The Deepest Uncertainty - Issue 72: Quandary - Nautilus
Georg Cantor died in 1918 in a sanatorium in Halle, Germany. A pre-eminent mathematician, he had laid the foundation for the theory…
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The English Word That Hasn’t Changed in Sound or Meaning in 8,000 Years - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
The word lox was one of the clues that eventually led linguists to discover who the Proto-Indo-Europeans were, and where they lived.Photograph…
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The Philosopher Who Says We Should Play God - Issue 72: Quandary - Nautilus
Australian bioethicist Julian Savulescu has a knack for provocation. Take human cloning. He says most of us would readily accept it…
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Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion - Issue 71: Flow - Nautilus
In his book Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, Max Tegmark writes that “time is not an illusion,…
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Why Europa Is the Place to Go for Alien Life - Issue 71: Flow - Nautilus
I have seen the future of space exploration, and it looks like a cue ball covered with brown scribbles. I am talking about Europa,…
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Most Tech Today Would be Frivolous to Ancient Scientists - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
The tech that most people depend on must appeal to our fears and vanities and must require continuous and rapid overturn. If it were…
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Viruses Have a Secret, Altruistic Social Life - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.Researchers are beginning to understand the ways in which viruses…
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An Astrophysicist on What the Black-Hole Image Reveals - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
The great irony of black holes is that, in all the decades that we astrophysicists have talked about them, we never had any direct…
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The Strangeness of Black Holes - Issue 71: Flow - Nautilus
This essay is one of the five winners in the 2019 writing competition held by the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University. “The…
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How Black Holes Nearly Ruined Time - Issue 71: Flow - Nautilus
This essay is one of the five winners in the 2019 writing competition held by the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University. “The…
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Aging Is a Communication Breakdown - Issue 70: Variables - Nautilus
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the 18th-century poet and philosopher, believed life was hardwired with archetypes, or models, which instructed…
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Forget Everything You Think You Know About Time - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
Studying time “is like holding a snowflake in your hands: gradually, as you study it, it melts between your fingers and vanishes.”Image…
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Galaxy Simulations Offer a New Solution to the Fermi Paradox - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.Astronomers claim in a new paper that star motions should make…
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The Well-Meaning Bad Ideas Spoiling a Generation - Issue 70: Variables - Nautilus
In 2011, a friend of mine in college asked me if I’d read The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, by Jonathan…
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Here’s How We’ll Know an AI Is Conscious - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
Zombies are supposed to be capable of asking any question about the nature of experience. It’s worth wondering, though, how a person…
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The Strangeness of Black Holes - Issue 68: Context - Nautilus
An Introduction to the Black Hole InstituteFittingly, the Black Hole Initiative (BHI) was founded 100 years after Karl Schwarzschild…
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Jellyfish Genome Hints That Complexity Isn’t Genetically Complex - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.Jellyfish didn’t need novel genes to take an evolutionary…
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Echos - Issue 68: Context - Nautilus
Before Corrine’s husband abandoned her in Berlin, he liked to say that her name reminded him of the word “corrupt.” But ending…
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How We’ll Forget John Lennon - Issue 68: Context - Nautilus
A few years ago a student walked into the office of Cesar A. Hidalgo, director of the Collective Learning group at the MIT Media Lab.…
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The Surprising Relativism of the Brain’s GPS - Issue 67: Reboot - Nautilus
The first pieces of the brain’s “inner GPS” started coming to light in 1970. In the laboratories of University College London,…
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The Psychological Challenges of Just Getting to Mars - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
Though space may be the quintessential I.C.E. environment, Musk appears to be aiming to make trips to Mars—aspirationally scheduled…
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Chaos Makes the Multiverse Unnecessary - Issue 66: Clockwork - Nautilus
Scientists look around the universe and see amazing structure. There are objects and processes of fantastic complexity. Every action…
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Are There Bacteria in Your Brain? - Issue 66: Clockwork - Nautilus
Rosalinda Roberts had gotten used to seeing weird shapes in the brain. Over three decades of looking at brain tissue under an electron…
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The $100 Million Bot Heist - Issue 66: Clockwork - Nautilus
When it comes to using computers to steal money, few can come close to matching the success of Russian hacker Evgeniy Bogachev. The…
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The Present Phase of Stagnation in the Foundations of Physics Is Not Normal - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
The problem is loads of wrong predictions from theoretical physicists.Photograph by Inga Nielsen / ShutterstockNothing is moving in…
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An Rx for Doctors - Issue 66: Clockwork - Nautilus
Every physician remembers their first bad case. Mine went like this. One morning, a man came into our emergency department with back…
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What’s Wrong with Bananas
Of the important global crops, the banana is the most genetically uniform. A single cluster of nearly identical genotypes, the Cavendish…
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Why Doesn’t Ancient Fiction Talk About Feelings? - Issue 65: In Plain Sight - Nautilus
Reading medieval literature, it’s hard not to be impressed with how much the characters get done—as when we read about King Harold…
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Are Black Holes Actually Dark Energy Stars? - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
George Chapline believes that the Event Horizon Telescope will offer evidence that black holes are really dark energy stars. NASAWhat…
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The Case for Making Cities Out of Wood - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
An Alphabet subsidiary is planning to build a futuristic neighborhood, not out of concrete and steel, but wood—and wood is looking…
