Science and Tech

Science and Tech

zelda depths reionization
What do the dark recesses of the early Universe and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have in common? More than you could have ever hoped for.
a man standing in front of a blackboard with writing on it.
Walter Pitts rose from the streets to MIT, but couldn’t escape himself.
a computer generated image of a speaker and a box.
How are we to deal with the quantization of spacetime and gravity?
a 3d model of a structure with blue and red balls.
There may be more energy in methane hydrates than in all the world’s oil, coal, and gas combined. It could be the perfect "bridge fuel" to a clean energy future.
periodic table
Up until 2002, we thought that the heaviest stable element was bismuth: #83 on the periodic table. That's absolutely no longer the case.
an old man sitting at a desk reading a book.
A series of charts shows how prevalent different mental illnesses are across the globe — but how we define them matters.
Hubble view of galaxy containing GRB 221009A BOAT
The brightest gamma-ray burst ever observed, GRB 221009A behaved in unexpected ways that might help us understand how they occur.
a drawing of a man's head with an eye inside of it.
Brain activity may be more like "ripples in a pond" rather than signals sent on a telecommunications network.
globular cluster terzan 5
Sun-like stars live for around 10 billion years, but our Universe is only 13.8 billion years old. So what's the maximum lifetime for a star?
a blue circle surrounded by red lines on a white background.
Neuroscientist and author Bobby Azarian explores the idea that the Universe is a self-organizing system that evolves and learns.
a pair of glasses with a fake bird's head on it.
At the turn of the millennium, a physicist fooled the global scientific community with the greatest discovery that never existed.
NGC 1277 red and dead
With hundreds of billions of stars burning bright, some galaxies are already dead. Their inhabitants might not know it, but we're certain.
an image of a black hole in the sky.
There are 40 billion billion black holes in the universe. Here’s how our Solar System stacks up against ten of them.
a keyhole in the middle of a green field.
From gene expression to protein design, large language models are creating a suite of powerful genomic tools.
a black and white drawing of a group of people.
Mary Toft staged an elaborate hoax, but the pain was real.
a painting of a man standing next to a tree.
“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself — and there isn’t one.”
John Templeton Foundation
a drawing of a man standing next to a painting of a woman.
Who’s afraid of utopia? AI doubters have cold feet. History can warm them.
a close up of the sun with a black background.
We don't know what causes Miyake events, but these great surges of energy can help us understand the past — while posing a threat to our future.
a woman holding a rainbow colored kite in the air.
If you think you know what sex, gender, and "the right thing to do" for trans youth and adults are, be sure it agrees with actual science.
a Tardigrade animal is shown in this image.
Tardigrades can completely dehydrate and later rehydrate themselves, a survival trick that scientists are harnessing to preserve medicines in hot temperatures.
a picture of a mountain with a blue circle in the middle.
Exoplanet LP 791-18d is likely to have an atmosphere and liquid water.
a pig and a baby pig are depicted in this illustration.
Energy balance is the greatest arbiter of weight gain. Embrace the "oinker diet."
a computer generated image of a wave
There is no such thing as a void in the Universe.
hubble tension
When Einstein gave General Relativity to the world, he included an extraneous cosmological constant. How did his 'biggest blunder' occur?
Artist’s impression of a gamma-ray burst
Gamma-ray bursts are so powerful they could vaporize the Earth from 200 light-years away. Recreating them in the lab is not easy.
a couple of squid swimming in the ocean.
Numerous videos online show that squid undergo a dramatic color-changing effect after being stunned or killed.
JADES deep image
Hubble showed us what our modern day Universe looks like. JWST's big goal was to teach us how the Universe grew up. Here's where we are now.
a close up of a red and white shrimp.
The intensely white coloration of the shrimp is a remarkable feat of bioengineering.
Loneliest galaxy MCG+01–02–015
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.
Once a cosmopolitan faith, Islam valued intellectualism and modernity. It was derailed by various geopolitical and religious forces.