Gordon Hempton has spent the past 30 years warning people about the consequences of the disappearance of natural quiet on Earth, which he calls a “solar-powered jukebox.” And now that the world is a little less noisy, he’s asking us, once again, to listen.
Experts say it’s probably as tender and adorable as it looks.
A masterclass on what science needs now.
Mathematicians have long grappled with the reality that some problems just don’t have solutions.
Even with no one in charge, army ants work collectively to build bridges out of their bodies. New research reveals the simple rules that lead to such complex group behavior.
Warming temperatures and changing rainfall will drive agriculture and temperate climates northward, while sea level rise will consume coastlines and dangerous levels of humidity will swamp the Mississippi River valley.
"I had been lying to people ... unwittingly."
What consciousness is and where it emanates from has stymied great minds in societies across the globe since the dawn of speculation. In today's world, it's a realm tackled more and more by physicists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists. There are a few prevailing theories.
A laboratory demonstration of the classic “Wigner’s friend” thought experiment could overturn cherished assumptions about reality.
The pandemic has shown how a lack of solid statistics can be dangerous. But even with the firmest of evidence, we often end up ignoring the facts we don’t like.
For more than 50 years, we’ve had definitive scientific evidence that our Universe, as we know it, began with the hot Big Bang. The Universe is expanding, cooling, and full of clumps (like planets, stars, and galaxies) today because it was smaller, hotter, denser, and more uniform in the past.
America is now under siege by climate change in ways that scientists have warned about for years. But there is a second part to their admonition: Decades of growing crisis are already locked into the global ecosystem and cannot be reversed.
Detailed computer simulations have found that a cosmic contraction can generate features of the universe that we observe today.
The wealthiest 1% of the world’s population were responsible for the emission of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorer half of the world from 1990 to 2015, according to new research.
At the beginning of this year, a group of NASA scientists agonized over which robotic missions they should choose to explore our Solar System.
The detection of a gas in the planet’s atmosphere could turn scientists’ gaze to a planet long overlooked in the search for extraterrestrial life. High in the toxic atmosphere of the planet Venus, astronomers on Earth have discovered signs of what might be life.
Cosmologists have concluded that the universe doesn’t appear to clump as much as it should. Could both of cosmology’s big puzzles share a single fix?
Several missions this year are seeking out life on the red planet. But would we recognise extraterrestrials if we found them?
Invoking language such as “manifest destiny” sends a signal about who belongs in America’s future in space and who doesn’t. American presidents, when they talk about the country’s space program, often reach for grandiose terms. John F.
Quantum physics has already changed our lives. Thanks to the invention of the laser and the transistor — both products of quantum theory — almost every electronic device we use today is an example of quantum physics in action.
Space is an almost perfect vacuum, full of cosmic voids. And in short, gravity is to blame. But to really understand the vacuum of our universe, we have to take a moment to understand what a vacuum really is — and what it's not. So, what is a vacuum, and why isn't space a true vacuum?
When James Hamblin tells people he has not used soap in the shower for five years, they tend not to hold back in expressing their disgust. “It’s one of the few remaining things for which we feel fine telling someone that they’re gross,” he says. “It’s amazing to me, honestly.”
NASA has unlocked nuclear fusion on a tiny scale, with a phenomenon called lattice confinement fusion that takes place in the narrow channels between atoms. In the reaction, the common nuclear fuel deuterium gets trapped in the “empty” atomic space in a solid metal.
The latest drive to help halt the spread of Covid-19 has been criticised by senior scientists for placing insufficient emphasis on the issues of ventilation and the need to stay apart from others.
The warning signs are flashing red. The California wildfires were surely made worse by the impacts of global heating. A study published in July warned that the Arctic is undergoing “an abrupt climate change event” that will probably lead to dramatic changes.