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The Problem With Science Writing
Want to hear a seamy insider secret from the science communication industry? The border between journalism and public relations has more turnstiles than Grand Central. Professionals move with relative ease, and little stigma, between newspapers, websites, and magazines and what would otherwise be called propaganda centers—university communication departments, government agencies, corporate PR arms, military research […]
Alzheimer’s Early Tell
The language of authors who suffered from dementia has a story for the rest of us.
The Modern Mind May Be 100,000 Years Old
New fossil evidence shows sophisticated thought began earlier than we thought.
A Nonlinear History of Time Travel
Births, deaths, and other time travel paradoxes.
Do Dolphins Have Conversations? We Still Can’t Say
Sure, dolphins use sonar, whiz through the ocean at incredible speeds, and battle sharks. But can they chat? Last week, a study published in Russia’s St. Petersburg Polytechnical University Journal: Physics and Mathematics claimed to have recorded two dolphins doing just that. Two Black Sea bottlenose dolphins, named Yasha and Yana, exchanged a series of vocal […]
The Fundamental Limits of Machine Learning
A few months ago, my aunt sent her colleagues an email with the subject, “Math Problem! What is the answer?” It contained a deceptively simple puzzle: She thought her solution was obvious. Her colleagues, though, were sure their solution was correct—and the two didn’t match. Was the problem with one of their answers, or with […]
The Forgotten Landscapes of the United States
When Lauret Edith Savoy first heard the word “colored” at five years old, she saw herself as exactly that—full of veins as blue as the sky. Not long after, she learned another definition, steeped in racism. “Words full of spit showed that I could be hated for being ‘colored,’” she writes. “By the age of […]
A Cosmic Crash May Have Made the Moon
Let There Be Moon: Artist’s rendition of the moon-forming impact between Earth and Theia, a proto-planet.Hagai Perets Some marriages are arranged. Some are for love, others for convenience. Some happen as the result of a sextillion-ton collision in space. The Earth and the moon, for example. Over the past twenty years there has been one […]
Why Neuroscientists Need to Study the Crow
The neocortex is argued to be the seat of cognition, but crows don't have one.
For Kids, Learning Is Moving
Children’s brain development is fueled when they find their own way.
