The same day that President Joe Biden signed a new federal law designed to ban the popular social media platform TikTok from use in the United States, TikToK CEO Shou Zi Chew took to the platform with words of defiance. “Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” he declared. “The … | Continue reading
As 1930 approached, New York City seemed flush with money, construction sites, and excitement—despite the recent stock market crash. The Woolworth Building, a Gothic Revival skyscraper designed to celebrate the success of Woolworth “Five-and-Dime” stores, had stood as the tallest … | Continue reading
This article is an installment of Future Explored, Freethink’s weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Saturday morning by subscribing here. It’s 2050. The global population has increased to nearly 10 billion, and … | Continue reading
I’ve always wondering if we controlled by an unknown force, not discovered or recognized, that prevents overpopulation of the earth and performs this feat by causing us to war with each other? – Alexander Kelly, California, USA One of the most common motifs in mythology is the ep … | Continue reading
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that modern ways of doing things are always better. But some of the tools we take for granted these days have made us lazy. Take presentations, for instance. The ancient Greeks didn’t have slides, clickers, and bullet points to help the … | Continue reading
Abigail Marsh, a psychology and neuroscience professor at Georgetown University, explains how the world is impacted by those with psychopathy, and, additionally, those who practice extreme altruism. Psychopathy, she says, is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting a small percent … | Continue reading
Back when Einstein’s general relativity first came out, there was a fascinating consequence that was recognized almost immediately: that masses didn’t just move through curved space, but as they did so, they would be compelled to emit gravitational radiation. Orbits between gravi … | Continue reading
Over the past half-century, astronomers have faced an embarrassing problem: Galaxies rotate too fast. When astronomers measure the speed of stars on the outskirts of galaxies, they are much higher than expected. It’s as if a cloud of invisible matter surrounds nearly every galaxy … | Continue reading
Antechinus, a mouse-like marsupial found in Australia, is a rarity among mammals. At the end of each mating season, the males all die at once. This fate means they only get to breed once in their lifetimes, while the females may survive a couple of additional mating seasons. Natu … | Continue reading
This year, the Association for Talent Development’s International Conference & EXPO (ATD24) encouraged its 9,000-plus participants to “Recharge Your Soul.” From May 19–22, learning and talent development professionals from across the globe gathered in New Orleans to connect, refr … | Continue reading
Tennis fans will remember the epic rivalry between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. On grass, clay, and hardcourt, the two battled 40 times, with Nadal winning 24 of those face-offs. They were fierce competitors, and they pushed each other to improve. As Federer said in an intervi … | Continue reading
When you think about the idea of time travel, you likely think about the fantastic possibility of going backward in time to an event in the past, rather than our constant, inevitable march forward in time. After all, traveling back in time remains one of the greatest tropes in mo … | Continue reading
When the parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley were convicted of involuntary manslaughter, it was a watershed moment in US school shooting cases. It was also a key moment in parental culpability law, governing cases in which parents can be held legally responsible for … | Continue reading
The second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon picks up right where the first left off. Rhaenyra Targaryen, played by Emma D’Arcy, is (spoilers ahead) flying across the Narrow Sea in search of the charred remains of her son, Lucerys, and his dragon. Across from the island of Drag … | Continue reading
When human eyes gaze up at the night sky, what we can see is profoundly limited. The pupils of our eyes which allow light through can only reach a maximum diameter of around 7 millimeters (0.28 inches) each, which limits the amount of light our eyes can collect and, therefore, th … | Continue reading
In one TikTok, a beautiful young woman sits in a bathroom, crying. Text accompanying the video reads, “The part of anxiety no one sees.” 7.5 million views, 1.2 million likes, 5,339 comments. In another, a different woman is shown in various clips meditating, or looking sad and di … | Continue reading
The success of AI projects depends on the team you assemble. As with all new innovations, it brings change and for organizations and individuals, change is difficult — especially in the fast-evolving world of AI. Some will adopt it, some won’t understand it, and others will rejec … | Continue reading
One of the greatest ideas in all of physics, regardless of whether it turns out to be a true idea that reflects reality or not, is that of supersymmetry, or SUSY for short. The Standard Model of elementary particles was cobbled together over the course of the 20th century, growin … | Continue reading
Some years ago, when he was still living in southern California, neuroscientist Christof Koch drank a bottle of Barolo wine while watching The Highlander, and then, at midnight, ran up to the summit of Mount Wilson, the 5,710-foot peak that looms over Los Angeles. After an hour o … | Continue reading
On June 1, China’s Chang’e-6 lander touched down in the South Pole-Atkin Basin — the largest, deepest, and oldest impact crater on the Moon. The probe almost immediately set to work drilling into the ground to collect about 2 kilograms of lunar material, which is already headed b … | Continue reading
When a company faces a crisis, all eyes turn to the CEO for guidance, reassurance, and decisive action. As the person of last resort, the CEO bears the weight of steering the organization through turbulent waters, minimizing damage, and emerging stronger on the other side. Crisis … | Continue reading
Most people would not see having a stroke as exciting. But most people aren’t Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, New York Times bestselling author and viral TED Talk speaker. As a medical professional, brains are her obsession – and there’s nothing dry or cl … | Continue reading
Can you successfully answer all seven? In 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft began their pioneering journey across the Solar System to visit the giant outer planets. Now, the Voyagers are hurtling through unexplored territory on their road trip beyond our Solar System. Along … | Continue reading
Do Facebook and YouTube have the legal right to block or remove users or posts from their websites because of what the users or posts are saying? Or, should the law compel Facebook and YouTube to feature users or posts that the platforms do not want to be associated with? Those q … | Continue reading
This article is an installment of Future Explored, Freethink’s weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Saturday morning by subscribing here. It’s 2035. The sun rises, and you wake up refreshed after eight hours of … | Continue reading
Imagine that you just had a terrible day at work. On the commute home, you turn on some music. It’s an old song, one you haven’t heard in years but once bookmarked a meaningful chapter in your life. You turn up the volume and the hassles of the day fade away. The song crescendos. … | Continue reading
Humans don’t have pheromones, women’s periods do not sync up with one another, and there’s no scientific evidence that a menstrual cycle lasts 28 days. OB-GYN and health communicator Dr. Jen Gunter explains. There have been many misconceptions about women’s health in recent decad … | Continue reading
“Why, in some countries, is eating someone’s corpse a way to honor the dead while in others it is unthinkable?” – Christopher, IT One of my favorite pieces of peculiar trivia is about eating bacon. I prefer to use it with people I’ve only just met, but anytime will do. Just as I’ … | Continue reading
Picture your best friend — the one who’s in the pictures in your house. This is the friend who was there at your wedding, your 18th birthday, or when your dad died. Most people have a good friend like this. Imagine that this friend cheats on their spouse. Or, perhaps worse, let’s … | Continue reading
Whenever we look out at the Universe, no matter how powerful our tools or how clever our techniques, there’s always a limit to what we’re capable of observing. No photons, or quanta of light, can be seen beyond the cosmic microwave background: a curtain of light that marks the fi … | Continue reading
We feel, therefore we are. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. They are crucial to our idea of ourselves as psychic beings: present, existent, and mattering. But is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Weaving together intellectual … | Continue reading
A new science is emerging that promises to become the defining field of the 21st century. More than just a narrow specialization, it’s not just a new field but a new way of doing science — a new way of organizing intellectual domains and effort. Given its broad impact, it goes by … | Continue reading
Most people think they are better judges of character than everyone else. (Of course, that statement is statistically impossible — read it again.) For years scholars cast doubt on this notion, regarding perceptivity as more a learned skill than a natural ability. However, recent … | Continue reading
Why is it that visiting the beach sometimes assuages a bad mood? The Sun warms your cheek, a cool breeze ruffles your hair, and, suddenly, all seems well. There’s something about getting out of your head and into your senses that can make all your troubles melt away, even if only … | Continue reading
For the past 13.8 billion years, our Universe has been expanding, cooling, and gravitating. The hot Big Bang itself was, at least for our observable Universe, a one-time event that was the proverbial starting gun for everything that’s happened since. As we expanded and cooled, we … | Continue reading
Human beings behave irrationally — or as an artificially intelligent robot might say, “sub-optimally.” Data, the emotionless yet affable android depicted in Star Trek: The Next Generation, regularly struggled to comprehend humans’ flawed decision-making. If he had been programmed … | Continue reading
Everybody wants to rule the world — or at least lead their corner of it — and the reasons are obvious enough. When you’re in charge, you get power and status. People look to you for guidance, and you make the decisions. Did we mention the money? Because the pay is definitely bett … | Continue reading
Whenever we look up at the great expanse of the night sky, it’s easy to forget, from a cosmic perspective, just how confined our views are to our own backyard. The brightest objects of all are the Sun, Moon, and planets like Venus and Jupiter: objects right here in the Solar Syst … | Continue reading
In case you thought the momentary absence of the Sun during April’s total eclipse was the biggest solar news of 2024, hold tight. This year is shaping up to be a wild one for our star. The Sun is behaving violently right now, throwing out fiery flares and spewing roiling clouds o … | Continue reading
More than 1 billion people now live with obesity, according to a study published earlier this year in The Lancet. That’s about one in every eight humans on the planet — and twice the number of those suffering from underweight, the other malnutrition. The world’s waistline has bee … | Continue reading
In 2007, Dr. Robert Sutton, a professor of management science at Stanford University School of Engineering wrote the book, The No Asshole Rule. The premise is that bullying behavior in the workplace worsens morale and productivity. Sutton outlines two tests to recognize the assho … | Continue reading
Most leaders get it: genAI is this generation’s new general purpose technology, and if they don’t engage with it, their organization is liable to get left behind. So they run experiments. Invest in new talent, and new functional groups, or lines of business. Buy enterprise licens … | Continue reading
For a species that grew up on life-giving planet Earth, it’s a wonder that we still don’t have an end-to-end scientific picture for how planets actually form in this Universe. Even with our most advanced observatories, like NASA’s Hubble and JWST, we’ve only ever obtained “snapsh … | Continue reading
When Beauvoir was a student she wondered if, given all the suffering in the world, happiness might be a privileged way of being. Perhaps it is only available to the select few who are deemed deserving of it, or those who pursue the right things in the right ways. Sometimes Beauvo … | Continue reading
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek is considered by many to be Albert Einstein’s successor. He studied Einstein’s discoveries, expanded upon Einstein’s ideas, and, for several years, even lived in the same house Einstein used to. Wilczek’s dedication led to even more adv … | Continue reading
In 1957, the launch of Sputnik began the “space race.” A technician working on Sputnik 1, prior to its launch on October 4, 1957. After a mere 3 months in space, Sputnik 1 fell back to Earth due to atmospheric drag, a problem that plagues all low-Earth-orbiting satellites even to … | Continue reading
Nihilism, not unlike time (according to Augustine) or porn (according to the U.S. Supreme Court), is one of those concepts that we are all pretty sure we know the meaning of unless someone asks us to define it. Nihil means “nothing.” -ism means “ideology.” Yet when we try to comb … | Continue reading
This article is an installment of Freethink’s Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by subscribing here. It’s 2040. You’re at your doctor’s office, and you just tested positive … | Continue reading