Latest

Text graphic displaying the words “The Latest” in large, bold, black serif font on a light background.
Collage with baseball trading cards and photos of people, overlaid with a line graph and titled "The Nightcrawler." The piece seems to be in founder mode, capturing the essence of pioneering moments. Background features a grid pattern.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
A graph depicting projectile motion with displacement on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis. The projectile's trajectory forms a perfect parabola, with initial velocity u and angle θ clearly indicated.
Taught in every introductory physics class for centuries, the parabola is only an imperfect approximation for the true path of a projectile.
A world map displays global climate zones with colors representing varying levels of temperature and precipitation: green for temperate, yellow for arid, orange and red for hotter regions, and blue for wet zones.
The salinity of the oceans is not just a matter of taste. Saltier water behaves differently, too.
A person is giving a presentation at a podium with a large abstract, colorful light pattern displayed on a screen behind them.
Inflation, dark matter, and string theory are all proposed extensions to the prior consensus picture. But what does the evidence say?
Two men in profile face each other. One points a finger at the other, who remains still, poised to embrace counterarguments. The image features a blue color overlay.
There's value to be found in the arguments that make you uncomfortable — especially in a culture that has trained us to avoid them.
A satellite orbits Earth against a backdrop of space. Below, the Earth's curvature and cloud formations are visible, making our planet seem even bigger.
The observation that everything we know is made out of matter and not antimatter is one of nature's greatest puzzles. Will we ever solve it?
A historical timeline featuring notable figures from 1400 to present, including scientists, writers, politicians, and artists. The timeline is categorized by different historical eras.
"The Big Map of Who Lived When" plots the lifespans of historical figures — from Eminem all the way back to Genghis Khan.
A collage of clock faces—one depicting cavemen, another showing hands typing on a laptop, and a blank clock—symbolizes the hyperefficient evolution of work over time.
These practical strategies can help you conquer burnout and achieve a state of calm and focused productivity.
A large group of people, some standing and some sitting, gather outdoors in front of a tent and a horse-drawn carriage, set against a grassy field with a few trees in the background.
The annual rite of passage has always been more about the ambivalence of adults than the amusement of children.
A person lies in bed reading a book, wearing a white blouse, in a painting with soft, muted colors.
With the right prompts, large language models can produce quality writing — and make us question the limits of human creativity.
A high-rise office building at night with one illuminated corner office visible amidst the darkened windows, a lone workaholic burning the midnight oil.
In a major shift, psychologists now view an out-of-control compulsion to work as an addiction with its own set of risk factors and consequences.
A close-up view of a computer graphics card featuring an array of components, including capacitors, resistors, and a central processing chip, all mounted on a black circuit board.
Just eight of Etched’s Sohu chips could replace 160 Nvidia GPUs.
Portrait of an older man with a beard wearing a hat, depicted in purple tones, with scientific and alchemical symbols in the background, capturing the essence of a truth machine.
Why human attempts to mechanize logic keep breaking down.
A montage of famous philosophers’ portraits next to a large question mark on the right, intersected by a horizontal arrow.
Philosophy cures no disease and invents nothing new. What's even the point?
zero gravity flight stephen hawking
The mass that gravitates and the mass that resists motion are, somehow, the same mass. But even Einstein didn't know why this is so.
A storefront with signs for psychic telepathy readings and a phone number. Two white plastic chairs are placed in front. The storefront is pink with a black awning and a large hand sign advertising $10 readings.
Thinking of a number between one and ten? Here's how predictable human responses create the illusion of telepathy.
A room simulating a Martian landscape with red sand, rocky walls, a green tent, and NASA equipment.
"When you feel the isolation setting in at times, you have to reframe your mindset."
Collage featuring a microchip, an illustration of an armored figure, and text: "The NIGHTCRAWLER." Background includes blue grids and binary code, invoking the power of a digital god.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
Interior of a particle physics laboratory showing a complex particle accelerator setup with multiple cables, detectors, and machinery designed to study glueball particles.
Scientific surprises, driven by experiment, are often how science advances. But more often than not, they’re just bad science.
Close-up view of a translucent, flatfish-like biohybrid organism with a thin body and short, spiky fins suspended in clear liquid against a plain background.
As creatures and machines meld together in increasingly advanced forms, ethicists are starting to take note.