Issue_51
29 articles-
Why We Had to Change the Meaning of Nothing
Nothing” isn’t what it used to be. It used to be something self-evident: the opposite, or the absence, of something. We still use the word this way colloquially, of course. When I’m asked, on the sidewalk, if I can spare some change or a dollar, I say, if I have neither, “Sorry, I got nothing.” […] -
The Problem with the Mutation-Centric View of Cancer
How risk-assessments of cancer go wrong. -
Why A.I. Is Just Not Funny
Although A.I. robots can pick up on jokes, they have a lot to learn about telling them.Queen Mary University of London / YouTube In the 2004 film I, Robot, Detective Del Spooner asks an A.I. named Sonny: “Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?” Sonny responds: […] -
Getting Googled by Your Doctor
Will mental health clinicians become liable for missing your latest Facebook post? -
Sexism Killed My Love for Philosophy Then Mary Astell Brought It Back
How one woman philosopher reinvigorated another.
-
What the Rumored Neutron Star Merger Might Teach Us
In a sense, neutron star mergers are the largest hadron colliders ever conceived.Image by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / Flickr This month, before LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, and its European counterpart Virgo, were going to close down for a year to undergo upgrades, they jointly surveyed the skies. It was a […]
-
The Case for Cosmic Pantheism
Einstein, a professed pantheist, wrote that he experienced a “cosmic religious feeling,” a persistent awe at the “sublimity and marvelous order” of the universe. He was not alone.Credit: Internet Archive Aren’t those opposites?” people often ask me, when they discover I study science and religion. As a professor of religious studies, I am particularly drawn […]
-
When Dark Humor Stops Being Funny
Experiencing small doses of negative emotions, elicited by an offensive joke, may make us more resilient to future, more serious set backs.Photograph by Barry Brecheisen / Getty Images In either ninth or tenth grade, my friend Dan and I found a book of “Truly Tasteless Jokes” on the cafeteria floor. Our teenage psyches were quickly […]
-
This Ecologist Wants to Tell You What Matters in Science
“What physicists and astronomers do is trivial compared to solving these problems.”
-
Are You Downplaying Luck’s Role in Your Life?
When we succeed, we often take that success, in retrospect, to be the result of suffering that liquid trinity of blood, sweat, and tears. Perhaps fortune favored you here and there but, by and large, it was your effort and talent—not contingency—that won the day.Nonsense, says Robert Frank, a professor of economics at Cornell University […]
-
The Catch 22 of Hacktivism
Are hackers who expose the military serving it? -
When Driver and Car Share the Same Brain
An artist teams with an automaker to counter driverless cars with neuroscience. -
30 Weirdly Fascinating Health and Body Facts
The camera doesn’t often linger on all the severed heads in Game of Thrones. But if it did, might we see some sign of awareness—at least for a few seconds? A human head doesn’t lose consciousness until after about four seconds, post-decapitation. That’s resiliency of a kind. And the acid in your stomach? Strong enough […] -
The Pernicious Myth of Willpower
It turns out “willpower” is not a valid psychological construct. -
Will We Ever Know What Dark Matter Is?
The search for the elusive material is reaching the end of its tether.