FROM THE SEPTEMBER 2011 ISSUE Your Brain Knows a Lot More Than You Realize Neuroscientist David Eagleman explores the processes and skills of the subconscious mind, which our conscious selves rarely consider. By David Eagleman | Thursday, October 27, 2011 RELATED TAGS: MEMORY, EMOTIONS, & DECISIONS,…

The ability to remember motor acts like changing lanes is called procedural memory, and it is a type of implicit memory—meaning that your brain holds knowledge of something that your mind cannot explicitly access. Riding a bike, tying your shoes, typing on a keyboard, and steering your car into…

I received my Nest (advanced learning thermostat) on Friday. I was on my way out the door to see WITS in St. Paul, Minnesota. I opened the package and read the 8-page setup manual on the way. I got ho

Out There On Mars Rover, Tools to Plumb a Methane Mystery An illustration of the Mars Science Laboratory's S.U.V.-size rover named Curiosity. Credit... NASA/JPL-Caltech There are no cows on Mars. Of t

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard) LAST FALL, President Obama threw what was billed as the first White House Science Fair, a photo op in the gilt-mirrored State Dining Room

I myself have two daughters, a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old, and I’ve learned from those girls how to be a better man. If I’d had a boy, then there’d be two shitty versions of me. The last thing I need to do is fail twice with two different people: me and my son. But I benefit from an uncomplicated…

Researchers claim to have produced sought-after quantum effect. A team of physicists is claiming to have coaxed sparks from the vacuum of empty space 1 . If verified, the finding would be one of the m

Illustrations by Jules Feiffer A year ago, my wife and I bought a dog for our ten-year-old daughter, Olivia. We had tried to fob her off with fish, which died, and with a singing blue parakeet, which

An unprecedented look inside Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock History & Culture An unprecedented look inside Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock An unprecedented look inside Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock Dissecti

The market for maple syrup offers an odd inversion. The thin, pale fluid labeled Fancy or Grade A Light Amber commands the highest prices. It is the white bread of condiments, an inoffensive accompaniment to more flavorful fare. The robust, thick syrup marked Grade B fairly bursts with maple…

At about 11:30 a.m. yesterday, a police officer told me and about eight other students that, and I quote, “the grass is closed.” We were going to sit under a tree and discuss things, and two police of

The Nest burst onto the tech scene in the last few weeks, making waves unheard of for a product you’d never guess anyone would care about: the home thermostat. But there’s a reason the device sold out in 72 hours: the creator, Tony Fadell, the father of the iPod, took a page from the design and…

It’s that most depressing time of year for any tech pundit: the time just after Apple’s autumn iOS event. That’s it for new products for the rest of the year; it’s a drought that won’t break until Jan

Google’s Chief Works to Trim a Bloated Ship MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, so hates wasting time at meetings that he once dumped his secretary to avoid being scheduled f

Authors: Martin J. Heath, Laurance R. Doyle First Author’s Institution: Ecospheres Project, 47 Tulsemere Road, London SE27 9EH, U.K., [email protected] . Luke's home world Tatooine, from the Star Wars

Your time is precious. Why waste it on bad punditry? If you’re going to get into the minutia of Apple’s market position—stuff you probably never ask yourself about any other company you buy stuff from

On her first morning of school, September 4 1957, Elizabeth Eckford’s primary concern was looking nice. Her mother had done her hair the night before; an elaborate two-hour ritual, with a hot iron and

Op-Ed Contributor I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us.…

Most Recent Today’s Picks COME IN PEACE What OpenAI Really Wants The young company sent shock waves around the world when it released ChatGPT. But that was just the start. The ultimate goal: Change ev

[Every so often Life, Unbounded allows itself a little more speculative leeway, a little bit of armchair musing, this post is very much in that vein, and yes, it was written on a Mac] Exhibit A Like m

When I first got my hands on the new Reminders app in iOS 5, I launched it and scoffed under my breath. Sure it was cute but it was not for me. I have spent so much time developing a bond with OmniFoc

• Title: The size of the jet launching region in M87 • Authors: Jason Dexter, Jonathan C. McKinney and Eric Agol • First Author’s Institutions: University of Washington and UC Berkeley Figure 1: Hubbl

FRW cosmology and accelerating expansion Our discussion here will be focused on how FRW (Friedmann-Robertson-Walker) cosmology can be used to understand the accelerated expansion of the universe, but it is important to note that, taken alone, FRW cosmology does not necessarily imply such an…

Paper title: Infall and outflow within 400 AU from a high-mass protostar Authors: C. Goddi, L. Moscadelli, and A. Sanna First author’s affiliation: European Southern Observatory, Germany Cartoon of st

Authors : Krzysztof Belczynski, Grzegorz Wiktorowicz, Chris L. Fryer, Daniel E. Holz and Vassiliki Kalogera First Author’s Institution : Astronomical Observatory, Warsaw University, Poland Today’s Ast

Tweet Post Share Buy Copies The initial reaction to the iPhone 4S was cooler than Apple might have hoped . Expectations had been hyped to such a point that people were looking for a leap forward equiv

On Friday morning, October 7, I pre-ordered two new iPhones: a black, 16GB iPhone 4S for me, and a white one for Anna. A week later they were delivered by FedEx. Anna’s white iPhone is the first white

In March 2010, Barry Duncan, master palindromist, was locked in an epic struggle with the alphabet. He was totally absorbed in the completion of a commissioned piece. “It’s draining me of every bit of energy I have,” he explained at the time. He was also just getting over a cold, his first since…

The Macalope paid his respects to Steve Jobs on Thursday , so today we’re back to punching morons. And, though it seems like a million years ago now, it was only Tuesday that Apple announced the iPhon

The Macalope’s going to keep this short because he’s not a eulogist, he’s not a poet, he’s just a pointy instrument for skewering silly pundits. His hooves can’t do someone like Steve Jobs justice. No

In honor of the Nobel Prize , here are some questions that are frequently asked about dark energy, or should be. What is dark energy? It's what makes the universe accelerate, if indeed there is a "thi