are wrong. But only one can explain what we see. “The discrepancy between what was expected and what […]

Folks in the American Northeast need to monitor their behavior and emotions to avoid suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

The possibilities were almost limitless, so why does everything line up? “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless […]