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16 articles
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    Neuroscience

    The Neural Similarities Between Remembering and Imagining

    The act of recalling something that happened to you looks very much like what happens when you imagine something new.Photograph by HBRH / Shutterstock Imagine a living room. Not yours or your friend’s or one you saw in a home makeover show, but one purely from your imagination—perhaps your ideal living room. You should have […]

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    Physics

    The Quantum Theory That Peels Away the Mystery of Measurement

    Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.Imagine if all our scientific theories and models told us only about averages: if the best weather forecasts could only give you the average daily amount of rain expected over the next month, or if astronomers could only predict the average time between solar eclipses. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log […]

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    History

    The Dr. Strange of the American Revolution

    Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration, became one of the most preeminent physician-scientists alive, founding American psychiatry.

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    Zoology

    We Need Insects More Than They Need Us

    Inside the world of plastic-eating worms, dung-rolling beetles, and agricultural ants..

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    Sociology

    Why Our Postwar “Long Peace” Is Fragile

    You could be forgiven for balking at the idea that our post-World War II reality represents a “Long Peace.” The phrase, given the prevalence of violent conflict worldwide, sounds more like how Obi-wan Kenobi might describe the period “before the dark times, before the Empire.”And yet, the “Long Peace” has been a long-argued over hypothesis […]

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    Microbiology

    What Is the Human Microbiome, Exactly?

    Are you an ecosystem? Your mouth, skin, and gut are home to whole communities of microscopic organisms, whose influence on your body ranges from digesting your food to training your immune system and, possibly, impacting your mood and behavior. What are these tiny tenants, and how do they change the way we think about human […]