Issue_46
35 articles-
Is Violence Declining Because We’re Evolving More Patience?
Impulsiveness is a heritable trait that may have been maladaptive in agrarian life. -
This Cancer Treatment Extends Life Without Pills, Radiation, or Surgery
The very act of existential unburdening proves to be life prolonging.Photograph by UpperCut Images / Getty What would go through your mind if I told you that you had cancer? Perhaps you’d wonder how you got it, or how you were going to get rid of it. Maybe you’d worry about whether you could keep […] -
The Quest for Unity Is Not Something Physics Is Cut Out to Do
If physics is understood as a descriptive mode of explanation, free of the unifying quest, the angst of not knowing it all is exorcised.Image by Andrew J. Hanson / Indiana University. In physics, we like theories that are simple and broad-ranging. By “simple,” physicists usually mean a mathematical theory that rests on as few postulates […] -
What Donald Trump Teaches Us About the Fermi Paradox
The “signal leakage” of our communications is becoming more and more scarce, not more abundant.Illustration by Danielle Futselaar / Flickr Reports of U.F.O. sightings were commonplace in the 1950s. The C.I.A. recently came clean, on Twitter, concerning its role: “Reports of unusual activity in the skies in the ‘50s? It was us.” Though not entirely—some […] -
Ingenious: Lisa Feldman Barrett
Inside a new theory of emotions that spotlights how the brain works.
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The Woman Who Gave Us the Science of Normal Life
Before Rachel Carson there was Ellen Swallow Richards, MIT’s first female student.
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Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too
Many famous scientists have something in common—they didn’t work long hours.
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The Race Problem in Breast Cancer Screening
Here’s a curious fact: Black American women are 37 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, according to a 2015 report by the American Cancer Society, yet they receive early-stage diagnoses much less frequently. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Why might that be?Biology’s role isn’t […]
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The Case for More Intellectual Humility
I can remember, almost a decade ago, when I was convinced out of my “Young-Earth” Creationism. It was almost a process of de-radicalization. During high school I was a generic Christian, but then some friends suggested I watch a video of a pastor online and, well, you can guess the rest. The message encouraged spreading […]
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There’s Mysteriously Large Amounts of Methane on Mars
The mystery isn’t just that we see methane when we shouldn’t. It’s also that, in a sense, we see too much of it. If you want to detect life on another planet, look for biomarkers—spectroscopic signatures of chemicals that betray the activity of living things. And in fact we may have already found a biomarker. […]
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It Might Be Time to Stop Touting Eco-Friendly Messages
In this climate, you might wonder whether it’s still possible for companies to tout a “green” message at all. Maybe it’s dead.Photograph by Florida Sea Grant / Flickr In his modestly titled 2010 book Beyond Business: An Inspirational Memoir From a Visionary Leader, John Browne, the former CEO of Beyond Petroleum (BP for short), recounted […] -
Are We Being Too Superficial About the Gender Problem in Science?
Hope Jahren, a geobiologist at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, is “very cynical about efforts to get girls into science.”Photograph by GSK / Flickr Why should the share of women in a given occupation affect its average pay? It’s a curious inverse relationship. Census data show that when the former increases, the latter decreases—when […] -
New Exoskeletons Will Harness the Subtle Anatomy of Human Balance
The bones and bodies of the Kenyan women had adjusted to perfectly support the head weight in the most energy efficient manner, aligning in an ideal formation to keep the weight off the muscles.Photograph by Kim Steele / Getty In the 1980s, a bioengineer named Norm Heglund was doing field work in Kenya, hoping to […] -
Meet Seven Extraordinary Women Scientists
A neuroscientist turned designer has created a unique celebration of women’s history month. -
Survival of the Friendliest
It’s time to give the violent metaphors of evolution a break.
