With a bigger, better, and more sensitive detector, the XENON collaboration joins LZ and PANDA-X in constraining WIMP dark matter.
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When people pick the greatest scientist of all-time, Newton and Einstein always come up. Perhaps they should name Johannes Kepler, instead.
The act of observing doesn’t just determine a previously indeterminate state, but can destroy information, too. Imagine that you’re a scientist attempting to understand reality at a fundamental level. How […]
It occurred naturally, and scientists know this for certain. Starting in late 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, began infecting human beings for the very first time. Discovered in samples […]
NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller is coming back to Big Think’s studio soon to answer YOUR questions! Here’s all you need to know to submit your science-related inquiries.
The first nation to make bitcoin legal tender will use geothermal energy to mine it.
The universe is only 13.8 billion years old, but we can see back 46.1 billion light-years. Here’s how the expanding universe does it.
The Chegg cheating scandal reveals a critical need to rethink the student experience in post-COVID education.
The last naked-eye Milky Way supernova happened way back in 1604. The next one could be the key to solving the dark matter mystery.
We need more and better data to know, but that’s exactly what’s coming. Over the past few decades, a number of important advances have helped revolutionize our picture of the Universe. […]
The definitive answer requires better, unbiased data. Despite all the advances that have occurred in human history, one extraordinary puzzle still remains right in our own backyard: we aren’t sure how […]
We still don’t know what dark matter is, but at least we now know what it’s not. When it comes to science, we often say that it only takes a single […]
Can spacekime help us make headway on some of the most pernicious inconsistencies in physics?
It’s all well and good to discuss how our humanity evolved – but what even is humanity?
Puerto Rico’s iconic telescope facilitated important scientific discoveries while inspiring young scientists and the public imagination.
For some reason, when we talk about the age of stars, galaxies, and the Universe, we use “years” to measure time. Can we do better?
13.8 billion years ago, the hot Big Bang gave rise to the Universe we know. Here’s why the reverse, a Big Crunch, isn’t how it will end.
Is it groupthink? Or is there a deeper reason? In the early half of the 20th century, even after the discovery of the expanding Universe, physicists considered a wide variety of […]
Going to smaller and smaller distance scales reveals more fundamental views of nature, which means if we can understand and describe the smallest scales, we can build our way to […]
The very concept of a “problem with no solution” goes against human nature. But we must accept this harsh reality to have peace in our lives.
It happened more than once, and needed to. Here’s why. If there’s one thing you can be certain about when it comes to outer space, it’s that it’s transparent, not opaque, […]
Even addition has to play by different rules for black holes. How do you add 28 and 47 together? This simple math question helps us highlight the many different ways that […]
Ignoring a scientific truth doesn’t change it, even when the consequences are deadly. “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?” Many of us, as children, […]
Only 17 years after its discovery have we learned we’re safe from asteroid Apophis. Ever since its 2004 discovery, asteroid 99942 Apophis has threatened planet Earth. Asteroid Apophis has been measured […]
In our common experience, you can’t get something for nothing. In the quantum realm, something really can emerge from nothing.
Smallpox, Ebola, HIV, influenza, the plague, malaria, and a whole host of terrible bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites were cooked up by Mother Nature, all on her own. Apparently, Mother Nature hasn’t banned gain-of-function research.
It could have had any curvature at all. So why is it flat? What is the shape of the Universe? If you had come along before the 1800s, it likely never […]
Britons could start receiving the vaccine within days.
When we started imaging the Universe with Hubble, every star had four “spikes” coming from it. Here’s why Webb will have more.
Known as primordial black holes, they could thoroughly change our Universe’s history. But the evidence is strongly against them.