Cosmology

This video made me laugh harder than anything I’ve seen in a long time. Okay, except for some Louis CK videos. But for a non-comedian (allegedly)… this is hard to beat.

A decades-old paradox returns

The BICEP2 experiment’s potential discovery of spacetime ripples may provide support for the concept of many universes, but critics are unconvinced
 

The big bang findings strengthen the case for the multiverse and all but rule out a "cyclic universe"

Do yourself a favor. Don't read this article just yet--first, take a moment to zoom around this incredible panorama of our galaxy and soak in the splendor: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/glimpse360/aladin.

The director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics talks about the news this week of indirect evidence for gravitational waves and his work to obtain direct evidence

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the evidence that we are currently within a period of mass extinction, the kind of event that will show up in the fossil record a few million years from now as a clear discontinuity, a radical change in the diversity of life on the planet.

Lead discoverer John Kovac describes his work at the BICEP2 radio telescope and how his career took him there

The shock waves are still reverberating from BICEP2's bombshell announcement that they've discovered the holy grail of cosmology: the telltale signature of gravitational waves from inflation.

A curved signature in the cosmic microwave background light provides proof of inflation and spacetime ripples
 

I am very excited to announce the next SciAm/Read Science! collaboration. My cohost, Jeff, and I will feature two guests who are well known independently for their work in science communication, but together make a formidable power couple (of sorts)!

NOTE: Jen-Luc Piquant is delighted to feature a guest post today by fellow science writer Amanda Gefter, author of the wonderful new book, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything I'm sure every freshly published author struggles with the ungainly demands of self-promotion.