Nautilus
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The Strange Persistence of First Languages
Embracing the dominant language comes at a price. Like a household that welcomes a new child, a single mind can’t admit a new language without some impact on other languages […]
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How the Western Diet Has Derailed Our Evolution
Burgers and fries have nearly killed our ancestral microbiome.
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The Hidden Power Laws of Ecosystems
As nature scales, complexity gives way to universal law.
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Will Quantum Mechanics Swallow Relativity?
The contest between gravity and quantum physics takes a new turn.
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Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?
If the Gobi Desert represents all of the matter flung across the cosmos, living matter is a single grain of sand. Vitalism in the age of modern science.
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How Big Can Schrödinger’s Kittens Get?
Scientists are slowly scaling up quantum effects from atomic to human size.
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The Trouble with Theories of Everything
There is no known physics theory that is true at every scale—there may never be.
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Five Veteran Scientists Tell Us What Most Surprised Them
Turn back the clock to 1965. Science appeared to be marching forward at an unrelenting pace. Biochemists had cracked the genetic code (how DNA translates into proteins), inspiring Life magazine […]
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We Are About to Start Mining Hydrothermal Vents on the Ocean Floor
Forty years ago, scientists found alien life. Not on another planet, but on Earth, in the deep sea, in places where plumes of steam and nutrients heated by volcanic activity […]