The eminent neuroscientist Jaak Panskepp, who pioneered the study of emotion in mammals, is famous for, among other things, tickling rats in the lab to make them laugh, but his work wasn’t a joke. He […]
Tag: science
(Fiction) The Dunvluddich Furnace
Buried underneath a brick warehouse, and near another that had been into upscale shopping was an enormous spherical chamber made entirely of the heavy industrial steel of a bygone era. Two hemispherical sections were joined […]
(Feature) Immunity & Disease in the Internet of Things
As far as we know, the alphabet was invented only once* — in Phoenicia (covering modern-day Lebanon, Syria, and Israel). It spread and persisted because with it, you can render any word in any language. […]
(Art) Depictions of the Cosmos
Depictions of the universe, variously considered. List of figures: Hilma af Klint (circa 1920) THe world according to Hildegard von Bingen (12th cent.) Cosmolux by Paul Laffoley (1981) Sphaera Coelestis Mystica (1739) plate 7 by […]
(Feature) Right now you are 62 miles from the end of the world
Take a deep breath. Now, repeat. It gets harder and harder to do that the higher you go, but there’s never a point where the atmosphere just stops. Like an aging celebrity, it just kind […]
(Review) The Problem with “The Three-Body Problem”
From a recent review of Cixin Liu’s Nebula Award-nominated and Hugo Award-winning “The Three-Body Problem” on Big Think: “Why We Should Really Stop Trying to Contact Aliens” by Robby Berman Cixin’s writing is beyond smart […]
Why we eat what we do
There is not, and probably never can be, a science of why we eat the things we do. While there are clear material influences — people in hot climates tend to eat spicy food because […]
