How Mere Humans Manage to Comprehend the Vastness of the Universe
Peering into the unknown requires us to recognize our own mental blind spots
Latest Stories
Traveling with Odysseus
The intellectual value of movement through space
Artificial Intelligence Learns to Talk Back to Bigots
Algorithms are already used to remove online hate speech. Now scientists have taught an AI to respond—which they hope might spark more discourse. Christopher Intagliata reports.
It’s Lights Out in California to Deal with Climate Risks
An intentional blackout was aimed at keeping power equipment from sparking a wildfire
Sleep Deprivation Shuts Down Production of Essential Brain Proteins
A deficit arises in molecules needed for neurons to communicate efficiently
I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s
The Labeled Release experiment on the Viking mission reported positive results, although most have dismissed them as inorganic chemical reactions
The Fearful Mind
Fear is a hardwired response, but it doesn’t have to rule our emotions
It’s Time for a World without Gender
Let’s treat people based on who they are rather than on the form of their genitals
Hidden Passage: Could We Spy a Traversable Wormhole in the Milky Way’s Heart?
Anomalous motions of stars orbiting our galaxy’s central supermassive black hole might reveal the existence of long-hypothesized tunnels through spacetime
Lithium-Ion Battery Creators Win Chemistry Nobel Prize
John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino share the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the development of lithium-ion batteries” that have led to portable electronic devices that are rechargeable virtually anywhere on the planet...
