Issue_61
20 articles-
The Young Milky Way Collided With a Dwarf Galaxy
Reprinted with permission from Quanta’s Abstractions blog. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . As the Milky Way was growing, taking shape, and minding its own business around 10 billion years ago, it suffered a massive head-on collision with another, smaller galaxy. That cosmic cataclysm changed the Milky Way’s structure forever, […] -
Why Enceladus’ Ice Is Part of the Climate Change Conversation
To imagine the absence of the Arctic and Antarctica produces something like the opposite of sublime, a pang of emptiness and a longing to appreciate that terrain in person before it passes.Image by NASA / Wikicommons Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Beneath the icy surface of Saturn’s sixth-largest […] -
Taking Another Person’s Perspective Doesn’t Help You Understand Them
To understand someone, we should not imagine their point of view but make the effort to “get” their perspective. -
The Rhythm of Sculpture
How science has informed one sculptor’s view of time. -
Should You Tell Everyone They’re Honest?
People try to live up to their labels.
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Scavenging Russia’s Rocket Graveyard Is Dangerous and Profitable
This might be one of the most remote places on earth, little accessible by road, but its peace is routinely broken by the oldest, largest and busiest spaceport in the world: the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Photograph by Alex Zelenko / Wikicommons Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . The Altai mountain […]
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The Spacetime of Fine Art
For the painter Matthew Phillips, past, present, and future meet at the tip of a brush.
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Climate Change Is Making Plants Behave Like Costco Shoppers
Plants have their own form of money: carbon dioxide. For decades, our fossil fuel industry has been artificially inflating their currency. What happens to plants during inflation—when CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise? Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . The same thing that happens if you drop money from […]
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Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness—But Time Just Might Do It
A city’s pace of life was indeed “significantly related” to the physical, social, and psychological well-being of its inhabitants.Photograph by Neta Bartal / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . While on vacation in distant locales, people often find that time moves quite differently than in the places they’re […]
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Why Social Science Needs Evolutionary Theory
Evolutionary theory has the potential to transform education and, through it, society.
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Making Time Machines From Taxi Meters
A sculptor explains how his art upends time. -
We Need to Save Ignorance From AI
In an age of all-knowing algorithms, how do we choose not to know? -
Desert Air Will Give Us Water
A partial solution to the problem of punishing droughts may be to snatch water from the air, Dune-style.Photograph by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Last year, after a punishing four-year drought, California lifted emergency water-scarcity measures in all but four counties. […] -
Evidence Found for a New Fundamental Particle
Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Physicists are both thrilled and baffled by a new report from a neutrino experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago. The MiniBooNE experiment has detected far more neutrinos of a particular type than expected, a finding that is […] -
Larry David and the Game Theory of Anonymous Donations
What your generosity signals about you.