Stories by Kyle Hill

Months before I was done with my graduate degree, I was sending in guest posts to Scientific American. I was just beginning to find my voice as a science writer.

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

"You see but you do not observe!" Why would you envy a man who doesn't know the names of all the planets, is a "high functioning" sociopath, and has no friends?

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

What does a narcissistic flying reptile that loves the taste of crispy dwarves have in common with a beetle that shoots hot, caustic liquid from its butt?

But Not Simpler has had a great first year (over 1,000,000 hits in eight months!), of course thanks to all my nerdy readers. I did a lot of experimenting here, from controversial pieces about water fluoridation to a piece on taste perception in full Seussian rhyming scheme to a piece proving that a Pacific Rim [...]

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows. Late one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, "Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" Rudolph declined, noting that when flying around in foggy conditions, a bright red [...]

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

On a bitingly cold morning in 2011, I was sitting quietly in a repurposed Chicago bar listening to a physics teacher kill Santa Claus. Apparently, physics teachers and educators do this all the time.

Fires are fine and hot coco is nice, but as long as you have hot water why don’t you make some fog with ice? All you need is boiling hot water, a frigid temperature outside, and an appreciation for thermodynamics.

You fight with inertia all the time, and it usually wins. Sometimes it spills coffee into your lap while you take your car around a turn. Sometimes it throws you against a wall, for your own enjoyment, at a carnival.

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

Photon torpedoes come after utopia, at least in Star Trek. Imagining a universe centuries ahead of our own time and technology, the long-running sci-fi shows explored philosophy, morality, and the secluded intricacies of physics.

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

No matter how many times you’ve seen the movies and the TV shows that have a protagonist leaping in the path of a bullet, physics forbids such sacrifice.

Do you use a gun, a sword, a series of elaborate traps involving wild animals, or something else to defeat the zombie horde at your door? Whatever your weapon of choice, I think the great zombie weapon debate misses a crucial point–to even think about battling zombies, you first have to prevent becoming one.

It’s ok Sam-I-Am, I know why you didn’t want to try green eggs and ham. You didn’t want to try it on a train or up a tree, because what we taste is influenced by what we see.

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

With Thor: The Dark World out today, it’s time to delve back into superhero fandom to find, surprisingly, just how scientifically grounded the powers of the blonde-haired god are.

An 8-bit Pop-Tart kitty moves twice as fast as the fastest jet ever created. That’s because this cosmic cat, this ubiquitous meme, has to take off and land adorably in space.

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.

In the fall of 1998 I stole a Pokémon trading card in Shanghai, China. It was a Kadabra, I remember now. It was slipped discretely from a child’s backpack and into my pocket.