Ultimate Guide to the Multiverse
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.
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Oracles Past and Present: Our Means of Managing Information
Our ability to find and share information today is potentially limitless. But how did we get here? From cave paintings to the iPad—how does human innovation bring us here?
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Life Began With a Planetary Mega-Organism
Once upon a time, 3 billion years ago, there lived a single organism called LUCA. It was enormous: a mega-organism like none seen since, it filled the planet’s oceans before splitting into three and giving birth to the ancestors of all living things on Earth today. This strange picture is emerging from efforts to pin…
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Why the Higgs Boson Matters
From afar it may seem entirely disconnected from the real world, but the Higgs boson is much more integral to life, the universe and, well, everything than you may think.
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Neutrinos and Multiverses: A New Cosmology Beckons
The existing edifice of physics, built upon the twin foundations of general relativity and quantum mechanics, is clearly in need of renovation. We have been waiting for years for cracks to appear that might tell us how to go about it. But up to now, nature has remained stubbornly unmoved. In the past few weeks,…
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Why Does Religion Keep Telling Us We’re Bad?
The main reason for Isaiah’s admonition to remember how we fall short, as for most Jewish and Christian moral admonitions come to think of it, is to counteract our tendency to look at ourselves with rose-colored glasses and become complacent.
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It’s Time Scientists Set an Example by Reducing Their Carbon Footprint
The carbon footprint of the science community is tiny by comparison with the rest of society. Yet changes will not happen if nobody takes the lead. And people who have benefited from a great education and earn by comparison a very good income should surely be well positioned to take on some ethical leadership. Perhaps…
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How Much Will the Earth Warm Up?
Scientists say the Earth will warm in response to increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, but since the 1970s, they have not made much headway in narrowing down exactly how much it will warm.
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Good Science Always Has Political Ramifications
When speaking about science to scientists, there is one thing that can be said that will almost always raise their indignation, and that is that science is inherently political and that the practice of science is a political act. Science, they will respond, has nothing to do with politics. But is that true?
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The Noble Gases Get to Work
Helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radioactive radon are odourless, tasteless, practically non-reactive wisps of unconnected atoms. In this material universe, they amount to just about nothing at all. And yet … it would be hard to make a case that any other group of elements has had a greater impact on our understanding of the universe.