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The Whale Who Will Come Soon
A whale-watching trip is a voyage into the psychic dimensions of ocean in the 21st century.
The Man Who Seduced the World with Whale Songs
Roger Payne sparked the anti-whaling movement. He’s not done yet.
The Complex Truth About ‘Junk DNA’
Genomes hold immense quantities of noncoding DNA. Some of it is essential for life, some seems useless, and some has its own agenda.
The Universe Has Already Made Almost All the Stars It Will Ever Make
Black holes are cosmic dimmers.
Here’s Where Our Minds Sharpen in Old Age
Fluid intelligence has several aspects, and aging affects them differently.
We Have to Talk About Doubt
How to tell the difference between scientific and conspiratorial skepticism.
My Personal Quest to Study Supernovae on Mars
Overcoming sexist naysayers and self-doubt in astrophysics.
Computer Scientists Discover Limits of Major Research Algorithm
The most widely used technique for finding the largest or smallest values of a math function turns out to be a fundamentally difficult computational problem.
How I Escaped My Troubles Through Science
My life in theoretical physics took a fateful turn after 9/11.