We worry because we are built to anticipate the future. Nothing can stop us from worrying, but science can teach us how to worry better, and when to stop worrying.
You’ve heard the hype a hundred times: Physicists hope to someday build a whiz-bang quantum computer that can solve problems that would overwhelm an ordinary computer. Now, four separate teams have taken a step toward achieving such “quantum speed-up” by demonstrating a simpler, more limited form of quantum computing that, if it can be improved,…
The Hadza, who live primitively in Tanzania, have social networks similar to modern ones. People prefer the company of those with attitudes similar to their own, a study finds.
The whole point of an explanation is to reduce something you don’t know to something you do. By that standard, you don’t gain much by explaining anything in terms of black holes. Appealing to the most mysterious objects known to science as an explanation sounds like using one mystery to explain another. Yet this is…
Like all of us, economist Tyler Cowen loves a good story. But in this intriguing talk from TEDxMidAtlantic, he asks us to step away from thinking of our lives—and our messy, complicated irrational world—in terms of a simple narrative.
Here’s a dark secret about the earth’s changing climate that many scientists believe, but few seem eager to discuss: It’s too late to stop global warming. Greenhouse gasses pumped into the planet’s atmosphere will continue to grow even if the industrialized nations cut their emissions down to the bone. Furthermore, the severe measures that would…
New evidence supports the idea that a huge space rock collided with our planet about 13,000 years ago and broke up in Earth’s atmosphere, a new study suggests. This impact would have been powerful enough to melt the ground, and could have killed off many large mammals and humans. It may even have set off…