Science and Tech

Science and Tech

A stylized clock with a plate as the face and a fork and knife as the hands, emitting a red glow against a dark background, symbolizes the ritual of fasting.
“Having more stem cell activity is good for regeneration, but too much of a good thing over time can have less favorable consequences.”
A map showing a proposed power transmission route from Darwin, Australia to Singapore, spanning 4,300 km, with sites for electricity supply, battery storage, and solar generation indicated along the route.
Australia's AAPowerLink boasts three global superlatives: largest solar farm, largest battery, and longest power cable.
A collage features images of a person smiling, ants, a penicillin bottle, another person's face, and an autonomous car, with the title "The Nightcrawler" at the top against a dark background.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
time dilation
Time is relative, not absolute, as gravity and motion both cause time to dilate. Your head and feet, therefore, don't age at the same rate.
Silhouette of a person with their back to the camera, superimposed with daisies and a bright sun above, set against a clear blue sky, evoking a sense of wonder.
Monica Parker explains how creating opportunities for wonder can help foster a thriving, inclusive workplace.
A deep-space image captured by the JWST showcases numerous galaxies of various shapes, sizes, and colors scattered across a dark background, potentially setting a new cosmic distance record.
Despite many ultra-distant galaxy candidates found with JWST, we still haven't seen anything from the Universe's first 250 million years.
Open book showing a hand planting a small green plant on the right page, symbolizing restoration, and a bold black squiggly arrow on a yellow background on the left page, illustrating the dynamic flow of networking.
Mark Weinstein outlines a new path for social media that protects, respects, and empowers the regular users.
A large, intricate machine with metallic components and blue scaffolding in a laboratory setting. Numerous cables and pipes are connected to the central structure.
LHC scientists just showed that spooky quantum entanglement applies to the highest-energy, shortest-lived particles of all: top quarks.
A black and white portrait of a smiling man in a gray sweater is centered against a vibrant, abstract digital background with blue, purple, and green sections, evoking the essence of humanity striking back.
Mike Bechtel, chief futurist with Deloitte Consulting LLP, joins Big Think for a wide-ranging look at what’s next — and why.
Two views of the same celestial object: the fiery orange-blue image on the left and a cooler blue-pink image on the right, showcasing an hourglass-shaped cloud of gas and dust in space.
Just 460 light-years away, the closest newborn protostars are forming in the Taurus molecular cloud. Here are JWST's astonishing insights.
Aerial view of a car parking with proximity sensors activated, showing red and green signals indicating object detection around the vehicle.
Why the road to self-driving vehicles is paved with smarter “dumb” cars.
A visual representation of the hole in the ozone over Antarctica, depicted in varying colors to indicate different ozone concentration levels, against a black background.
A scientist’s first-hand account shows the world can tackle a global environmental crisis.
A close-up of gloved hands handling a cryogenic storage device with straw container tubes inside, emitting visible vapor.
How technology could change everything we thought we knew about reproduction.
entanglement across space
It's possible to remove all forms of matter, radiation, and curvature from space. When you do, dark energy still remains. Is this mandatory?
An illustration showing a side view of a human brain with colored dots representing neurons and text excerpts in three languages in circular insets.
In the brain's language-processing centers, some cells respond to one word, while others respond to strings of words together.
A person stands in front of a large, circular particle detector in a brightly lit, high-tech facility.
CERN scientists achieved record-breaking accuracy in mapping the mass of a key particle in the Standard Model.
Green and yellow abstract scientific illustration depicting molecular structures interconnected with arrows, set against a dark background.
It's deceptively tricky to distinguish living systems from non-living systems. Physics may be key to solving the problem.
A close-up image showing a crack in the ground, revealing a narrow, dark crevice between layers of brown, sandy soil with hints of biocrusts forming along the edges.
Think twice before stepping on that crunchy top layer of soil.
A praying mantis, a marvel of evolution, is gracefully perched on a white orchid flower against a black background.
Some biologists believe natural selection produces animals that are just good enough. Dawkins disagrees.
Open book showing two pages: the left page has a red-toned illustration of early humans, while the right page features a blue-toned photo of an ocean wave, capturing the hyperefficient balance between art and nature.
From hunter-gathers to desk jockeys, we work best when short, intense sessions are followed by lighter fare.
Parker Solar Probe
It would get rid of our hazardous, radioactive, and pollutive waste for good, but physics tells us it's a losing strategy for elimination.
A dense cluster of young stars and bright blue-white spots set against a dark reddish-brown background, with scattered sparkles of light from numerous stars in the outer Milky Way, captured stunningly by JWST.
Almost all of the stars, planets, and interesting physics happens in the inner portions of galaxies. Is that conventional wisdom all wrong?
View of Earth from a spacecraft window with "T-MINUS" displayed in bold text overlaying the image.
These startups, space agencies, and aerospace giants are building humanity's next off-world homes.
Young child sitting on a couch, illuminated by the screen of a tablet they are holding in a dimly lit room.
The digital world will always entail risks for teens, but that doesn’t mean parents aren’t without recourse.
Rows of identical Earth-like planets stretch out into the vast copy multiverse, with a dark starry background visible between them.
Within our observable Universe, there's only one Earth and one "you." But in a vast multiverse, so much more becomes possible.
A stylized digital shield in the center, surrounded by red pixelated designs, with quantum code fragments displayed on the shield. The background has black, swirling patterns, reminiscent of encryption tools at work.
Quantum computing brings significant opportunities — but equally significant cybersecurity risks.
A technician in a cleanroom suit works by a large cylindrical piece of equipment in a high-tech laboratory setting with industrial tools and machinery.
A recent experiment challenges the leading dark matter theory and hints at new directions for uncovering one of the Universe's biggest mysteries.
Satellite image showing a dense cloud mass over the southeastern United States and the Gulf of Mexico, with an inset graph from NOAA depicting hurricane frequency peaking around mid-August to late September, a trend exacerbated by global warming.
The laws of physics aren't changing. But the Earth's conditions are different than what they used to be, and so are hurricanes as a result.
atom illustration
Most fundamental constants could be a little larger or smaller, and our Universe would still be similar. But not the mass of the electron.