Science and Tech

Science and Tech

A man in glasses and a suit jacket, resembling John Green, stands in front of a light background with a purple rectangle and abstract black lines.
John Green opens up about his struggle to remain hopeful while writing about suffering and injustice.
A split image shows a star field on the left and a COSMOS-Web survey area diagram on the right, with labeled NIRCam and MIRI footprints alongside the moon for scale, highlighting galaxies explored by JWST science.
The COSMOS-Web has just finalized their release of their full field: larger and deeper than any other JWST program. Here's what's inside.
A large circular particle accelerator laboratory with various machines, cables, and equipment; two people are working near the center on experiments related to the muon g-2 anomaly.
When theory and experiment disagree, it could mean new physics. This time, they solved the muon g-2 puzzle, and saved the Standard Model.
Interior view of a large observatory telescope in operation at night, with orange light trails and a starry sky visible through the open roof.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will image the southern sky using the largest digital camera ever built.
Book cover with a gray textured background, featuring the title "DE KAI RAISING AI" and the subtitle "An essential guide to raising AI and parenting our future," all in white capital letters.
In "Raising AI," De Kai argues that today's AIs are already more like us than we think they are.
Edwin Hubble and Andromeda galaxy
For decades, astronomers have claimed the Milky Way will merge with Andromeda in ~4 billion years. Here's why, in 2025, that seems unlikely.
launch James Webb
As US science faces record cuts to funding, jobs, and facilities, these 10 quotes help remind us how science brings value to us all.
A digital 3D visualization shows translucent blue shapes in front of a blue wall and floor, illustrating an abstract concept—perhaps a universe without dark matter.
In our Universe, dark matter outmasses normal matter by a 5-to-1 ratio, shaping the Universe as we know it. What if it simply weren't there?
A collage with "The Nightcrawler" text, historic photos of Indigenous people, a blue-toned statue reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's art, and blue ocean waves overlapping the images.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
It rotates on its axis, revolves around the Sun, moves throughout the Milky Way, and gets carried by our galaxy all throughout space.
Close-up of a large, metallic, circular structure with concentric rings and radial lines, illuminated by natural light from one side—evoking experiments that revealed the neutrino mass is smaller than once believed.
The long-elusive neutrino was shown to have a bizarre property no one expected: mass. New, tightest-ever limits have profound implications.
A split image features a sketched portrait of a bearded man above, with rippling water merging into Leonardo Da Vinci-style sketches below.
What made Leonardo da Vinci last wasn’t magic — it was process — and his study of fluids can help us win the long game.
An artist's impression of a cluster of stars.
Many were hoping that JWST would find the first stars of all. Despite many hopeful claims, it hasn't, and probably can't. Here's how we can.
A man and a woman in ancient attire sit at a table indoors, engaged in conversation; beside the jug, roses, and scroll lies a small straw man figure.
What's the point in fighting a made up monster?
black hole baby universe
Here in our Universe, time passes at a fixed rate for all observers: one second-per-second. Before the Big Bang, things were very different.
A geometric collage with partial photos of two people, a delivery robot labeled "prime" inspired by Amazon robotics, and vintage map textures, overlaid by the text "THE NIGHTCRAWLER.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
A frayed rope descends from above and is attached to the top of a blue Earth, symbolizing fragility or tension.
A paradigm should be elastic enough to accommodate new data and broad enough to explain the world. For Rupert Sheldrake, ours does neither.
Large crowd of well-dressed people socializing at an indoor event; "Substack" is projected on a wall above.
The platform is a digital Royal Society for today's greatest minds — and it could play an essential role in shaping the next civilization.
A colored pixelated grid with rectangular outlines; a legend in the top right labels blue as F115W, green as F200W, and red as F277W—capturing data from the JWST to record a distant galaxy.
Coming from just 280 million years after the Big Bang, or 98% of cosmic history ago, this new, massive galaxy is a puzzle, but not a mirage.
entanglement across space
If all massive objects emit Hawking radiation, not just black holes alone, then everything is unstable, even the Universe. Can that be true?
A man with short dark hair, glasses, and a goatee, wearing a blue jacket over a light shirt, stands in front of a beige, textured background.
The "Doctor Strange" director says mystery shifts your worldview — "not in a metaphorical sense, but in a deeply experiential one."
Two bright, irregularly shaped nebula clouds with blue, purple, and pink gases dominate the dark space background, where dazzling stars twinkle—reminding us that in space, appearances can deceive.
There's an old saying that "what you see is what you get." When it comes to the Universe, however, there's often more to the full story.
A digital illustration of a brain, composed of circuit-like lines, appears against a black background filled with white dots resembling stars.
"Nobody expects a computer simulation of a hurricane to generate real wind and real rain," writes neuroscientist Anil Seth.
Abstract illustration of a figure reaching for a yellow sphere on the left, with colored overlapping circles and concentric arcs—evoking themes of physics and consciousness—set against a vibrant multicolored gradient background.
Many, from neuroscientists to philosophers to anesthesiologists, have claimed to understand consciousness. Do physicists? Does anyone?
Scatter plot with dark blue data points and black dashed elliptical contours centered on the origin, with axes labeled ξ (') horizontally and vertically—similar to plots used by astronomers in studies of the smallest galaxy ever discovered.
With stars, gas, and dark matter, galaxies come in a great array of sizes. This new one, Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1, is the smallest by far.
A man with a beard and short hair smiles at the camera; the background features abstract green, purple, and black-and-white graphic patterns—capturing a confident presence that suggests he may share valuable leadership advice.
The cofounder and CEO of red-hot billing platform Metronome unpacks his leadership journey.
Astro2020
NASA astrophysics, which gave us Hubble, JWST, and so much more, faces its greatest budget cut in history. All future missions are at risk.
Diagram of the solar system with gravitational waves emanating from a distant bright source, and a triangular spacecraft array detecting the waves in space.
Just 10 years ago, humanity had never directly detected a single gravitational wave. We're closing in on 300 now, with so much more to come!