Issue_34
43 articles-
The Strange Ecosystem in the Sea: Dead Whales
One April day in 2013, the submersible Shinkai 6500 descended to the base of the steep São Paulo Ridge, 13,000 feet under the Atlantic Ocean. “Hang on,” Paulo Sumida, a marine biologist, radioed to the submersible pilot from the support vessel on the ocean’s surface. “Those are whale bones.”In fact, they were frozen vertebrae of an […] -
Listen to an Exclusive Excerpt from Hope Jahren’s New Book, “Lab Girl”
Hope Jahren, a geobiologist and geochemist, wants to speak to you. For decades, she says, she’s been speaking to the same people, her scientific peers, and now it’s time for a change. “I wanted to write this book”—her memoir, Lab Girl, published today—“in order to talk to somebody new,” she told Nautilus recently. Her subject? […] -
This Astrobiologist Is Collecting Unrecognizable Beings from the Stratosphere
Milton Wainwright believes he’s seen ET. In Earth’s upper atmosphere, he claims to have found evidence for panspermia—the hypothesis that life travels through the cosmos via meteoroids and other objects. A microbiologist and astrophysicist at the University of Sheffield, Wainwright sends large balloons up to the stratosphere, as high as 25 miles above the planet’s […] -
This Man Is Genetically Altering Ecosystems to Save Them from Climate Change
On a chilly afternoon last October, at a University of Northern Arizona conference, Thomas Whitham, a plant geneticist, proposed a plan to save hundreds of species from extinction. For the last several years, Whitham said, he and his colleagues had used a series of experimental gardens to study how plants are being affected by warming […] -
What It’s Like Being a Sudden Savant
Before her accident Heather Thompson was, by any measure, very successful. She lived just outside Seattle’s urban sprawl, was a CEO and a nationally respected business strategist, married, and had a two-year-old daughter. “I was at the pinnacle of my career,” she said. Then, on March 6, 2011, Thompson went to the grocery store and, […]
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Watch Carl Sagan Discuss Aliens in This Wonderfully Animated Radio Interview
When Carl Sagan, the late astronomer and original Cosmos host, published his first novel, Contact, in 1985, Studs Terkel, the long-time radio broadcaster, asked him a month later to chat with him. Their subject, of course, was aliens, and the question of whether we’d ever establish good relations with them. In their conversation—which Blank on Blank, […]
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Why “Natural Selection” Became Darwin’s Fittest Metaphor
Some metaphors end up forgotten by all but the most dedicated historians, while others lead long, productive lives. It’s only a select few, though, that become so entwined with how we understand the world that we barely even recognize them as metaphors, seeing them instead as something real. Of course, why some fizzle and others […]
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The Loophole in the Hedonic Treadmill
When Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, in The House of the Dead, that “Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything,” he was talking about the cruelties and deprivations of life in Siberian prison camp. But the human tendency to adapt or “get accustomed” to situations is more profound than even Dostoyevsky may have realized.Imagine […]
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This College Student Is Writing Women Back into the History of Science
Emily Temple-Wood has written approximately one Wikipedia article every ten days since she was 12 years old, totaling around 330. The work of the 21-year-old undergraduate, studying molecular biology at Loyola University of Chicago, unabashedly exposes sexism—and in the process, has exposed her to some of it. Temple-Wood’s output has made her the target of […]
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How Birds Spot a Fraud and Choose the Right Gender for a Mate
Humans have marvelous powers of recognition. No one’s surprised when parents identify their child in a crowd by a glimpse of her face or echo of her voice. But we aren’t unique in this regard. Other creatures have evolved impressive powers of discrimination. Take birds. “Their recognition system is really quite remarkable,” says Mark Hauber, […]
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Are You More Likely to Be a Baker If You’re Named “Baker”?
You may like to imagine that your major life choices—where you live, who you marry, what you do for a living—are based on rational weighing of options. In your relationships, for example, you might seek someone that jives with your personality and shares your life interests, beliefs, and Netflix preferences. So the fact that you […]
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Your Roommate Is Changing Your Immune System
Our veins are swimming with immune cells of many different kinds. Some bear the memory of previous infections, in case we should encounter them again; some are actively fighting invaders; others are merely on the look-out. Counting all of the varieties of cells and what molecules they are producing gives researchers a profile of someone’s […] -
Does Stress Speed Up Evolution?
Getting control of the molecular mechanisms that drive rapid mutations. -
Spark of Science: Sean B. Carroll
One biologist’s love for science got kickstarted by snakes. -
Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?
Why life is constrained to be about the sizes we see on Earth. -
Junk Food Is Bad For Plants, Too
How a steady diet of fertilizers has turned crops into couch potatoes.