Issue_58
25 articles-
Will This “Neural Lace” Brain Implant Help Us Compete with AI?
Smarter artificial intelligence is certainly being developed, but how far along are we on producing a neural lace?Photograph by g.tec medical engineering GmbH / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Solar-powered self-driving cars, reusable space ships, Hyperloop transportation, a mission to colonize Mars: Elon Musk is hell-bent on […] -
The Self Is Other People
Our very sense of who we are is intertwined with what we see when we see other people look at us. -
How ‘Oumuamua Got Shredded
‘Oumuamua may be a piece of a torn-apart comet, gravitationally launched into interstellar space, that roamed the galaxy before dropping on our doorstep.ESO / M. Kornmesser / Wikicommons Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Our solar system’s first houseguest—at least, the first one we have seen in our midst—is […] -
The Problem with Mindfulness
Should we be mindful of how popular “mindfulness” now is? Carl Erik Fisher says we should. Fisher is a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and a practicing psychotherapist who integrates meditation in his practice, and meditates himself. But he worries some popular meditation practices, which stress salvation through a clear mind, undermine the […] -
Nautilus Joins Forces with Discover and Astronomy
You may not know it, but Nautilus and Discover go way back. Our features editor, Kevin Berger, came to us from Discover Magazine. So did our long-time (now former) blog editor, Amos Zeeberg. Discover editors have written and guest-edited for us, and we’ve been regular consumers of Discover’s great features and blog content since we […]
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Is Facebook Really Scarier Than Google?
On Twitter, in a thread that went viral, François Chollet, an A.I. software engineer at Google, argued, “Facebook is, in effect, in control of your political beliefs and your worldview.”Photograph by Joe Penniston / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and C.E.O. of Facebook, […]
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When the Heavens Stopped Being Perfect
The advent of the telescope punctured our ideals about the nighttime sky.
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Why Forests Give You Awe
Can you remember the time when you first felt awe, that feeling of being in the presence of something immense and mind-blowing? The natural world—with its domineering mountains, colossal trees, and tall waterfalls—is one of its main sources. I felt awe first when I was a young boy at the feet of the biggest tree […]
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The Surprising Relativism of the Brain’s GPS
How new data is transforming our understanding of place cells.
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Machine Behavior Needs to Be an Academic Discipline
Why should studying AI behavior be restricted to those who make AI?
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Why Do So Many Scientists Want to be Filmmakers?
The problem with C.P. Snow’s famous two-cultures hypothesis. -
Why Teens Plea Guilty to Crimes They Didn’t Commit
In 1978, 18-year-old Roy Watford confronted a fateful decision. No, it wasn’t which college to attend—it was whether to plead guilty, while believing himself innocent, to the charge of raping a 12-year-old girl. His grandfather didn’t want him to risk a jury sending him to prison for life, so he caved, plead guilty, and received […] -
Why Doing Good Makes It Easier to Be Bad
Oscar Wilde wouldn’t have been surprised to hear of a series of recent scandals in the U.K. -
Scary AI Is More “Fantasia” Than “Terminator”
Ex-Googler Nate Soares on AI’s alignment problem. -
Al Gore Does His Best Ralph Waldo Emerson
The former vice president reads the transcendentalist poet—and reminds us of one.