Sean Carroll: The multiverse might be impossible to test directly. Even if such a theory were true, the worry goes, how would we ever know? Is it scientific to even talk about it?
In a new four-part television special based on his best-selling book, physicist Brian Greene takes on the nature of time and space, multiverses, and other hard-to-wrap-your-mind-around concepts in cosmology. Greene talks with guest host John Dankosky about the new series. Author Metanexus Editors
Summer storms may create new holes in our protective ozone layer as Earth heats up—bringing increased solar ultraviolet radiation to densely populated areas, a new study says. What’s more, if more sunlight reaches Earth, skin cancer could become the new marquee risk of global warming. As the planet warms, some studies have suggested summer storms…
Two American economists won the Nobel Prize in economics for their research into how to match different actors in given markets, such as job seekers with employers and patients with donated kidneys. Alvin Roth of Harvard University and Lloyd Shapley of the University of California Los Angeles won the prize “for the theory of stable…
For the past five billion years, the expansion of the Universe has been speeding up, powered by the mysterious repulsive force known as “dark energy.” But thanks to a new technique for measuring the three-dimensional structure of the distant Universe, astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have made the first measurement of the cosmic…
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is often invoked outside the realm of physics to describe how the act of observing something changes the thing being observed, or to point out that there’s a limit to how well we can ever really understand the universe. While the subtleties of the uncertainty principle are often lost on nonphysicists,…
New research shows that people who behave more altruistically have more gray matter at the junction between the parietal and temporal lobes. This shows, for the first time, a connection between brain anatomy, brain activity and altruistic behavior, say the researchers from the University of Zurich. “These are exciting results for us,” said lead researcher…