Space Day Reading List 2024
May 3, 2024
Space has fascinated authors, scientists, storytellers, and children alike. From a brief history of the moon to a collection of diverse stories connected to the stars, our Space Day reading… READ MORE
Tag: science
Humanity’s Group Size Problem
March 6, 2024
Paul R. Ehrlich— Many of our problems seem traceable to Homo sapiens being a small-group animal, most comfortable in collections of under 150 people or so, the so-called Dunbar’s number…. READ MORE
Was Oxygen Once the Limiting Nutrient for Complex Life?
November 30, 2023
Graham Shields— Whether it is phosphorus for fertiliser, iron for steel or carbon for fuel, humans devour the chemical elements we need to sustain our way of life. Since the… READ MORE
Feeling the Past to Touch the Future
October 27, 2023
Henry Petroski— The bubonic epidemic known as the Great Plague broke out in London in 1665 and lasted for two years. During that time, citizens who could escape to the… READ MORE
The Seven Measures of the World: A Conversation with Gregory Conti
July 6, 2023
The Seven Measures of the World by renowned Italian physicist Piero Martin eloquently shows how the entire universe can be measured and understood using just seven units. In this Q&A,… READ MORE
Measurements for a Green World
July 5, 2023
Piero Martin— Will measurements save the world? Or, better, our life as humans on this planet? Certainly, they will help. Actually, they are already doing an important job since—much better… READ MORE
How Many Ways Can We Make Something Invisible?
April 11, 2023
Gregory J. Gbur— Invisibility—the ability to make something invisible to visible light—has long been assumed by science to be impossible. This changed in 2006, when two groups of researchers published… READ MORE
Human Origins and Luck
February 24, 2023
Tom Higham— The role of drastically variable and changing climates in the story of human evolution is also evident. As we witness first-hand the potential for climate disaster in our… READ MORE
Population and The Human Predicament in a Nutshell
January 18, 2023
Paul R. Ehrlich— What should be taught in every middle school but isn’t. Humanity has been acting like an idiot child who is heir to a great fortune. She keeps… READ MORE
Svante Pääbo: The Dark Lord of Ancient DNA
November 4, 2022
In fall of 2022, Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution. How has… READ MORE
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