When trying to solve a problem involving patterns, people think of adding but not subtracting – a bias with wide-ranging implications.
Countries and corporations are pledging to get to “net zero” carbon emissions in the not-too-distant future. The promise rings hollow.
Early Earth was a water world. Continents only formed after tectonic plates got into gear.
For a half century, doomsters have predicted the end of the world. On the opposite pole, climate change deniers increasingly seem psychotic. But optimists still hold sway: that human ingenuity can solve what selfsame ingenuity created. When does a cliffhanger become a tragic fall – or a last-minute miracle salvation?
Driven by the wind, the gyres of ocean circulation play a vital role in the marine biosphere and regulating weather & climate. Global warming is changing the way ocean gyres work.
Couples with a daughter are more likely to divorce than those with a son. The source of friction is dad.
Atoms merge into molecules by sharing electrons. Chemists have categorized the ways these relationships are managed. The reality of chemistry is not so neat.
An electron is an elementary particle with a negative elementary charge. That supposed integral negativity is positively compensated by protons, thereby providing the balancing incentive for atomic matter. This fundamental physical charge constant is now known to be violated in everyday matter. Fractional charges have been found.
The fluttery flight of butterflies is unique. It is also optimal.
When the opportunity arises, electric eels hunt in packs with wily tactics.
Terrestrial fleas descended from plant-sucking scorpionflies to dine on ascendant amniotes. Tiny aquatic crustaceans begat water fleas.
A mass extinction event is well underway, propagated by a burgeoning human population which has raped Nature with technological marvels in the name of ‘progress’.
2020 will mostly be remembered as the year of the covid-19 pandemic, but so much more served as a harbinger of the doom which lies ahead.
Spiders don’t have ears. They listen through their legs.
The stability of energetic structures from the quantum level on up exemplify the coherence with which existence is fabricated.
In the community that comprises a multicellular organism, dying gracefully is a dignified last task. Knowing that their life is ending, cells request their replacement.
Dogs serve as an adjunct to policing, their employment reflecting the morals of their masters.
Pinyin, a plant used in traditional Chinese medicine for lung congestion, knows when to hide itself. In doing so the miracle of adaptation is revealed.
Gas comprises over 75% of the detectable matter in the universe. As the universe supposedly expands, conventional astrophysics theory figures the gas ought to cool down. Instead, it’s getting hotter, according to the latest guesstimate.
The first creatures to evolve on land, insects have a crucial presence on Earth. Their passing presages our own doom.
Cyclones are lasting longer on land and accelerating global warming.
The language of cellular activity is written in glycans.
The root of all problems in software, including obstacles to stronger AI, stem from the language used. The solution, invented over 30 years ago, has been an inadvertent secret.
Some snakes can see in the dark.
Overfishing typifies the capitalist approach to natural resources: exploit until exhaustion. Governments subsidize the effort.