Surprising Science — March 7, 2014

How High Can We Build?

The Eiffel Tower once shocked the world for being the tallest building in the world. Of course, it was surpassed by other structures. But how high can we build?

Our friends at VSauce explore this question and give a history of the “tallest structure built by man” competition:

Image credit: House of Hall/Flickr

a green ball with a smiley face drawn on it.

The Well

Why humans are surprisingly bad at being happy

Your brain isn’t wired for happiness — but you can change that, explains Yale scientist Laurie Santos.

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9 min

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with

Laurie Santos

a man and a woman holding hands in front of an orange background.

Thinking

The 2 major pitfalls of love, according to Simone de Beauvoir

The existential philosopher argued that an authentic and meaningful life is measured by choice.

Starts With A Bang

This is the loneliest galaxy in the known Universe

With no other galaxies in its vicinity for ~100 million light-years in all directions, it’s as isolated and lonely as a galaxy can be.

The Past

Islam has become less rational since its medieval Golden Age. What went wrong?

Once a cosmopolitan faith, Islam valued intellectualism and modernity. It was derailed by various geopolitical and religious forces.

a black and white drawing of two men in a library.

The Past

The other, more important Renaissance you never learned about

A new book by historian and author Paul Strathern argues that the Northern European Renaissance has long been overlooked.

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