Adam Frank: Looking back 100, 1000 or 10,000 years, it became clear to me that time in cosmology (be it of the scientific or mytho-religious variety) has always been tightly braided with the human experience of time.
There’s a reason we only ever see one side of the Moon. It’s tidally locked to the Earth, presenting only one side to us as it orbits around the planet. Tidal locking is a fate that befalls lots of planetary bodies, and it can wreak havoc on the surface. Why does tidal locking happen? And…
In a recent paper written specifically with social scientists in mind, Stuart West, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University, lays down the power of the selfish gene. It’s a great paper that takes a look at why so many misconceptions have taken hold and lays out, in nonspecialist language, the reasons why most criticisms of…
The universe is filled with high-energy radiation, much of which is made of gamma rays belched out by strange pulsing stars and the remnants of supernova explosions. But a new study of some of most extreme objects has turned up a mystery: nearly one-third of all gamma-ray emitting objects seen to date defy identification. The…
Astronomers may have, for the first time, directly imaged a planet still in the process of formation, gathering material from a debris disk surrounding its parent star. Author Metanexus Editors
Walking around the AAR each year, I feel like I’m seeing Isaiah’s vision about wolves and lambs coming true—aside from the considerable academic bickering, of course. It’s full fascinating discussions about the loftiest subjects that anyone can think of, but with no suicide bombers, no ordeals by fire. Again, this isn’t supposed to be possible, but it is. The world needs more of it.
Dutch scientists have used stem cells to create strips of muscle tissue with the aim of producing the first lab-grown hamburger later this year. The goal of the research is to develop a more efficient way of producing meat than rearing animals. At a major science meeting in Canada, Professor Mark Post said synthetic meat…