Ideas
Posted by Eric Schwitzgebel on September 11, 2020
The Nazis called Jews rats and lice. White plantation owners called their Black slaves soulless animals. Pundits in Myanmar call Rohingya Muslims beasts, dogs, and maggots. Dehumanizing…
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Matter
Posted by Sabine Hossenfelder on September 03, 2020
Quantum mechanics is more than a century old, but physicists still fight over what it means. Most of the hand wringing and knuckle cracking in their debates goes back to an assumption known…
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Culture
Posted by Stuart Firestein on August 28, 2020
The relentless and often unpredictable coronavirus has, among its many quirky terrors, dredged up once again the issue that will not die, science versus pseudoscience. The scientists, experts…
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Biology
Posted by Cailin O'Connor on August 26, 2020
Animals do not have genders. And although this statement is universally accepted by those who study and theorize about gender, there is a lot of confusion about it among those who do not. The…
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Numbers
Posted by Kiki Sanford on August 19, 2020
In their 1968 book The Population Bomb, biologists Paul Ehrlich and his wife Anne foretold a Malthusian future of famine and disease if humanity failed to control its growth. The Ehrlichs’…
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Culture
Posted by Mary Ellen Hannibal on August 18, 2020
Forged in metal or chiseled in stone, statues almost always depict dead men. A recent analysis of 12 major American cities turned up only six physical representations of women. Only one…
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Ideas
Posted by Jim Davies on August 14, 2020
Imagine you are looking at a manhole cover a few paces away on the street. It looks circular, but this is because of some impressive perceptual machinery in your mind. The pattern of light…
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Culture
Posted by Jesse Singal on August 12, 2020
Giant tech companies and governments largely determine what content is and isn’t allowed online, and their decisions impact billions of people: 55 percent of internet users worldwide…
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Culture
Posted by Anastasia Bendebury & Michael Shilo DeLay on August 11, 2020
The pandemic is making its way into every corner of our lives—even the bedroom. While many parts of the world gradually return to normal, the United States still wrestles with the fallout…
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Biology
Posted by Robert Bazell on August 05, 2020
Imagine that every morning your child and her classmates take a COVID-19 test that offers results within a half hour, showing the transmission risk for that day. Those who might infect…
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