A synchrotron has just unlocked the writing inside ancient Herculaneum’s incinerated scrolls.
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The science behind choosing the right music for being productive.
In A Field Guide to Lies, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin explains how to wade through an endless sea of data and statistics to hone our critical thinking skills.
Rumors of a terrorist gunman escalated at LAX. A panicked crowd trampled an old woman, snapping her femur. In our best Dick Cheney voice: “If you allow blind fear to disrupt society, the terrorists have already won.”
46 billion light years in all directions in just 13.8 billion years? Here’s how it’s done! “They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic.” –Steven Wright There are […]
The strongest pull for hundreds of millions of light years goes toe-to-toe against the most energetic force of all. “We detect motion along this axis, but right now our data cannot […]
Not every butcher’s map has a Tenderloin District
An old fight between philosophy and science has flared up again. Fortunately we have Rebecca Newberger Goldstein to help us sort out what’s going.
In 1998, cosmologists got the surprise of a lifetime. Here’s how our Universe would’ve looked without cosmic acceleration. “We’ve known for a long time that the universe is expanding. But […]
Though perhaps not the most pressing, believe it or not.
And if relativity tells us there’s no such thing as “absolute motion,” how do we measure it? “The slow philosophy is not about doing everything in tortoise mode. It’s less about […]
The mental mechanics of how emotions and logic relate aren’t widely understood. Our minds are built to mostly be “indirectly rational.”
Last week’s $1.5 billion jackpot was a record that likely will be broken again and again. But when, if ever, should you play? “I’ve done the calculation and your chances of […]
Nassim Taleb’s theories on unpredictable events can inform the MLB Draft’s selection process.
Journaling can help you see progress and where progress needs to be made.
Stereotypes can be hard to shake.
If you avoid the common errors of reasoning that lead large majorities of subjects to do the irrational thing on repeated experiments, you may justly gloat a little.
According to relativity, there’s no universal frame of reference. But the Big Bang gave us one anyway. “The slow philosophy is not about doing everything in tortoise mode. It’s less […]
A recent New York Times op-ed advocating for student loan default has elicited a bevy of critical responses.
Antivirus software maker AVG has created a new pair of eyeglass frames designed to thwart facial-recognition technology.
Throwback Thursday: How Dark Matter’s #1 Competitor Died The only way out is to modify the laws of gravity, and our best observations rule those modifications out. “The discrepancy between […]
Does dropping a few brain-related words into an argument cause people to lose the capacity for critical thought?
Be honest. Nobody’s listening. How happy are you?
Sam Harris: The Self is an Illusion Sam Harris describes the properties of consciousness and how mindfulness practices of all stripes can be used to transcend one’s ego. Ray Kurzweil: […]
Just because there is more information available doesn’t ensure that we make more informed choices. The modern media provide information in ways that play right into the brain’s instinct to do as little work as possible, including the work of getting that information, and thinking carefully about it.
About three-quarters of Americans—74 percent, to be precise—believe in God. This 3-question quiz can help predict if you are likely to be among that majority.
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. […]
A new study from the Columbia Business School reveals that workers are more or less oblivious of how colleagues perceive their levels of assertiveness. The authors suggest strategies to help boost self-awareness in the office.
Critics usually pose the greatest literary mystery of them all—the authorship question surrounding the works of William Shakespeare—as a “whodunit,” but it’s more of a “howdunit.” How could the small-town […]
A new study suggests that taking notes by hand, rather than with a laptop, helps lecture attendees remember more.