ISSUE 92
2.6MB (EPUB)
Science is a perennial journey to the frontiers of knowledge, where transformations of life and society begin. This month we venture from the quark to the black hole, with plenty of surprises on Earth along the way, to spotlight head-spinning research and experiments.
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ISSUE 91
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Scientists—to be specific, neuroscientist David Eagleman and cognitive scientist Ann-Sophie Barwich—evoke the poet Emily Dickinson in this mini-issue of Nautilus as they explain how the brain absorbs the world, “As Sponges—Buckets—do.” In the scientists’ words, the brain’s bioelectrical ability to change and adapt, in response to environments in flux, is a marvel.
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ISSUE 90
2.7MB (EPUB)
Feeling connected to nature is important. It inspires empathy and a desire to preserve what is being lost. But empathy is not enough. Conservation is about sustaining ourselves in tune with nature. Highlighting the threads of that harmony is where science comes in, and where this issue of Nautilus follows.
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ISSUE 89
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The darkness is coming after the light. That’s what life during this pandemic feels like. Ultimately it will be science that will quench the virus and restore the light. That’s what science has always done—shown the way out of confusion and despair, illuminated nature, within and without us. This issue follows the light of science at work. But it also exposes its dark side.
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ISSUE 88
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Scientists can be in love, of course, overcome by its joys, overwhelmed by its pains. But when they put on their lab coats, love and sex are all about the caudate nucleus and dopamine. But the science of love doesn’t shuttle romance to the wilderness. Science is a light on our path to understand ourselves and the world’s fullness. This issue is all about that journey.
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ISSUE 87
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Risk is at the heart of poker. You might win it all. You might lose it all. But nobody succeeds without taking it. The trick is to understand that internal calculus. Analyze and understand it to the point where the cliff from which you’re jumping feels safe.
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ISSUE 86
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Could anything be more fundamental in life and science than energy? And be more various and mysterious? Energy may be the term we use most often without quite knowing what it means. So how do you begin to plumb the many meanings of energy?
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ISSUE 85
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The story is changing. The world has not reopened but there is a sense it can. In this state of hopeful limbo, things don’t look the same as they did three months ago, two weeks ago, one day ago. This mini-issue of Nautilus turns its journalistic and scientific focus on the changing view outside our windows.
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ISSUE 84
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It’s a time like none other for us for Nautilus, as it is for every publication. What can we do to help you understand what’s happening to us? That’s the question that drives every article we’ve done and are planning to do on the coronavirus pandemic.
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ISSUE 83
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When it comes to intelligence, the mind is overrated. We explore body intelligence and emotional intelligence, and finer still, cellular intelligence. We peer into the black boxes of artificial intelligence, where the future looks dangerous. The intelligences in the sciences, and of the sciences, are without bounds.
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ISSUE 82
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The debate over panpsychism has only got hotter in the past few years, not only in Nautilus, of course, but in articles and books. In this mini-issue we head back into the debate with new perspectives on panpsychism, which don’t solve the hard problem, but do inch close to the heart of matter.
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ISSUE 81
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“Usefulness” may be a utilitarian term but it does the job of capturing what’s remarkable about maps, and what inspires this issue of Nautilus—illuminating the signs and symbols, notably language, that imperfect humans employ to represent reality.
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ISSUE 80
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The search for extraterrestrial life is a funny thing in science. It’s like a private hobby, best not discussed at work with colleagues, nor with friends at parties. It’s OK now and again to illuminate the search for alien life, an interlude in the symphony of scientific work. And that’s just what we’re offering in this mini-issue of Nautilus.
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ISSUE 79
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This month’s issue offers multiple perspectives on catalysts in science, from cosmology to medicine, neuroscience to physics. It illuminates the elusive agents of change that spark ever-emergent worlds. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 78
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This month we are turning our magnifying
glasses on atmospheres. With global warming upon us, the time is now for a
closer look. Can what we do in our cultural and personal atmospheres change
what happens in Earth’s atmosphere?
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ISSUE 77
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Science
is a journey into the unseen, the hidden, the unknown. It’s a journey into the
human brain to uncover the neural connections that guide our behavior in the
dark, outside the light of conscious awareness. Seismic forces, slowly shifting
tectonic plates, the earth remaking itself, are happening beneath our feet, and
we above want to know how. So many of the answers are out of sight, but in
this issue of Nautilus, we’re going into the
underworlds to find them.
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ISSUE 76
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We look
at how language elevates our spirits and lets them down. We delve into its
origins in our animal ancestors and show that while language may distinguish us
from our animals, it also links us to them. Language, we show, shapes our
thoughts, but also frees them. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 75
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This month we look at the innate nature of storytelling and why
AI will need to learn how to tell stories. But that’s not all: This issue is
also about the beautiful power of stories themselves.
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ISSUE 74
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That’s one small step for
man. One giant leap for mankind. Yes, 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of
Arpanet, a network that linked four computer nodes in 1969, the prototype of
today’s Internet, a giant leap for humankind. (That moon landing was pretty significant,
too.)
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ISSUE 73
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Nature loves to play. And play is the thing throughout this issue. Indre Viskontas takes
us inside the concert hall to explain how musical ensemble tap into brain wells
of creativity and empathy that can’t be reached by going it alone. We also look
at a dark side of play. Barclay Bram shares his everyday experiences with the
app WeChat, which nearly everybody in China uses to connect in play and work
and everything in between.
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ISSUE 72
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This month’s theme, “Quandary,” features articles that
rebalance the fear that science is out of control, that playing God has set
humanity on an inexorable path of destruction. This issue presents new essays,
articles, and interviews that crack open quandaries in manifold fields of
science.
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ISSUE 71
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Engineers tell us flow describes how fluids or
gases behave in relationship to their environment. Flow can be smooth or
turbulent. But when it’s turbulent, scientists are baffled about what in the
world’s going on. Then again, flow can be a transcendent feeling. It can lift
you out of time, make you feel one with the universe. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 70
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Controlling
variables in search of a hypothetical result is one of the most important
methods in science. But the concept of variables is not limited to methodology.
A variable is a reminder that a shift in perception can spring us from cliché
and deepen our knowledge and understanding. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 69
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There
is something beguiling about the possibility that the letters making up our DNA
are also used somewhere far away. On the other hand, the lack of any such
message may make the stronger point, telling us that the meaning we’re looking
for is scattered across a much broader canvas, and ours to discover.
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ISSUE 68
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Among its many
peculiarities, the human brain has a habit of not responding in the same way to
identical inputs. This may be due to the fact that our eyes and ears are noisy
instruments, or because signals move in a stochastic fashion from neuron to
neuron. It may also simply be a matter of context.
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ISSUE 67
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Behind
the scenes, our world is constantly rebooting. Rebooting is not just
frequent, it is structured and varied. We are engineering this kind of granularity not just into
computers, but also ourselves.
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ISSUE 66
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The natural world is more relative and fluid than we’d imagined,
and our human world is run through with its own mechanisms, many of them our
own creation. Physicists talk of many landscapes of physical laws and
universes, and our most human characteristics are echoed and copied by both
nature and technology. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 65
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Cognitive distortions like selective attention are how we keep
ourselves happy. As we age, we increasingly focus on happy memories, and place
more emphasis on emotional regulation than on information accuracy. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 64
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For something like 5,000 years, astronomy was the analysis of
starlight. In the mid 20th century, cosmic rays were added to the mix, and then
neutrinos. Two years ago came gravitational waves. Science advances, not
just by seeing better, but by inventing whole new categories of seeing.
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ISSUE 63
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For sheer color, you can’t
do much better than a black hole event horizon. It swallows everything without
a trace, but it also evaporates. It may contain a wall of fire created by
disentangling virtual particles. Unless it’s a fuzzball made of fundamental strings,
in which case it has “hair” instead of a firewall. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 62
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Systems can surprise us.
Out of neurons comes consciousness. Out of cars, traffic jams. Just as
interesting as these emergent properties, but less discussed, are submergent properties, in which the causal arrow points
down rather than up. The group changes the individual. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 61
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The
more we learn about coordinates, the more we understand their tendency to melt
into each other. Far-flung bits of space can get entangled. At the tiniest
scales, space and time dissolve into a complex foam. In the brain, grid cells
that mark our location in space also help us demarcate time.
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ISSUE 60
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Searching has a cost. It
takes time and energy, and distracts us from other opportunities. It is also a
quickly growing part of modern life. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 59
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Connection
has an exponential, multiplicative power to create complexity. It’s where the
meat of the hardest problems—like consciousness—lies. It can also make problems
harder than they first seem to be.
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ISSUE 58
2.9MB (EPUB)
What interesting stories are out there that involve the self but do not
involve people? Complex systems seem to resist the privileged perspective
necessary to define a “self.” If nature preaches a deep relativism, is our
attachment to the idea of self a human foible?
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ISSUE 57
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While we sequence the genetic codes that make our cells unique,
we build giant cities that look like cells from space. While we take on more
personal responsibility, we divine the outlines of what can only be
accomplished through groups. We build new kinds of individuality together with
the networks that support them.
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ISSUE 56
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The importance of
perspective in science cannot be understated and yet often is. From the
outside, science can seem like a common noun, a smooth and untextured monolith
containing the Truth. But science is a method and not a body of knowledge, and
it is practiced by fallible humans. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 55
2.4MB (EPUB)
Trust appears to be in decline. Trust in government around the world is on the ebb, and is at historic lows in the U.S. We’re awash in stories of abuse of trust by leaders from all walks of life. The institution of science has a special role to play in the trust wars. Feynman told us, after all, that “science is a way of not trying to fool yourself.” READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 54
3.3MB (EPUB)
The philosophers knew it
first. “Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves
together,” wrote Thomas Carlyle in 1831. Since then, science has redefined the
word. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 53
3.9MB (EPUB)
Do monsters have an expiry date? They’re not
just dangerous, after all, or evil, or frightening. They challenge our
categories. They are perversions of the natural order.
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ISSUE 52
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We like to
make the hive personal. While we undermine the hive in stories, we build ever-better
versions of it in reality. As our neighborhoods grow denser, public
conversations move to social media, and blockchain decentralizes authority, we
move closer to discovering whether the personal hive is really a contradiction
in term.
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ISSUE 51
4.2MB (EPUB)
There
are the limits that are formally unbeatable: things like the speed of light and
quantum indeterminacy. They’re interesting because they describe an unexpected
border between the philosophical and technological. And because we are still
trying to beat them.
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ISSUE 50
3.3MB (EPUB)
At each
level of complexity in nature, “entirely new properties appear,” wrote Nobel
Laureate Philip Anderson in 1972.
In other words, we should expect new scientific
foundations to emerge from complex systems.
ISSUE 49
6.2MB (EPUB)
The absurd has a way of crystallizing our
thinking. Satire spurs social change. Extreme coincidences in the fundamental
constants of physics challenge us to reconsider our metaphysics. We got where
we are with the help of the absurd. Without it, life would be strange indeed. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 48
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At the borders between chaos and order are seeds for new
insights into information, war, physiology, and physics. Structure is not just
visible—it’s created, transformed, and destroyed. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 47
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Consciousness is a hard problem because it is emergent, mixes software and hardware, and is dizzyingly self-referential. It’s harder still because, in a sense, it impossible to study directly. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 46
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Peel
back one balance, and you find another. In this issue, each balance leans
against the next: mental against physical, evolutionary against ecological, one
infinity against another. The web of balances that make up our world is
intricate, full of tiny stable points and unexpected transitions. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 45
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Problems of power resist
solution. As other aspects of our lives have been entirely transformed for the
better—the ability to communicate with each other, for example—just a little
over a tenth of the world lives in a full democracy, and democratization has
stalled or reversed in many parts of the world. Why is power a hard problem?
Maybe because it is necessary but dangerous, intimate but foreign—a
tangled externality, and possibly the very first one. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 44
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They say it’s better to be lucky than good. But
shouldn’t statistics have put the idea of “being” lucky to bed? Or is luck
really all about story, rather than statistics? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 43
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Where have all the real
heroes gone? It’s a refrain you find in articles on our celebrity culture,
movie reviews wondering why modern superheroes need to be so flawed, and in our
own private conversations. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 42
32.9MB (EPUB)
We are
more concerned than ever with fakes, maybe because it’s easier than ever to
manufacture them. From fake diamonds to fake journals, we inhabit a space
created by technology, complexity, and a fracturing of authority, and spend
plenty of time making stuff up. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 41
32.9MB (EPUB)
Even
Mother Nature can seem reluctant to choose, keeping cats both dead and alive,
and running up a large multiverse tab. By some accounts, there is no such thing
as time, or events, which means that what we experience as choices are just
mathematical solutions to distant boundary value problems.
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ISSUE 40
5.9MB (EPUB)
Have you seen the videos of the crow solving an eight-stage
puzzle? Or of Lee Sedol losing to DeepMind? Learning seems to extend everywhere
from the mobile above an infant’s crib to machines to, some argue, evolution
and physical law. As we discover and build new learning systems, the biggest
lessons may be about how we fit into the new landscape around us. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 39
4.7MB (EPUB)
When we
think of sports science and technology, the physics of a curveball might come to mind—the hardware. But there is also a high
technology, of sorts, in the software of sport. Without it, would we understand
sportsmanship, and what it means to love playing more than winning? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 38
6.6MB (EPUB)
It’s hard to imagine any signal coming from space that would be
of no interest. Our modern definition of noise, as unwanted sound or signal, is a
relatively recent one—the word used to mean strife, and nausea. Is the new
meaning useful? Or does it encourage us to dismiss what we can’t interpret? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 37
4.9MB (EPUB)
There
is a miles-long solitary wave trundling its way across an ocean right now. It
will travel for days on end before dissipating its
billions of joules of energy. From motes of methane pushed by distant
starlight, to words smuggled out of a silent place, our world is full of unseen
currents that carry and connect. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 36
5.2MB (EPUB)
Aging
may be the only universal process. Everything does it: living things, rocks,
maybe even protons (we’re not sure yet). Despite that—or because of it—we
humans have long dreamed of conquering it. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 35
4.4MB (EPUB)
If rules only
exist to be broken, then so do boundaries. After all, a boundary is just a rule
in space. Boundaries end up facilitating exchanges as much as blocking them,
and some of the most productive activities happen in their vicinity. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 34
4.4MB (EPUB)
Adaptation is hard—everywhere. Organisms responding to a
changing environment may cycle through failed designs, or perish by evolving
too slowly. A self-driving car moving down an unfamiliar road will suddenly try
to take an imaginary exit. It’s harder to make someone change their mind than
it is to tell them they’re right.
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ISSUE 33
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Opposites attract. Or is
it birds of a feather flock together? Our brains could be chaotic storms
governed by strange attractors. Or is the chaos ungoverned, and less important
than we think?
When it comes to attraction, nothing is
simple. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 32
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Try imagining a universe without color, or time. Unusual, but possible to visualize. Now try imagining a
universe without space. What does it look like? Without space, we seem not to be able to start. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 31
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Stress is a
complicated adversary. It is a silent killer, but a little bit is good for
you. Pushing things and people past their usual boundaries has made the
world the way it is, and naturally involves the unknown. Would we want it any
other way? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 30
4.1MB (EPUB)
Science has taken many of our
putative identities and melted them together. But we are jealous of our human
identities. Those, we’d like to think are different. We’d like to keep them
intact and persistent. Given what we know, is that a fool’s errand? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 29
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How things become bigger or
smaller reveals a lot about them. How big can a city get and still be a city?
What about a classroom? Can a “theory of everything” describe our universe at
all possible scales? “How much,” we learn, is often just as important as “why”
or “how.” READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 28
4.2MB (EPUB)
While the near future is a
choice, the distant future is an institution. Governments and non-profits
produce long-term forecasts by the thousands. Fortunes change hands based on
corporate earnings expectations. People have constructed over 10,000 active time
capsules. Despite all of this frenetic activity, the future is more often than
not a surprise. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 27
4.9MB (EPUB)
While
the cosmological version is the most famous, it is far from the only dark
matter story in science. There are silent neurons, missing fossils, and
nighttime animal migration; death and conception; algorithms both genetic and
man-made. Seeing, it turns out, isn’t the only path to believing. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 26
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Envy is green, anger is red, and exoplanet artist
renderings are usually swirly brown. Purple used to mean royal, until the
chemists figured out how to make it cheaply. Blue is usually the last color to
be introduced into a language. And for the philosopher? It’s all qualia. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 25
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What could we not know about water? As it
turns out, plenty. It covers most of the Earth, but is regularly in short
supply. It is intimately involved in the processes of life, but life on other
planets may not need it. It is inscrutable and unpredictable, but we try to
price it. The debates show no signs of ending. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 24
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Nature is full of “mistakes,” from improperly
copied genes to animals deceiving each other. Even foundational physics has
shed some of its air of mathematical inevitability, and wrestles with why we
live in a universe that is “right” for life. Is there a “wrong” universe out
there? And how does the scientist negotiate this hall of mirrors, and come out
clutching the Truth? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 23
4.4MB (EPUB)
One dreary Tuesday, Leó Szilárd took a walk. Crossing the street, he realized that nuclear reactions could be maintained by the neutrons they themselves produced. A self-sustaining nuclear reactor became a reality nine years later, and the bomb in another three. This issue, we watch dominoes fall in human lives, across the oceans and under cities. They even crash the stock market. The end result? It’s hard to say—which is kind of the point. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 22
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Slow is good. That’s the message of more than a dozen modern
slowness movements, from slow fashion to slow food to slow church, most of
which have sprung up in the last 20 years, and most of which point a steady
finger at modernity. This issue is full of people chasing slow. Slow
living, slow aging, slow science—the idea of slow has a hold on us. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 21
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We’re living in the information age. We’ve uncovered vast stores of information in our genes, generated even more, interpreted physical law in terms of information flow—and we’re always on our phones. What is the difference between a fact and information? Does information need a consciousness to interpret it? Old notions of information, and our relationship to it, are being challenged like never before. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 20
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While we sometimes consider creativity a hallmark of being human, it is not only a human trait. Crows can perform experiments and use induction; computers can evolve new algorithms that surprise their human programmers. Is creativity a mechanical and inanimate thing, so human creativity differs only in degree? Or is human creativity different, reflecting something special about us? READ ONLINE
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December 2014
Special Issue
3.2MB (EPUB)
Nature is “the phenomena of the physical world collectively … as opposed to humans or human creations,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. There’s us, and there’s our environment. Where the definition separates us from nature, the word itself reminds us how linked we are. Nature emerges not just as a backdrop, but as a character on stage with us, and one who can be remarkably human. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 19
2.6MB (EPUB)
Long before David Blaine, there was the mimicry of the tiger moth—it avoids bats by emitting an ultrasonic signature similar to that of a noxious species. Long before that, some physicists say, an alien civilization launched an intricate simulation of reality, which we currently inhabit. Even if that hypothesis is false, don’t we entertain our own illusions every day, from free will to free markets? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 18
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Genius is a category that is both important and not well understood. Is genius accomplishment or talent? Social construct or hard fact? Derivative of intellect or something else? Restricted to humans? An evolutionary advantage, or a weed? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 17
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Where do we start? Often, with a bang. Take our modern universe. It didn’t grow slowly and linearly, but was instead a violent departure from what came before. Big Bangs like this aren’t exclusive to cosmology: There are the sudden appearance of language and tool use, the Cambrian explosion in the diversity of life on Earth, and the sharp divergences of economic cycles. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 16
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Nothingness is a category that stands apart from all others, defying description and tracing the boundaries of our knowledge. Forever trying to banish it and explain it away, we are also endlessly fascinated with it. From virtual particles filling the vacuum, to the invention of zero, to Sartre’s claim that nothingness lies at the heart of being, we’ve been thinking about nothingness for a while. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 15
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Is turbulence simply the breakdown of order? Or is it, in fact, order by another name? Cosmic winds, the human heartbeat, and financial markets all have it. What commonalities persist among all these examples? Can turbulence be controlled, and should we try? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 14
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Mutations make us what we are, linking and blurring the harmful and the helpful. Even the most intricate biological mechanisms, with the most important functions, are already slipping into the future to do something else. In this issue, we trace the outlines of a world that is continually abandoning and inventing itself, often with our help, creating and destroying as it goes. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 13
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Symmetry, on first glance a mere detail of arrangement, has unexpected powers, aesthetic, practical—even moral. We find it in physics, families, and the brain. As shorthand, it heightens our powers of observation, helping us recognize faces and calculate particle interactions. As organizing principle, it steers genes and galaxies. Scientists, long ago convinced that it is mixed into the truth of things, flock to it. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 12
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This issue, we cast our gaze onto the feedback loops that regulate, control, and sometimes destabilize the world around us. We unearth them at every scale of space and time, from ants to continents, seconds to millions of years, human myths to the origins of life. Most surprising of all, we find a world carefully balanced between order and disorder, courtesy of one curious and powerful phenomenon. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 11
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Where does the story of life and light begin? Maybe with the fact that most life on Earth runs on sunlight, or that starlight may have set the direction in which all of Earth’s biomolecules spiral. But, when most of us cannot see the Milky Way, and glowing screens have shifted our circadian rhythms, have we had too much light, and can we win darkness back? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 10
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Since the beginning, scientists have been dividing reality into increasingly smaller bits: atoms, quarks, proteins, genes. As the list of parts has multiplied, so have their possible interactions, making the boundaries around scientific disciplines increasingly porous. From polymers to parasites, and genes to galaxies, our world is replete with wheelers and dealers, and hosts more shotgun weddings than Las Vegas. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 09
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Remember Ben Franklin’s words: “you may delay, but time will not.” On the other hand, some physicists are telling us that time may not exist to begin with. And anyway, since quantum mechanics is challenging causality itself, what impact could your actions possibly have? As we look deeper, time looks more elastic and less defined. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 08
5.2MB (EPUB)
They say that home is the place where they have to take you in. Is it? From stellar birth clusters and allergic adaption, to symbiotic evolution and our personal microbiome, Nature has its own definitions of home. And our own ideas are shifting: Our physical homes are under renovation, and what we do at home is changing. Home births, home offices, home schooling … homepages? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 07
6.5MB (EPUB)
This issue tackles something we don’t like to think about. But not only is waste everywhere on our land, in our oceans, and even in space—it is also useful. It drives innovation, creates wealth, teaches us about the past, and is a kind of currency in systems from biology to physics. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 06
3.8MB (EPUB)
There were hackers long before the denial-of-service attack. Life is a script written in carbon and transmitted faithfully between generations—sometimes. Other times, it is hacked by viruses, stolen by bacteria, or mutated by cosmic rays. Join us as we pull back the curtain on nature’s information wars. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 05
1.7MB (EPUB)
Why is “Honey Boo-Boo” a megastar? Fame can seem an empty category. But it also shows up everywhere. Daniel Dennett has described consciousness as the happy spoils of a competition among various representations of reality: “fame in the brain.” Is fame an important natural process, and our obsession with it inevitable? READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 04
3.1MB (EPUB)
“What are the odds?” This is a surprisingly difficult, and loaded, question. Is the improbable event an indication of some hidden mechanism? Or is it just long odds? In this issue, we explore The Unlikely—from how to predict it, to how to live with what we couldn’t predict. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 03
2.6MB (EPUB)
This issue is all about life in motion, from electrons in microchips to proteins in cells to ocean tankers to planets wandering the cosmos. Over and over we are surprised to find that “just getting there” is an integral part of our world, and something that defines it. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 02
4.2MB (EPUB)
Uncertainty is baked into our modern world. We explore how everything from quantum particles to humans themselves turn out to be undetermined in ways that upset expectations. Even mathematics itself—the language of logic—includes statements that can be proven to be neither true nor false. READ ONLINE
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ISSUE 01
3.1MB (EPUB)
What’s the biggest statement science has made about humans and our place in the universe in the past few hundred years? The answer suggested itself immediately: We’ve been told that we just aren’t very important. This was a bit of a surprise. Where was this narrative of mediocrity coming from, and, more importantly, was it true? READ ONLINE
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Preview Issue
1.1MB (EPUB)
Behold the humble nautilus. We became interested in it here at Nautilus because, well, we stole its name. But also because (for a mollusk) it represents a remarkable intersection of science, math, myth, and culture. Since that is exactly the kind of intersection we love to write about, we decided to put together a little “teaser” issue all about it. READ ONLINE
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Print Edition 35
19.8MB (PDF)
Issue 35 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Forerunners and Evolving. It includes contributions from physics professor Paul Halpern, award-winning journalist Rachel Nuwer, and theoretical physicist Julian Barbour, among others. This issue also features a new illustration by Jorge Colombo.
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Print Edition 34
15.7MB (PDF)
Issue 34 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Something Green, The Amazing Brain, and Frontiers. It includes contributions from urbanist Anthony Townsend, best-selling science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, and physicist Jeremy England, among others. This issue also features a new illustration by Myriam Wares.
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Print Edition 33
24.5MB (PDF)
Issue 33 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Love & Sex and The Dark Side. It includes contributions from mathematician and author Aubrey Clayton, astrophysicist Caleb Scharf, and award-winning science journalist Jo Marchant, among others. This issue also features a new illustration by Jonathon Rosen.
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Print Edition 32
14.7MB (PDF)
Issue 32 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Reopening, Energy, and Risk. It includes contributions from paleoclimatologist Summer Praetorius, Roomba inventor Joe Jones, and film director Walter Murch, among others. This issue also features a new illustration by Myriam Wares.
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Print Edition 31
20.4MB (PDF)
Issue 31 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Intelligence and Outbreak. It includes contributions from physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, radio producer Steve Paulson, and Gaia hypothesis originator James Lovelock, among others. This issue also features new illustrations by Jorge Colombo.
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Print Edition 30
28.2MB (PDF)
Issue 30 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Aliens, Maps, and Panpsychism. It includes contributions from journalist Corey S. Powell, linguist David Adger, and New York Times bestselling author Annaka Harris, among others. This issue also features a new illustration by Ralph Steadman.
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Print Edition 29
22.8MB (PDF)
Issue 29 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Underworlds, Atmospheres, and Catalysts. It includes contributions from science and nature journalist Brandon Keim, paleoclimatologist Summer Praetorius, and astrophysicist Martin Rees, among others. This issue also features new illustrations by Jorge Colombo.
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Print Edition 28
101.5MB (PDF)
Issue 28 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Story and Language. It includes contributions from journalist M.R. O'Connor, neuroscientist Robert Burton, award-winning fiction author Ted Chiang, and linguist David Adger, among others. This issue also features new illustrations by K. Cantner.
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Print Edition 27
11.1MB (PDF)
Issue 27 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of
the best content from our issues on Quandary, Play, and Networks. It includes contributions from neuroscientist
Grigori Guitchounts, anthropologist Barclay Bram, and award-winning science
writer George Musser. This issue also features original art by K. Cantner.
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Print Edition 26
36.7MB (PDF)
Issue 26 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of
the best content from our issues on Context, Patterns, Variable, and Flow.
This issue includes contributions
from journalist Moises Velasquez-Manoff, environmental journalist Heather
Hansman, evolutionary biologist David P. Barash, and mathematician John Baez.
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Print Edition 25
9.5MB (PDF)
Issue 25 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Connections, Systems, Horizons, The Unseen, In Plain Sight, Clockwork, and Reboot.
This issue includes contributions by: journalist Justin Nobel, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers, cognitive neuroscientist Heather Berlin, and microbial ecologist Miranda Hart.
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Print Edition 24
15.0MB (PDF)
Issue 24 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Perspective, Communities, and Self.
This issue includes contributions by: archaeologist and medieval historian Alexander Langlands, Japanese artist Hideki Nakazawa, and psychology professor David P. Barash. This issue also features original artwork from Guilio Bonasera, Daniel Greenfeld, and more.
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Nov./Dec. 2017
20.3MB (PDF)
The November/December 2017 Nautilus print edition combines some of the best
content from our issues on The Unspoken and Trust.
This issue includes
contributions by: linguist Julie Sedivy, neuroscience professor and author
Stuart Firestein, and anthropologist Dorsa Amir. This issue also features
original artwork from Michela Buttignol, Rebecca Mock, and more.
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Sept/Oct 2017
24.1MB (PDF)
The September/October 2017 Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on The Hive and Monsters, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: bestselling author and MIT professor Max Tegmark, tropical ecologist Mark Moffett, and journalist Regan Penaluna. In addition, this issue features original artwork from Sophy Hollington, Kati Szilagyi, Jessica Lin, and more.
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July/August 2017
29.2MB (PDF)
The July/August 2017 Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Emergence and Limits, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: theoretical physicist Geoffrey West, distinguished psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett, and author Jonathan Waldman. In addition, this issue features original artwork from Wenjia Tang, Kati Szilagyi, Jessica Lin, and more.
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May/June 2017
25.6MB (PDF)
The May/June 2017 Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Chaos and The Absurd, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: neuroendocrinologist and author Robert Sapolsky; award-winning physics writer Amanda Gefter; and comic artists Steven Nadler and Ben Nadler. In addition, this issue features original artwork from Ignacio Serrano, Allison Filice, Yiran Guo, and more.
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March/April 2017
22.0MB (PDF)
The March/April 2017 Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Balance and Consciousness, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: Prominent physicist Lawrence Krauss, writer Samantha Larson, who at 18 became the youngest person to climb the highest mountain on each continent, award-winning author Philip Ball, and radio producer Steve Paulson. In addition, this issue features original artwork from Don Kilpatrick III, Amanda Phingbodhipakkaya, Jackie Ferrentino, and more.
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Jan./Feb. 2017
18.3MB (PDF)
The January/February 2017 Nautilus print
edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Luck and Power,
with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes
contributions by: best-selling author Michael Lewis; linguist Julie Sedivy; writer and photographer John Wendle; and author Alan Burdick. The issue also features original artwork from Julia Breckenreid, Daniel Zender, Ellen Weinstein, David Antonio Perezcassar, and more.
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Nov./Dec. 2016
22.5MB (PDF)
The November/December 2016 Nautilus print
edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Fakes and Heroes,
with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes
contributions by: non-fiction writer Margot Lee Shetterly; neuroendocrinologist and
author Robert Sapolsky; award-winning physics writer Amanda Gefter; and radio
producer Steve Paulson. The issue also features original artwork from Richie
Pope, Brian Rea, Rebekka Dunlap, Jasu Hu, Dadu Shin, and more.
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Sept./Oct. 2016
25.0MB (PDF)
The September/October 2016 Nautilus print
edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Learning and Scaling,
with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes
contributions by: award-winning science writer James Gleick; research scientist
Kate Marvel; award-winning author Philip Ball; and best-selling author Tom
Vanderbilt. The issue also features original artwork from Daniel Hertzberg, Gizem
Vural, Chris Gash, Feifei Ruan, Chris Buzelli, and more.
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July/August 2016
21.6MB (PDF)
The July/August 2016 Nautilus print
edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Noise and Sport,
with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes
contributions by: science journalist Sally Davies; best-selling author J.B.
MacKinnon; environmental journalist Courtney Humphries; and author Moises
Velasquez-Manoff. In addition, the issue features original artwork from Ping
Zhu, Ryan Peltier, Victo Ngai, Eric Nyquist, Ellen Weinstein, and more.
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May/June 2016
19.8MB (PDF)
The May/June 2016 Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content
from our issues on Aging and Currents, with new original contributions
and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: environmental journalist Jonathan Waldman;
photo editor and author Rebecca Horne; best-selling author Tom Vanderbilt; and award-winning journalist Justin Nobel. In addition, the issue features original artwork from Together, Alexander Glandien, Lisk Feng, Jun Cen, John Hendrix, and more.
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March/April 2016
20.3MB (PDF)
The March/April 2016 Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Adaptation and Boundaries, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: award-winning scientist Hope Jahren; prominent biologist Sean B. Carroll; award-winning author Philip Ball; and science journalist Amy Maxmen. Plus, original artwork from Angie Wang, Aad Goudappel, Julia Breckenreid, Esther Pearl Watson, Jason Holley, and more.
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Jan./Feb. 2016
18.7MB (PDF)
The January/February 2016 <>Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our issues on Space and Attraction, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: award-winning author George Musser; biological anthropologist Helen Fisher; best-selling author Tom Vanderbilt; and popular comedian Aziz Ansari. This issue also features original artwork from Tim O’Brian, Rebecca Mock, David Plunkert, Julia Rothman, Francisco Alandre, and more.
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Nov./Dec. 2015
19.6MB (PDF)
The
November/December 2015 Nautilus print magazine combines some
of the best content from our issues on Identity and Stress, with new original
contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions
by: author Gillen D’Arcy Wood; linguist Julie Sedivy; award-winning illustrator
and journalist Steve Brodner; and award-winning journalist Chelsea Wald. In
addition, this issue features original artwork from Wesley Allsbrook, Jackie
Ferrentino, Molly Mendoza, Lauren R. Weinstein, Alex Eben Meyer, and more.
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Sept./Oct. 2015
19.7MB (PDF)
The September/October 2015 Nautilus print magazine
combines some of the best content from our issues on 2050 and Scaling, with new
original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: writer and experimental
philosopher Jonathon Keats; radio producer Steve Paulson; award-winning author
Philip Ball; and MIT physicist and best-selling author Alan Lightman. In
addition, this issue features original artwork from Brian Stauffer, James
Yang, Tim O’Brien, Laruen R. Weinstein, Angie Wang, and more.
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July/August 2015
21.1MB (PDF)
The July/August 2015 Nautilus print magazine combines some of the best content from our issues on Water, Color, and Dark Matter, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: author Peter Moore; journalist Michael Green; best-selling author Tom Vanderbilt; and award-winning author Mark Peplow. Plus, original artwork from Gerard DuBois, Brian Stauffer, JooHee Yoon, Scott Bakal, Marina Muun, and more.
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May/June 2015
19.5MB (PDF)
The May/June 2015 Nautilus print magazine combines some of the best content from our issues on Slow, Dominoes, and Error, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by: award-winning science journalist Adam Piore; Helen Fisher; author Abby Rabinowitz; pilot and author Jeff Wise; and Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky. It also features original artwork from John Hendrix, Francesco Bongiorni, Roman Muradov, Carmen Segovia, and more.
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March/April 2015
15.0MB (PDF)
The March/April 2015 Nautilus print magazine (our seventh print edition) combines some of the best content from our issues on Illusions, Creativity, and Information, with new original contributions and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by Swedish author and hoverfly collector Fredrik Sjöberg; Tom Vanderbilt; Robin Marantz Henig; Phil Ball; and Alex Wright. Plus, original artwork from Yuko Shimizu, Jon Han, Shout, Tim O’Brien, and more.
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Winter 2015
44.4MB (PDF)
The sixth issue of the Nautilus Quarterly combines some of the best content from our issues on Nothingness, Big Bangs, and Genius, with new original contributions from the world’s best thinkers and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by geneticist Scott Solomon; Caltech physicist and best-selling author Leonard Mlodinow; MIT physicist and best-selling author Alan Lightman; award-winning journalist and author Carl Zimmer; and Salon writer Andrew O’Hehir. In addition, this issue features original artwork from Ralph Steadman, Never Ever Even, Serge Bloch, Michael Woloschinow, and more.
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Fall 2014
19.8MB (PDF)
The fifth issue of the Nautilus Quarterly combines some of the best content from our issues on Symmetry, Mutation, and Turbulence, with new original contributions from the world's best thinkers and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
The issue includes contributions by science writer Lee Billings; engineering professor Barbara Oakley; journalist and NYU professor Jessica Seigel; author Moises Velasquez-Manoff; and author David Berreby. It also features original artwork from Chris Buzelli, Lauren Weinstein, Marcos Chin, John Hendrix, and more.
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Summer 2014
18.9MB (PDF)
The fourth issue of the Nautilus Quarterly features some of the best content from our issues on Mergers & Acquisitions, Light, and Feedback, plus new, original essays and rich, full-color illustrations.
This issue includes contributions by ecologist Nigel Pitman; best-selling novelist Daniel Kehlmann; award-winning author Philip Ball; Columbia University astrophysicist Caleb Scharf; award-winning science writer Ed Yong; and paleontologist and author Neil Shubin. Plus, outstanding art by Thomas Struth, Ellen Weinstein, Miko Maciaczek, Gracia Lam, Jonathon Rosen, Shannon Freshwater, Jon Han, Gaby D’Alessandro, Yuko Shimizo, and others.
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Spring 2014
23.7MB (PDF)
The third issue of the Nautilus Quarterly combines some of the best online content from our issues on Waste, Home, and Time with original essays and rich, full-color illustrations.
The issue includes contributions by investigative journalist Anna Badkehn; former editor in chief of Discover Corey Powell; MIT physicist Max Tegmark; psychology professor David Barash; theoretical physicist Lee Smolin; and Time’s “Hero of the Planet,” Sylvia Earle. Also, award-winning art by Shout- Illustrations, Yuko Shimizu, Chris Buzelli, Chad Hagen, Nora Krug, Sam Green, and Wesley Allsbrook.
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Winter 2014
17.3MB (PDF)
The second issue of the Nautilus Quarterly combines some of the best content from our online issues on The Unlikely, Fame, and Secret Codes, with new original contributions from the world’s best thinkers, and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
The issue includes contributions by actor, producer, and writer, B.J. Novak; award-winning author Mark Anderson; MIT lecturer Slava Gerovitch; best-selling author Richard Holmes; NYU journalism professor Jessica Siegel; and theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton. Along with award-winning original artwork from Victo Ngai, Emiliano Ponzi, Ellen Weinstein, Tomasz Walenta, and more.
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Fall 2013
12.4MB (PDF)
The inaugural issue of the Nautilus Quarterly combines some of the best content from our issues on Human Uniqueness, Uncertainty, and In Transit, with new original contributions from the world’s best thinkers and gorgeous full-color illustrations.
The issue includes contributions by Stanford University Primatologist Robert Sapolsky; quantum computing pioneer David Deutsch; best-selling author Tom Vanderbilt; biologist Aaron Hirsh; and best-selling author Jared Diamond. Plus, award-winning original artwork from Jon Han, John Hendrix, Gerard DuBois, Jason Holley, Elena Dorfman, and more.
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