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Science and Tech
All biological systems are wildly disordered. Yet somehow, that disorder enables plant photosynthesis to be nearly 100% efficient.
Don't feel compelled to start a napping routine just yet.
The biggest nuclear blast in history came courtesy of Tsar Bomba. We could make something at least 100 times more powerful.
Some 55 million light-years away lies the giant galaxy Messier 87. Its supermassive black hole, inside and out, looks better than ever.
The material is both stronger and lighter than those used to make conventional power plant turbines.
But it's still challenging to build a 22,000-mile elevator.
Science news presents a flood of breakthroughs and discoveries that promise to change our lives. They rarely do.
![a photo of a [dog breed] on a pink background.](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/dog2.jpg?quality=85&w=512&h=512&crop=1)
A dog's breed isn't as predictive of behavior as many think it is. Environment and upbringing play a much larger role.
Sophia, the humanoid robot, is not just mirroring emotions; she's leading a revolution in emotional intelligence.
John Templeton Foundation
Headlines have blared that quasar ticking confirms that time passed more slowly in the early Universe. That's not how any of this works.
If you want to write and speak well, use common words, not grandiose ones. Unless you're Shakespeare, you're more likely to annoy people.
Math can explain why your laces spontaneously come untied — and how to stop it.
For thousands of years, we puzzled at how far away the Moon was. Today we know its distance, at any time, to within millimeters.
Boys are four times as likely as girls to develop autism. Girls are nearly twice as likely to experience depression. The immune system may be a player in these and other brain-health disparities.
When you turn a map of East Asia upside down, Beijing’s geographic constraints and regional ambitions become much clearer.
While Saturn and its moons all appear faint and cloudy to JWST, Saturn's rings are the star of the show. Here's the big scientific reason.
Lost in a building or underwater? A new muon-based navigation system could be your guide.
Retatrutide, Eli Lilly's innovative "triple g" drug, is setting new standards in the fight against obesity.
A marine reptile fossil from Svalbard challenges ideas about evolution and Earth’s greatest mass extinction.
Quantum physics is starting to show up in unexpected places. Indeed, it is at work in animals, plants, and our own bodies.
For better and worse, the Columbian Exchange plugged the Americas into the global system — and there was no going back.
They had the technology. So why didn't they use it?
Is mathematics woven into the very fabric of reality? Or is it merely a product of the human mind?
Neuroscientists think a cluster of cells in the brain that stimulate appetite could be a target for eating disorder therapies.
Due to export controls from China, the Europeans had to invent their own forms of porcelain. One type involves dead cows.
We should acknowledge that there are faith-based myths running deep in science's canon.
In history, every major technological advance has been used, for good and bad.