Whether we are searching the cosmos or probing the subatomic realm, our most successful theories lead to the inescapable conclusion that our universe is just a speck in a vast sea of universes.
“Nissim”, a 64 year old man, knows that the word for the eldest son in a family is the “firstborn”, but he says that snow is pink and that we wear coats on our feet. A stroke left him unable to talk about anything except abstract concepts. The case of Nissim is reported in a…
Scientists say they’ve identified ‘internal compass needles’ in the noses of rainbow trout, helping explain the way many creatures can navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field. Neuroscientists recently discovered ‘GPS maps’ in pigeons’ brains, explaining how information on magnetism is encoded in the brain – but until now, nobody’s ever been able to pinpoint the…
Of the many mysteries of modern physics, few compare to “nonlocality” in quantum physics. Nonlocality means that far away objects can influence one another instantaneously (or, at least, much faster than the speed of light). It is as if space and time didn’t exist! “Influence” may not be the right word here; in fact, we…
From CNN’s Belief blog: A few years ago, I came across a high school textbook on U.S. history that stumbled badly when it tried to describe the first Thanksgiving. Because of a serious misunderstanding of the First Amendment, the authors thought they couldn’t even refer to God in their textbook. So they ended up telling…
Scientists taking advantage of the versatility and new capabilities of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), an atom smasher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, have observed first glimpses of a possible boundary separating ordinary nuclear matter, composed of protons and neutrons, from the seething soup of their constituent quarks and gluons…
There’s no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy. The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle,…