Science

It turns out carbon emissions are far more damaging than we thought. — You might think that climate change is causing temperatures to rise. However, a recent study has shown this isn’t the case. You see, the increased levels of carbon dioxide generated by humanity's rampant use of fossil fuels, is causing the upper layers of our atmosphere to rapidly cool. This might…

And Recognizing the “Concerned Parent” Trope — We are currently in the midst of an all-out moral panic against transgender people. If I were to ask “who is driving this panic?” most people in the United States would likely say the far right and social conservatives who have traditionally been opposed to LGBTQ+ people. In the United…

Visionary ideas from ‘a rebel without a Ph.D.’ — Freeman Dyson, one of the most influential theoretical physicists of the 20th century, left a profound impact on the fields of quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy, and nuclear engineering. His collaborations with leading physicists of his time and his unconventional ideas form a vibrant part of the rich tapestry of…

The 2016 election was a fluke, a perfect storm of incompetence, misogyny, and apathy that gave us the worst president in US history — You wouldn’t have thought that Democrats would have proven to be so superstitious. I certainly didn’t. This is supposedly the party that refutes magical thinking, is skeptical about religion, and believes in the supremacy of the scientific method. They would have been the last group I suspected of being irrationally…

Everyone’s got loads of gut bacteria — except these mice. Here’s why we created them. — Bad news for germaphobes: Everyone in the world, and most surfaces, are covered in bacteria, pretty much all the time. Disinfect a surface, and it will be crawling with bacteria in minutes to hours; they’re in the air, constantly spreading on every living creature… …except for a small number of…

Understanding the Global Climate System isn’t as hard as you think. We have most of the pieces to “SEE” it clearly now. — The Earth’s Climate System — A Short Users Guide. Our planet is tilted in its orientation with the Sun. This drives EVERYTHING about our Climate. It’s what gives us Seasons.

How a bunch of little functions helps us analyze data. We increasingly live in a data-driven world. Scientists are finding themselves with more and more datasets available to them. As this treasure trove of information continues to increase, it becomes important to keep a varied toolbox of methods to analyze…

VERA PUTINA (†97) FROM GEORGIA Your claim: The current Kremlin despot is the result of an affair A persistent rumor persists about the Russian dictator’s origins: Vladimir Putin (70) was in fact the illegitimate child of a Russian woman and lived the first years of his childhood in Georgia. Now his alleged mother has died in poverty at the age of 97. Vera Putina from the village…

The first few minutes after an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. — Most of us are familiar with the story of how the dinosaurs went extinct. The gist of it is that a giant asteroid from space collided with Earth, wiping out the majority of all life on the planet. However, this surface-level understanding of the cataclysmic event barely does any justice…