Emergence

25 articles
  • Article Image

    Arts

    The Typewriter’s Love of the Desert

    Reflections on Sam Shepard’s time at the Santa Fe Institute.

  • Article Image

    Microbiology

    The $1 Billion Misunderstanding of Aging

    Robert Conquest, a historian of Soviet Russia and a poet, once summarized Shakespeare’s 28-line poem, “The Seven Ages of Man,” in five lines. They go like this: Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Seven Ages: first puking and mewlingThen very pissed off with your schooling.Then fucks and then fights. […]

  • Article Image

    Physics

    A New Explanation for One of the Strangest Occurrences in Nature—Ball Lightning

    Explanations for how ball lightning is formed are even more diverse than its physical characteristics. Just a sampling of the theories out there suggest the ball is a cloud of hot silicon particles, a natural nuclear reaction, a lightning-induced epileptic hallucination, a miniature black hole, an aggregate of cellulose and other natural polymers, and a […]

  • Article Image

    Technology

    Make Concrete Roman Again!

    The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder can be charmingly self-deprecating. He attempted, in the 1st century A.D., to curate all ancient knowledge in his Natural History, yet he described its 37 volumes to his close friend’s son, Titus, the Emperor of Rome, as having “such inferior importance.” To Pliny, they did “not admit of the […]

  • Article Image

    Communication

    How to Defuse Offensive Speech

    The claim that speech can be violence is dangerous, it is argued, because it exacerbates the emotional vulnerability that’s already rampant in the “Internet generation,” of which today’s undergraduates are a part.Image by Eduard Bezembinder / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . If you Google “It’s been emotional,” […]

  • Boyd_HERO

    Anthropology

    Gold Mining for Profit and Paleontology

    How the Gold Rush and Fossil Rush came together.