Words of Wisdom — March 26, 2014

Copernicus on Our Place in the Cosmos

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

“The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the size of the heavens.” – Copernicus

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: Does the CMB really “prove” the Big Bang?

Since the mid-1960s, the CMB has been identified with the Big Bang’s leftover glow. Could any alternative explanations still work?

Starts With A Bang

How a nearby supernova could reveal dark matter

The last naked-eye Milky Way supernova happened way back in 1604. With today’s detectors, the next one could solve the dark matter mystery.

Aerial map view highlighting the Humongous Fungus in red within Malheur National Forest, with labeled sections "Genet D" and "Genet E." A scale bar indicates 2 kilometers.

Strange Maps

This fungus is so humongous that it can be mapped

A member of a species that kills trees, this mushroom is not the first to be called the Humongous Fungus — and perhaps not the last.

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: Is antigravity even possible?

Humans, when we consider space travel, recognize the need for gravity. Without our planet, is artificial or antigravity even possible?

A Rubik's cube with a red X floats in space, next to a planet and moon—each marked with green checkmarks—that boast their perfect round shape.

Starts With A Bang

Is “round” the only allowable shape for planets?

All the stars, stellar corpses, planets, and other large, massive objects take on spherical or spheroidal shapes. Why is that universal?

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Surprising Science

Scientists Reunite Turtle Fossils Discovered 160 Years Apart

In 2012, Gregory Harpel, an amateur paleontologist digging around a streambed in Monmouth County, N.J., stumbled upon what he first assumed to be a rock. It turned out that it […]