Search Results

I assert that if you are depressed after learning and being exposed to the cosmic perspective, you started your day with an unjustifiably large ego.

At this year’s TED Conference, entrepreneur Elon Musk confidently predicted that, in the end, “solar will beat everything.” All it will take for the solar energy revolution to become a reality is […]

most accurate cosmological simulation of the evolution of the large-scale structure of the universe yet 

In Mexico City, one of the world’s most polluted cities, construction is underway on a tower shielded with a tile screen that breaks down smog into less dangerous components.

“It’s not crazy,” Bill Nye tells us, that we could hear radio signals from other civilizations.

For Leon Wieseltier, the corrosive effects of modern technology spell the demise of humanity as we know it. I’m not so sure.

The future of medicine is predictive, personalized, preventative and is moving from being episodic and reactive to continuous and proactive.

There’s been a pretty cool design piece circulating the tumblrsphere in the past few days. It’s called The Window Socket and is designed by Kyuho Song and Boa Oh. It’s […]

Modern cosmology, the understanding of our origin and evolution, can give us the understanding that we’re all in this together. 

NASA’s recent discovery of two Earth-like planets within the Kepler-62 solar system – the most Earth-like planets ever detected – is creating excitement in the scientific community that we’re close to finding […]

A new paper suggests that it’s much easier to detect oxygen in the atmospheres of planets orbiting white dwarf stars, which are dimmer than the Sun.

We are profoundly influenced by our surroundings in many ways that psychologists are now starting to fully understand. 

Do you believe in free will? Some physicists and neuroscientists believe in the opposite proposition: determinism. The mathematics of quantum mechanics have a say in this argument: Determinism is impossible […]

With strikes in American nerve centers such as New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, and even Las Vegas, one artist this summer is waging a one-man World War Z of […]

Editor’s Note: I recently read and subsequently tweeted about Submergence, the new novel by J.M. Ledgard.  Then I asked one of the smartest people I know – Brian O’Neill – […]

There were three great scientific horse races in the last century. The first two, the race to the moon and the race to split the atom have been widely reported. […]

I wrote an article inHarvard Business Review asking why can’t we build a $300 house? Now, why do you need a $300 house?  Just let us look at a simple […]

The most common stars in our galaxy were too small to be seen until recently. A new study suggests that there’s a good chance that they support Earth-like planets.

A Norwegian research organization is working on clothing that will monitor the health of its wearers as they work on oil rigs and other places that experience life-threatening cold.

Few things are as painful to watch in movies as an activity you know and love being portrayed poorly. From the awkward baseball swings of athletically challenged actors to the […]

Despite knowing the full-colored truth, I’ve always pictured the 1930s and 1940s in black and white. Laura,The Big Sleep, The Killers, Shadow of a Doubt, and countless other examples of […]

Announced this Monday, the possible planet is just one of 461 new candidates, out of a total of over 2,700, located by NASA’s Kepler space telescope since its 2009 launch.

Kepler 37-B is about the size of our moon, yet is a little too close to its parent star for human comfort.

Last week’s events have asteroid hunters feeling both vindicated and excited as they step up efforts to develop better detection methods.

Solar power could very well be responsible for over a third of our energy supply by the year 2060. 

Astronomers have discovered five new planets surrounding a star just twelve light years from Earth. One has a mass five times our planet’s and exists in its star’s habitable zone. 

Cruelty preoccupies me. I find that stories of cruelty stay with me, hauntingly, and infiltrate deeply. I cannot conceive of it in its most basic elements, the physical act of […]

Comet ISON was first spotted well beyond Jupiter’s orbit, which makes it fairly large. If it makes it past the sun it could light up the night sky by this time next year.

Just as some cars’ seats vibrate when another car is in the driver’s blind spot, the wheel uses GPS and sensors to alert drivers who may be experiencing temporary bright light blindness.

We can’t toss aside our responsibilities but we can take steps – even small ones – to better manage stress.