While 2015 gives us all a fresh start, we can consider the Big Bang until today to be “One Universe Year.” What comes next? “And now we welcome the new […]
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The nature of our Universe defies our intuition. That just might be the greatest thing of all. “I asked the Zebra,are you black with white stripes?Or white with black stripes?And […]
The terrible injustice of Jerrie Cobb, who deserved to be the first female astronaut, yet never made it to space at all. Image credit: © 2011 501(c)(3) Non Profit National […]
Human irrationality is nothing new. But sometimes we get a fresh reminder that the human capacity for clear thinking is hampered by all kinds of stumbling blocks, and that our […]
Six years ago, in a mock presidential election held in my daughter’s pre-K class, Barack Obama was the clear winner. Of the 18 children, 16 voted for Obama. (“Superman” and […]
How the show most likely isn’t sending home the right people every week. Image credit: NBC Universal / The Biggest Loser, Season 13 finale. “Our external environment no longer seems […]
With a $20,000 check and instructions to bring back “some good paintings” from friend and financier Dr. Albert C. Barnes, American artist William Glackens set off for Paris in 1912 with carte blanche to buy the very best modern art he could find. Long a champion and connoisseur of European and American modernism, Glackens sent back to Barnes 33 works by now-renowned artists such as Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent Van Gogh that helped shape the collection that eventually became The Barnes Foundation.
In her recent Big Think interview, Perel explains that sexuality and marriage have experienced a radical shift over the past few generations. What was once considered a dutiful bond now serves our more individualistic culture driven by love and desire. Where these two feelings meet and diverge is at the core of eroticism.
We’ve just landed our first-ever probe on the surface of a comet. Here’s what it means, and what we’ll learn. “I must trust that the little bit of love that […]
Kepler took a look at 150,000 stars, searching for habitable worlds. Based on what it found, how many should be in our galaxy? “I’m sure the universe is full of […]
Edinburgh is the “grey metropolis in the North.” It has been for centuries, and thanks to Unesco, the capital of Scotland will keep its dour exterior for the foreseeable future. […]
New measurements reveal Kepler-10c (previously thought to have been a gaseous planet akin to a smaller Neptune) sports a dense, rocky mass over ten times higher than Earth’s. Surprised scientists had previously thought solid planets could never be so large.
The largest structures in the Universe are phantasms, in the process of self-destructing. Image credit: NASA, N. Benitez (JHU), T. Broadhurst (Racah Institute of Physics/The Hebrew University), H. Ford (JHU), […]
A sign that warns you about bumping your head… on the sign itself! Image credit: Matt Groening, the Simpsons, Season 1. “I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. […]
The retired congressman discusses his long history as a supporter of marijuana legalization.
It might not sound impressive, but the physics behind it — and the power of its applications — are literally world-changing. Image credit: Orphek LEDs, via http://orphek.com/about/aquarium-led-lighting/. “Everyone must leave something behind when he […]
If you’ve been wondering what B-mode polarization is, or how it tells us about gravitational waves from inflation, wonder no more! In part 1 of this story we talked about […]
An upscale New York inn has seen its Yelp profile destroyed after the New York Post reported on its punitive crackdown on negative online reviews.
How the entire history of the Universe gave rise to us, in ten giant leaps. Image credit: Zosia Rostomian, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “It surprises me how disinterested we are […]
The downsides to feeling other people’s pain.
Seven out-of-this world tastes for the seven other planets in our Solar System. “I’ve learned what ‘classical’ means. It means something that sings and dances through sheer joy of existence.” –Gustav […]
If Mona Lisa is the smile, Madame Cézanne is the scowl. Hortense Fiquet, Paul Cézanne’s model turned mistress turned mother of his child turned metaphorical millstone around his neck, endures as a standard art history punch line—the muse whose misery won immortality through the many masterpiece portraits done of her. Or at least that’s how the joke usually goes. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current exhibition Madame Cézanne, which gathers together 24 of the 29 known portraits Cézanne painted of Hortense over a period of more than 20 years, tries to rewrite that joke as it hopes to solve the riddle of Madame Cézanne, aka, The Case of the Miserable Muse.
Look up after sunset for the most reliable meteor shower of the year: the Perseids, and learn where they come from! Image credit: Michael Menefee (Fort Photo on flickr), via […]
After more than two years, we’ve visited all 110 objects. Have a look back at each one! “If you keep your eyes open enough, oh, the stuff you will learn. […]
What is Punk? Punk isn’t about mohawks or studded leather, says Henry Rollins – it’s about resistance to tyranny in any form. How Art Can Change Society, with Sarah Lewis Sarah […]
Is there a way to see past the barrier the Universe puts up before it became transparent to light? Image credit: Mark Kamionkowski, of gravitational waves. “From earliest times, humans — explorers […]
There’s five times as much dark matter as normal matter in the Universe. But how much of that matters for black holes? Image credit: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope collaboration. “A […]
How one Polish cartoonist uses his medium and the power of satire to raise awareness of injustice in the world. Image credit: Useful by Pawel Kuczynski; http://www.pictorem.com/Useful. “Everybody wants peace. […]
What happens when an artist decides to share her sketchbook with her four-year-old daughter? Image credit: Mica & Myla Hendricks, via their (fully funded) Kickstarter page. “If you can’t share, […]
Sure, the Universe is expanding, and that expansion is accelerating. But beyond simply calling the cause “dark energy,” what do we know about it? Image credit: NASA, ESA, H. Teplitz […]