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53 articles-
What Role Will Immunity Play in Conquering COVID-19?
It seems like people who get infected with SARS-CoV-2 retain immunity, but we can’t be sure how long that immunity will last. We still lack the testing capabilities to be certain.eamesBot / Shutterstock Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . This story was updated post-publication to include information from a […] -
Insects and the Meaning of Sleep
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . If you watch an exhausted baby carefully, you may be able to see gravity tug heavy eyelids down. Likewise, a sleeping honeybee’s usually perky antennae droop.This adorable sign of insect repose may seem unremarkable. But studying insect […] -
When Cancer Treatment Re-traumatizes Survivors of Sexual Trauma
Shutterstock Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . An optical illusion mesmerizes us with its ability to look entirely different depending on our perspective. Our patients can challenge our perceptions, too. Many people are familiar with the famous illusion of Rubin’s vase; the picture can appear to be two faces […] -
Meet the World’s Most Notorious Taxonomist
Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . In 2005, the taxonomist Quentin Wheeler named a trio of newly discovered slime-mold beetles after George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney. He believed the names could increase public interest in the discovery and classification of new species, and help combat […] -
Don’t Believe the Hype: Winter Does Not Begin Tonight
Tonight, at 11:48 PM Eastern Time, is the moment of the winter solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is pointed as far away from the sun as it ever gets. It will be the longest night of the year, and tomorrow will be the day with the fewest hours of sunlight. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free […]
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How Radio Enthusiasts Are Listening to Earth’s Secret Symphony
Stephen McGreevy looked nervously at the sky. Outside his camper van in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, angry black clouds gathered on the horizon as 30-mile-per-hour winds whipped across the flat expanse. At his feet, an array of copper wire—hundreds of feet of it—writhed like snakes. As rain beat against the roof, McGreevy hastily gathered the […]
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6 Graphs That Showed Landmark Discoveries—But Were Later Debunked
It begins with the smallest anomaly. The first exoplanets were the slightest shifts in a star’s light. The Higgs boson was just a bump in the noise. And the Big Bang sprung from a few rapidly moving galaxies that should have been staying put. Great scientific discoveries are born from puny signals that prompt attention. […]
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How White Came to Be Synonymous With Clean and Good
White has a physical purity. White light contains roughly equal amounts of every color in the visual spectrum, and activates all three types of cone cells in our eyes related to color. As a result, we perceive materials that don’t absorb color, and reflect light back to us, as achromatic—white. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free […]
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Looking Through Paintings to See What’s Hidden
This post originally ran on Facts So Romantic in May, 2013. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . There is more to the world than meets the human eye, a fact that hit home for the 18th-century astronomer Sir Frederick William Herschel when he discovered infrared light—a wavelength of light that […]
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Can “New Horizons” Bring a Crowdsourced Message From Earth to Aliens?
Now that New Horizons has completed its flyby of Pluto, the spacecraft is on a long journey to become the fifth manmade object to leave the solar system. It does so carrying some curious human artifacts: a Florida state quarter, an American flag, and one ounce of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto […]
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A Visual History of Humanity’s Exploration of Pluto
Before I could string full sentences together, I used to wander outside past my bedtime. I would push open the sliding glass door and immediately look up, searching for stars sprinkled beyond the silhouetted trees. At the time, I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what I was seeing. Instead, each beacon of light represented a […]
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How Science Helped Pen the Declaration of Independence
This classic Facts So Romantic post originally ran in July, 2013. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . On July 4, 1776, representatives of 13 colonies on the eastern shores of North America signed a Declaration of Independence from England. Winning independence was still a bloody war ahead, an unlikely outcome. Declaring independence was […] -
The Mystery of the Missing Planets
There is an unsolved problem I want to tell you about: The case of the missing Trojans. You might be thinking of the mythical horse with soldiers hidden inside. Or maybe you’re thinking of a sports team. Or a type of computer virus, or, let’s be honest, of the condoms. (Note that I said, “Case […] -
The Nautilus Weekly Science News Quiz
Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Think you’ve got what it takes to ace our science news quiz? This week, we want you to tell us why Saharan silver ants are so special, how baboons mimic the political process, and more. Go on, test yourself. NB. If you are interested in […] -
Why Tinder Charmers and Movie Heroes Move the Same Way
Tinder—in case you’re not active in the young-person dating pool—is a dating application that shows you pictures of other Tinder users in your area. If you are not interested in meeting the person you see, you swipe their picture to the left. If you are interested, you swipe right. If two people right-swipe each other’s […] -
The Nautilus Weekly Science News Quiz
Illustration by Jackie Ferrentino Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Welcome to the weekly Nautilus science news quiz! This week, we test your turtle sex knowledge and ask you to weigh in on a dinosaur’s slim-down. Put your science news knowledge to the test!