Issue_23
32 articles-
Why Hasn’t the World Been Destroyed in a Nuclear War Yet?
The precariousness of game theory. -
How Enormous Dominoes Can Help You Rethink Saving for Retirement
Can the spectacle of crashing dominoes shock people out of old habits? -
Why Expectant Mothers Can Just Chill Out
Sodapix/Getty When philosopher Nicolas Malebranche peered at a fetus floating in a glass jar, in a shop of curiosities in Paris in 1672, he blamed its monstrous shape on the mother. At the time it was believed that a mother could deform her fetus simply by looking at something vivid. Malebranche had heard that this […] -
Meet the 17-Year-Old, Award-Winning, Rube Goldberg Parts Manufacturer
Tommy George and the Agents of SHIELD shot a Nerf ball and erased a whiteboard. -
What Facebook, Blue Jeans, and Metal Signs Taught Us About Tornado Science
Screen capture of Patty Bullion’s “Pictures and Documents found after the April 27, 2011 Tornadoes” Facebook page. On April 27, 2011 a monstrous EF5 tornado traveled 132 miles across northern Alabama and into southern Tennessee, missing one of the nation’s largest nuclear power plants by less than two miles, and also skirting the grounds of […]
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Is Our Universe a One-Off Fluke, or an Endless Cycle?
Paul Steinhardt is torn. On the one hand, he has been working on and contributing to the theory of inflation for decades. On the other hand, he thinks it may very well be wrong.Inflation describes the early universe going through an unimaginably rapid expansion in its infancy, from the size of an atomic nucleus to […]
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Intemperate Planet: How Natural Systems Magnify the Effects of Global Warming
As Arctic ice warms and forms dark melt ponds, it absorbs more sunlight, accelerating global warming.Kathryn Hansen, ICESCAPE mission, NASA Besides a few lucky astronauts, the entire human experience is contained within a narrow envelope of gas maintained in a relatively narrow temperature range on a single rock hurtling through the vacuum of space. That […]
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Forget the Ordinary Honeybee; Look at the Beautiful Bees They’re Crowding Out
All of the images in this post are borrowed from the amazing Flickr feed of the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab.Any day now, the apple trees on my deck will bloom, bringing with them the first honeybees of spring. It’s a moment I’ll greet with mixed feelings. To which bee-lovers everywhere may respond: How […]
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Why the Flash Crash Really Matters
The debate about what caused the 2010 stock market Flash Crash is missing the point.
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The Man Who Drank Cholera and Launched the Yogurt Craze
Ilya Metchnikoff laid the foundation for modern probiotics.
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What Happens When You Can’t Talk to Yourself?
Phillips participates in an aphasia communication workshop in Speechless, a documentary by Guillermo F. Flórez that profiles people with the condition.Guillermo F. Flórez What would you do if you lost your inner monologue? You know, the one where you tell yourself “I don’t want to get up yet,” or “This is one delicious burger.” That’s […]
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Blessed by Science: How Genetic Medicine Changed a Strictly Religious Community
A group of Hasidic Jews walking the streets of Brooklyndiluvi.com Anna i Adria via Wikipedia In 1983, Yosef Eckstein an ultra-orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn, New York, had reason to be happy: His wife had just given birth to their fifth child. But the couple’s happiness was short-lived: The child was soon diagnosed with Tay–Sachs disease, […] -
The Disease That Turned Us Into Genetic-Information Junkies
For many people, 1969 felt like a year when technology could solve all of our problems, a sentiment that reached a crescendo with the Apollo 11 moon landing. But back on Earth, Michael Kaback was a faculty member in pediatrics1 at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, and he was frustrated. Kaback had helped some of his […] -
Five Short Stories About the Life and Times of Ideas
A complexity theorist explores how science and culture co-evolve. -
Some Music Is Inherently Bad—But People Can Be Convinced Otherwise
Artistic appreciation is a deeply subjective process, perhaps the most essentially personal thing that humans do. But are there some explanations for why we like what we do? Why, for instance, does a particular song get popular?Some of it has to do with the quality of the music—and by quality, I mean that there’s something […] -
PTSD: The Wound That Never Heals
Coming back to life after losing my first child.