I specifically hoped not to be an old person that longed for the good old days, but, well, here’s the deal: I remember when binge was considered a bad word. Now, it is a weekend plan. And I’m not talk
In October 1217 the abbot of the Ursberg Abbey in present-day southern Germany looked to the firmament and, in the arc-shaped constellation Corona Borealis, saw something wondrous. “It was originally
There are many words that could be used to describe WASP-76b — hellish, scorching, turbulent, chaotic, and even violent. This is a planet outside the solar system that sits so close to its star it get
Some say there are two types of concrete – cracked and on the brink of cracking. But what if when concrete cracked, it could heal itself? We’re part of a team of materials scientists and microbiologis
In the North Sea, nearly 100 meters underwater, the seafloor is littered with more than 40,000 shallow pits in the sand. The pockmarks, sometimes spanning more than 10 meters, come in a variety of siz
April 9, 2024 Hey, before we get started — this is the day! The paperback of Promises Stronger Than Darkness is out today! The legendary Captain Argentian, the galaxy's greatest hero, is back at last,
Ask any birder, and they'll tell you about the thrill of identifying a new species. Recently, a tapping sound outside a window alerted one of us (Hsiung) to look up and spot a striking, unfamiliar woo
April 9, 2024 I've spent the past three years researching and writing a book about the history of psychological warfare in the United States. It’s called Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and
Decades ago physicists realized that gravitational waves are no mere passing phenomenon. Instead those ripples in space should leave behind permanent marks: a fixed distortion in their wake. So far th
DAILY SCIENCE A new study describes the shape of intergenerational altruism, and suggests a simple way to activate it—at least among half the population. April 9, 2024 Let the best of Anthropocene com
Color e-readers have been a thing for a while, but until now, the biggest companies with the most extensive book ecosystems—Amazon, mainly, but also Barnes & Noble and Rakuten Kobo—have only sold trad
Nebraska state Senator John Fredrickson is the first out gay man elected to the state legislature. Now, he has another feather in his cap. After an impassioned speech in opposition to a bill that targ
It’s going to be a couple of weeks until the identity of Portland’s $1.326 billion Powerball winner is announced. But someone came forward Monday and authorities are now verifying their identity. THAN
It’s the 90s again, and our favorite mutants are back in a new animated series, X-Men ’97. The X-Men are back on TV! But this isn’t a detailed review of the new series, as much as it me recounting how
Subscriber Only Sign in or Subscribe Now for audio version A new tech ideology is ascendant online. “Introducing effective accelerationism,” the pseudonymous user Beff Jezos tweeted, rather grandly, i
There’s a line in The Great Gatsby that took me by surprise when I first read it in high school, and I’ve been puzzling over it ever since. Early on, the fictional narrator Nick Carraway is thinking a
One can undergo a sublime experience even in the face of a life-threatening force. Residents watch the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. Arnold Genthe, photographer. Courtesy of Genthe
It is a familiar story: a small group of animals living in a wooded grassland begin, against all odds, to populate Earth. At first, they occupy a specific ecological place in the landscape, kept in ch
Shrimp Jesus Who among us will cast the first stone at shrimp Jesus? I hesitate to talk about him because I believe that AI-generated content is categorically no better or worse than other clickbait,
Nothing maps This Cartography of Generative AI, produced by the Estampa collective, presents a clarifying exposition in a series of numbered paragraphs of both the material infrastructure (mining, ene
The regional government Metro has long overseen a grab bag of public services for the three counties in the Portland area. Taking a couch to the dump? Metro runs waste management. Catching a show at t
We've known of Europa’s existence for more than four centuries, but for most of that time, Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon was just a pinprick of light in our telescopes—a bright and curious companion t
Someone approaching the shores of Utah’s bleached-out and odiferous Great Salt Lake for the first time might be inclined to call it dead. This is not the case. Only half of it is at death’s door. The
Credits Oliver Milman is a New York-based environment correspondent for Guardian US. The foundational story of the modern American West is riven with tales of animals slaughtered or plundered: bison g
This story contains mild spoilers for Netflix’s 3 Body Problem. In Cixin Liu’s novel The Three-Body Problem, a scientist being manipulated by an extraterrestrial force is told to look up at the sky on
Writer Jenny Odell is an Oakland-based artist, writer, and educator. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Paris Review, The Believer, McSweeney’s, and Sierra Magazine
In August of 2021, rain fell atop the 10,551-foot summit of the Greenland ice cap, triggering an epic meltdown and a more-than-2,000-foot retreat of the snowline. The unprecedented event reminded Joel
In the summer of 1991, the neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese was studying how movement is represented in the brain when he noticed something odd. He and his research adviser, Giacomo Rizzolatti, at the
In the wild, octopods are solitary animals that roam freely in the sea. They spend their days and nights catching prey with their eight arms. With their big eyes, they observe closely what’s going on
The broad band of opalescent light and dark shadow that crosses the night sky has long fascinated humanity. Today it is known, variously, as the Milky Way, the Silver River, the Birds’ Path. We see it
In the summer of 2022, several researchers with USDA Wildlife Services held their breath as a drone pilot flew a large drone, equipped with a camera, toward a wolf standing in a pasture in southwester
Explore There were no eyes to see it, but the sun shone more dimly in the sky, casting its languid rays on the ground below. A thick methane atmosphere enshrouded the planet. The sea gleamed a metalli
Enlarge / Artistic rendition of a black hole merging with a neutron star. LIGO/VIRGO/KAGRA detected a merger involving a neutron star and what might be a very light black hole falling within the "mass
The first mule deer to become famous was named Jet, after the University of Wyoming graduate student who MacGyvered her tracking collar. The name fit an animal that walked, bounded and sometimes ran 1
Explore Behind most every tech billionaire is a sci-fi novel they read as a teenager. For Bill Gates it was Stranger in a Strange Land, the 1960s epic detailing the culture clashes that arise when a M
Clayton Aldern Senior Data Reporter Published Apr 08, 2024 Topic Climate + Science Share/Republish Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please cons
This is undefended / undefeated, a newsletter by Sara Hendren on design, education, disability, technology, and related ideas. At some point you signed up for it; to unsubscribe, head to the bottom of
Explore Arseny Moskvichev dreams of the day he can have a meaningful conversation with artificial intelligence. “By meaningful, I mean a conversation that has the power to change you,” says the cognit
At the Bestival music festival in Dorset, England in July 2008. Photo by Gideon Mendel/Getty i The psychology of impatience could make waiting more tolerable At the Bestival music festival in Dorset,
In the summer of 2017, when communication professor Jeffery Gentry moved from Oklahoma to accept a position at Eastern New Mexico University, he was pleasantly surprised to find it easier to get up in