Issue_86
16 articles-
This Philosophical Argument Convinced People to Give More to Charity
How much would you pay to prevent your own child becoming blind? -
How the Pandemic Has Tested Behavioral Science
In the interplay between behavioral science and policy, puffs of smoke abound.Photo illustration by metamorworks / Shutterstock In March the United Kingdom curiously declined to impose significant social distancing measures in response to the global pandemic. The government was taking advice from several parties, among them the so-called “Nudge Unit,” a private company called Behavioral […] -
The Black Sheep of Black Holes
This potential member of the cosmic zoo may explain a lot about how the cosmos is structured. -
The Idea of Entropy Has Led Us Astray
Let’s stop hustling as if the world is running toward disorder. -
Uncovering the Spark of Life
What finding life on Mars could tell us about our own origins.
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Steven Pinker on the Tribal Roots of Defying Social Distancing
The images are everywhere: People crowded face-to-face in swimming pools, shoulder-to-shoulder in indoor bars, cheering without masks at a rally held by President Trump, who often downplays the global pandemic. Now, as many public health experts predicted, waves of new COVID-19 infections and deaths are rolling across the South and West. Many, still practicing social […]
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The Mystery of the Dark Asteroid That Scorched Russia
A new theory emerges to explain the enigmatic Tunguska Event.
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The Trouble with Counting Alien Civilizations
Life on Earth is a sketchy guide to intelligent life in the cosmos.
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Why Birds Can Fly Over Mount Everest
A story for my grandchildren about oxygen, evolution, and our planet’s fate.
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Life on Earth Is a Sketchy Guide to an Alien Civilization
Any assumptions about properties like intelligence or agency that we make based on what we currently know about life on Earth are on exceedingly shaky ground.Photograph by European Southern Observatory (ESO) / Wikicommons You might imagine that in the midst of a global pandemic and all of its social and economic fallout that our minds […]
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The Animal Kingdom Should Have Father’s Day Too
A concerned clownfish father looking after his nest of tiny, orange eggs.Justin Rhodes Becoming a parent brings out the best in many animals. Although parenting is usually left to the females, males from many species go above and beyond to care for the offspring. Take anemonefish. In Finding Nemo, Marlin swims over 1,000 miles from […]
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T. Rex Was a Slacker
A natural wonder of the big theropod was how it conserved energy. -
The Power of Crossed Brain Wires
Synesthesia makes ordinary life marvelous. -
A Neuroscientist’s Theory of Everything
Karl Friston takes us on a safari of his free-energy principle. -
Could an AI Be Immortal?
Data is under attack and uploads his brain. Does he survive? -
The Road Less Traveled to Fusion Energy
This privateer is developing a way to power the world with water and borax.
