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History & Society
Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.
Those awful almost-changes they made? They could have avoided the whole problem by simply doing the math. Designed for artists, writers, and creatives* of all different persuasions, Patreon has become a […]
If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, consider these 10 gifts, good any time of year! One of the hardest things when it comes to holiday shopping is to find […]
There’s so much that we’ve discovered, looking as deeply as possible into the void. But what are we missing? Start with the laws of physics, a Universe full of a specific […]
Just because it isn’t Thanksgiving anymore doesn’t mean we don’t have an entire Universe to be thankful for. Every day, we have a choice whether we take our lives, our existence, […]
No matter what the science says, there’s no excuse for cruel behavior to a colleague. Look out into the distant Universe as far as you possibly can, and you’ll come […]
If the gravity isn’t where the matter is, things get into trouble very, very quickly. The above image, a composite of optical data, X-ray data, and a reconstructed mass map, is […]
Grad students will be taxed at the highest rate in the country, even higher than billionaires. For millions of young people, the American dream is to study the thing you’re […]
Right and wrong has never been so gray in the Star Trek Universe. Imagine you’re in a fight with an enemy, and the fight itself isn’t fair. You might have […]
The first stars formed almost half a billion years before we could see their light. Here’s why. At the moment of the Big Bang, the Universe was full of matter and […]
All sorts of futuristic technologies have come true. So why are astronauts all still weightless? Put a human being up in space, away from the gravitational bonds of the surface […]
For the first time, we’ve seen neutron stars merge. At last, the gravitational and electromagnetic sky are one. “It’s becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory […]
Either possibility offers a tremendous existence, but philosophically, there’s so much more to think about. “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, […]
From the most beautiful to the most impactful, some of these are so powerful it’s breathtaking. “Truth in science, however, is never final, and what is accepted as a fact […]
Finding a warm-hot intergalactic plasma is amazing! But we still need dark matter just as much as ever. “There are stars leaving the Milky Way, and immense gas clouds falling […]
A well-deserved award for the discovery over a century in the making. “Well, I walked into Building 20 and looked in at the various little labs. There was a bunch of […]
From what it’s expanding into to whether things are moving faster-than-light, this clears up some of our greatest misconceptions. “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders […]
The first (double) episode has come and gone, but here’s what I hope for the series. “We are what we are, and we’re doing the best we can. It is not […]
Last week, Cassini plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere. Here are the top 6 things we learned from it while it was alive. “Being a scientist and staring immensity and eternity in the […]
Just a few simple, common conditions can create the perfect storm. 80% of the time, humans are the trigger. “I’d rather fight 100 structure fires than a wildfire. With a structure […]
Earthquake? Nuclear explosion? Fission or fusion? We know, even if world leaders lie. “North Korea has taught a great lesson to all the countries in the world, especially the rogue countries […]