Our Sun only arose after 9.2 billion years of cosmic history: with many stars living and dying first. How many prior generations were there?

Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.

Since the time of Galileo, Saturn's rings have remained an unexplained mystery. A new idea may have finally solved the longstanding puzzle.

If AI is modeled only on human intelligence, will it inherit only human ways of seeing the world?

Quantum mechanics was first discovered on small, microscopic scales. 2025's Nobel Prize brings the quantum and large-scale worlds together.

In this excerpt from "Governing Babel," John Wihbey explores how AI is reshaping online moderation by offering tools that can help human moderators, but also raises the risk of disinformation and digital chaos.

In 2025, Earth remains the only planet where life is known to exist. Without a second example, "The Stand" has a vital lesson to teach us.

Behind the plateau in corporate AI lies a surge in personal and agentic use.

By deeply imaging a large volume of space, COSMOS-Web provides JWST's widest cosmic views. Its gravitational lenses reveal a big surprise.

As the Universe ages, it continues to gravitate, form stars, and expand. And yet, all this will someday end. Do we finally understand how?

Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.

"Could black holes be the key to a quantum theory of gravity, a deeper theory of how reality, of how space and time works? Well, I think so."

From here on Earth, looking farther away in space means looking farther back in time. So what are distant Earth-watchers seeing right now?

As October begins, thousands of longtime NASA employees are leaving the agency. 4000+ will exit by January 9, 2026, changing NASA forever.

In this excerpt from "The Formula for Better Health," Tom Frieden explores how Alice Hamilton transformed public health in her fight against lead poisoning.

Proposed over 2000 years ago by Democritus, the word atom literally means uncuttable. Revived in 1803, today's "atoms" can indeed be split.

The incredible story of how the US Army began the march toward generative AI in 1943 — and what it means for your business today.

From the Big Bang to a prior period of cosmic inflation, our cosmic origins are clearer than ever. Yet these 5 big mysteries still remain.

If you think of the Big Bang as an explosion, we can trace it back to a single point-of-origin. But what if it happened everywhere at once?

Deepak Chopra and Harvard neurobiologist Rudolph Tanzi advocate for "radical well-being," emphasizing that optimal health relies on proactive measures—such as sleep, nutrition, exercise, and emotional regulation—rather than reactive responses to health issues.

In this class, Natalie Nixon, founder of Figure 8 Thinking, explores her 3i Creativity Model, a framework designed to enhance individual creativity and drive organizational innovation for greater relevance and success.

In a complex marketplace, organizations must leverage human potential and overcome challenges in mind sharing through collaborative intelligence, as emphasized by Angie McArthur, to enhance creative problem-solving beyond mere intelligence.

Ian Bremmer advocates for strategic thinking in a rapidly changing world by broadening perspectives, engaging with diverse viewpoints, and understanding root causes, while also stressing the need for personal authenticity and connection to effectively tackle global challenges.

As generative AI sparks diverse opinions on its implications for humanity, Ethan Mollick suggests we shift our focus to understanding AI's capabilities and potential applications, emphasizing experimentation to enhance our skills and foster a responsible partnership with technology.

Astronauts like Chris Hadfield and Scott Parazynski exemplify risk mitigation, demonstrating that their contingency planning skills are applicable to various challenges on Earth, from budgeting to managing Fortune 500 companies.

Humans, unlike robots, can't produce identical results consistently, but Pulitzer Prize-winning author Charles Duhigg suggests we can channel our natural curiosity and creativity toward achieving our personal goals and passions.

This class explores human cognition and decision-making through insights from experts like Michio Kaku on magical thinking, Madhavan on systems-level thinking, Mlodinow on elastic thinking, Konnikova on deductive reasoning, and Summers on structured decision-making, promoting a scientific mindset for effective problem-solving.

A childhood spent under the spell of sleight-of-hand taught me skepticism, curiosity, and the habit of looking beneath appearances.

Big Think spoke with astronomer David Kipping about technosignatures, "extragalactic SETI," and being a popular science communicator in the YouTube age.

All of the matter that we measure today originated in the hot Big Bang. But even before that, and far into the future, it'll never be empty.