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?

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Celebrating the Relationship Between Science and Illustration
A conversation with Society of Illustrators executive director Arabelle Liepold -
The Extraordinary, Imperiled Science at the End of the Earth
Firing experts in Antarctica couldn’t come at a worse time -
Breaking a Cycle of Apocalypse
John Larison’s new novel The Ancients suggests some societies are built for cataclysm -
An Earthy Fallen Star
The strange mushroom that puffs life into forests around the world. -
Inside an Exploded Star
Cassiopeia A gets a close-up.