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In their new book, Time Travel and Warp Drives, Tufts physics professor Allen Everett and University of Central Connecticut math professor Thomas Roman explain the science behind the fiction of time travel, and tackle the question: Is it even possible? The authors delve into the lore of sci-fi shows and books to explain how wormholes,…
Oxford paleontologist Martin Brasier asserts that his fossilized cells are the remains of primitive anaerobic bacteria that lived 3.4 billion years ago. Paleobiologist J.W. “Bill” Schopf’s samples, he believes, are just ancient, patterned rock, with no fossils at all. Settling the debate matters a great deal. At its heart is one of the biggest questions…
The Large Hadron Collider finally has enough data to explore every nook and cranny where the elusive Higgs boson could be hiding. LHC physicists will announce the results of their latest hunt on Tuesday at CERN in Switzerland. What if they find nothing?
The universe has no center and no edge, no special regions tucked in among the galaxies and light. No matter where you look, it’s the same—or so physicists thought. This cosmological principle—one of the foundations of the modern understanding of the universe—has come into question recently as astronomers find evidence, subtle but growing, of a…
The bright lights of a big city, as seen from space, may predict outbreaks of some diseases, such as measles, and help officials to prevent epidemics. By analyzing changes in the brightness of cities over time, researchers in a new study are estimating changes in population density—an important factor in disease spread. Seasonal changes in…
Physicists have found the strongest evidence yet of quantum effects fueling photosynthesis. Multiple experiments in recent years have suggested as much, but it’s been hard to be sure. Quantum effects were clearly present in the light-harvesting antenna proteins of plant cells, but their precise role in processing incoming photons remained unclear. But in an experiment published Dec. 6 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a connection between coherence — far-flung molecules interacting as one, separated by space but not time — and energy flow is established.
The International Society for Science & Religion recently posted a long essay by Sir John Houghton on “Global Warming, Climate Change and Sustainability: A Challenge to Scientists, Policymakers and Religious Believers”
David Gelernter, a pioneering computer scientist, foresaw the modern internet but thinks computers are still too hard to use
Freeman Dyson reviews Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux).
Could studying the placebo effect change the way we think about medicine?