In a recent episode of Talking Billions, Chris Mayer, author of 100 Baggers and co-founder of Woodlock House Family Capital, sat down with host Bogumil Baranowski to delve into the art of long-term investing. The highlight? A fascinating discussion on the paradox of embracing unc … | Continue reading
The stars in the night sky, as we typically perceive them, are normally static and unchanging to our eyes. Sure, there are variable stars that brighten and fainten, but most of those do so periodically and regularly, with only a few exceptions. One of the most prominent exception … | Continue reading
The United States is a big country. Its size, just slightly smaller than Europe, leaves plenty of room for cultural differences. Cuisine, religious belief, and language all shift in disparate parts of the U.S. But despite the variations, Americans tend to unite around one flag, a … | Continue reading
Take a survey of leaders about AI in the workplace, and you’ll run the gamut of opinions. On one end of the spectrum, the AI evangelists argue the technology has ushered in a golden age of creativity, cut costs, and delivered productivity gains. On the other, the naysayers fret t … | Continue reading
Most of us, when we think about the Standard Model, think about the fundamental particles and forces that make up the Universe. That’s not a bad thing; that’s largely correct! Within the Standard Model, the prescription for the full suite of particles that ought to exist is: six … | Continue reading
The transformative potential of digital connectivity became a global game changer more than two decades ago. Mobile phones reshaped telecommunications, enabling connectivity even in homes without landlines. Digital health quickly leveraged these innovations, making remote patient … | Continue reading
In the Baltics, the difference between East and West — between the past and the future — can be measured in millimeters: 85, to be exact. (Or, if you prefer, 3.35 inches.) That tiny distance is the difference between the track gauges of the old Soviet railways (1,520 mm, just und … | Continue reading
“I trust that posterity will read these statements with a feeling of proud and justified superiority.” This is how Albert Einstein signed off on his brief message to the people of the year 6939 AD, having already related to them that, despite the incredible progress made by peopl … | Continue reading
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice, “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life.” In Lewis Carroll’s imagination, the now-common picture of a Cheshire Cat took shape: where a cat’s grin could persist independent of the cat … | Continue reading
Selfish leadership is a problem many face alone — it’s the individual who must survive the whims of a selfish boss or colleague. But why is selfish leadership a concept so many people are familiar with? What can you do when you are trapped under a selfish leader? Companies should … | Continue reading
Since its discovery nearly 250 years ago, the Sombrero galaxy has delighted astronomers. This image of the Sombrero galaxy, also known as Messier 104, represents what an amateur astronomer can capture with a modest, modern setup, revealing a bright, dusty halo of shining stars wi … | 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 above. It’s 2034. All of your electronic devices, from your EV to your smartpho … | Continue reading
It was an idea that probably never stood a chance in the long run. Since 2005, the Internet Archive, a nonprofit entity devoted to “providing[ing] universal access to all knowledge,” has been digitizing physical books and posting the copies to its website, where users may read th … | Continue reading
It says, “Satan is the deceiver of the whole world” in Revelations 12, and this has been verified by the observation that the atheists running science and education have convinced everyone of their lies. How is it that very intelligent people can’t see it? – Michael, Australia I … | Continue reading
In the wake of the pandemic, our economy entered into a new era marked by supply chain shortages, rapidly rising inflation, and a sharp increase in interest rates. And consumers, businesses, and governments are more uncertain than they’ve ever been. It’s impossible to understand … | Continue reading
There are two kinds of failure. First, there is the very public kind of failure which everyone sees. It involves pointing, jeering, and name-calling. Of course, this never actually happens, but that’s what it feels like. Public failure is when we tell everyone we want something o … | Continue reading
There’s an enormous existential question that we’ve wondered about ever since we first realized that the Universe does, in fact, obey physical laws at all: why is our Universe the precise way it is, rather than any other way we could’ve imagined? There are only three things that … | Continue reading
JSTOR Daily isn’t new to the biofuel conversation. Many contributors have written optimistically about the contributions of the biofuel industry to sustainable aviation, bringing back prairie landscapes, and even finding a new use for massive seaweed deposits. Biofuels made from … | Continue reading
Philosophers relish the challenge of pitting ethical systems against each other to better understand the complexities of morality. Think of the classic showdown between deontology, which champions unwavering rules, and consequentialism, which prioritizes the outcome above all els … | Continue reading
The Pantheon in Rome — nearly 2,000 years old and still standing as the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome — has puzzled scientists for decades. Why has it endured while more modern structures have crumbled? Researchers at MIT finally cracked the riddle last year: Roman e … | Continue reading
When two things in the Universe that “always” occur meet one another, how do you know which one will win? Gravitational waves, for example, always pass through whatever they encounter: empty space, dark matter, gas clouds, plasma, dust, planets, stars, and even dense stellar remn … | Continue reading
Modern astronomy has an unsavory secret: Astronomers don’t understand how the Universe works. Galaxies spin faster than can be explained by the observed matter and well-established laws of physics. Individual galaxies within vast clusters of galaxies move so fast that those clust … | Continue reading
Artificial intelligence is already doing some pretty amazing things — writing stories, solving problems, creating songs, generating art, and producing lifelike videos and images. But these are mere parlor tricks compared to a more profound potential ability: automating discovery … | Continue reading
Since the mid-1960s and the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the Big Bang has stood alone, largely unchallenged, as the leading theory of our cosmic origins. Our Universe, at least the Universe as we observe it, started off in a hot, dense, mostly uniform state some … | Continue reading
On November 16, 1974, a group of scientists sent a message to the stars, with the hope that someone out there might be listening. They used the 1,000-foot Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico, constructed a decade earlier. Today, the Arecibo Message is still on its way to the star cl … | Continue reading
For most of human history, we’ve lived in the shadow of the gods. Every century before ours was a far, far more religious one. People would pray daily to divinities that were never far away. They would see the divine in everything. Gods made the world, and that made the world mea … | Continue reading
Being intellectually alive isn’t only about being open-minded when presented with new ideas and perspectives. It’s about proactively seeking out these experiences. It’s about fighting to break free of the bubble that’s so easy to create for ourselves to understand how the other 9 … | Continue reading
When it comes to the Universe, what you can easily see isn’t always reflective of all there is. It’s one of the important reasons why theories and observations/measurements need to go hand-in-hand: observations tell you what’s there to the best of our measurement capabilities, an … | Continue reading
If I asked you where your mass comes from, your answer might involve an extra muffin or two. However, if I ask a science enthusiast the same question, I would expect to hear that the real origin of mass is from a physical phenomenon called the Higgs field. While that claim is oft … | Continue reading
It’s impossible to know our place in history. Trapped in the furious back and forth of current events, from elections to dangerous conflicts, we can lose sight of how long it can take for processes emerging now to play out over time. I was reminded of this last week when, during … | Continue reading
There are many goals of science, but they all fall into the broad category of how to understand and describe our reality as accurately as possible. If you give us a setup — and tell us what the initial conditions of that physical system are — then so long as our best scientific t … | Continue reading
In April 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping hopped on the phone with Joe Biden to condemn the American president’s plan to ban the export of advanced microchips and chip-related technologies to the People’s Republic of China. The ban struck Xi as little more than a geopolitical d … | Continue reading
In 2022, scientists found microplastics — pieces of plastic less than five millimeters long — in human blood. Since then, they’ve been discovered throughout the human body, including in our lungs, kidneys, livers, hearts, and brains. So, why do we have all this plastic in us, wha … | Continue reading
A lot of people (especially on LinkedIn) say their work is their “vocation” – that they are following their path or answering their calling. They’re also atheists (at least the ones I know). So, can we have a “calling” without someone to call us? — Anker, PO A wonderful submissio … | Continue reading
Consciousness is everything we know, everything we experience. The mystery at the heart of consciousness lies in why our universe – despite teeming with non-conscious matter – is configured in a way where it’s having a felt experience from the inside. Modern neuroscience suggests … | Continue reading
No matter how strong the evidence is in favor of a scientific theory, there will always be contrarians who come along and encourage the exploration of alternatives. This isn’t necessarily out of stubbornness, but is often done in an attempt to subject even our most well-supported … | Continue reading
If a 175 pound-man drank five one-liter handles of vodka in a day, he would die. But when a tiny Oriental hornet weighing half a gram consumes the equivalent amount of alcohol relative to its body size, it carries on like nothing happened. Many animals, humans among them, imbibe … | Continue reading
For centuries, we’ve worshiped at the altar of productivity, measuring success by how much — and how fast — we can produce. But as artificial intelligence increasingly takes on the busywork of modern life, a profound shift is emerging: the value of creativity over productivity. I … | Continue reading
The most remarkable fact about the Universe is simply that it can be understood at all. The universe, for all its complexity, can be reduced to its simplest, most fundamental components. If you can determine the underlying rules, laws, and theories that govern your reality, then … | Continue reading
There’s no doubt that exercise does a body good. Regular activity not only strengthens muscles but can bolster our bones, blood vessels, and immune system. Now, MIT engineers have found that exercise can also have benefits at the level of individual neurons. They observed that wh … | Continue reading
There are many different ways to define a friend. A friend is someone who helps you get places and who lifts you up. They motivate you and want you to succeed. Francis Bacon argued that a friend is someone who can do what you cannot do yourself — including those things that matte … | Continue reading
By any definition, Israa Nasir is a model of productivity. Born in Pakistan, she immigrated to Toronto when she was 13. Her studious and curious nature eventually led her to NYU, where she earned a master’s degree in mental health counseling. Then a few years ago, she really hit … | Continue reading
One of the most enduring traditions in the United States is the Thanksgiving turkey. The one-time contender for the official bird of the nation — advanced even by Benjamin Franklin over the bald eagle — has been served at homes across the nation for centuries, with an estimated 4 … | Continue reading
Welcome to part two of my conversation with theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker, a professor at Arizona State University and the author of the 2024 book Life as No One Knows It. Walker’s book is an example of radical new thinking at the forefront of the “physics of life,” a b … | Continue reading
A few days into researching microplastic pollution, a friend asked me how my article was coming along. “I threw out my plastic cutting board and have been scrolling through $250, 10-gallon stainless steel water jugs on Amazon for the past hour,” I admitted. After all, making prob … | Continue reading
The Pantheon in Rome — completed almost 2,000 years ago — stands as one of the greatest engineering marvels of the ancient world. The structure is a testament to human ingenuity and careful planning. And its architecture, in particular, could hold a few key insights for any moder … | Continue reading
In 2011, Emma Coats—a storyboard artist at Pixar—tweeted twenty-two guidelines to make anyone a better storyteller. Although the whole list went viral and was a hot topic in the professional writing community for months, the part that has received the most sustained attention is … | Continue reading
Ever since JWST first opened its eyes on the deep, distant Universe, it’s showed us objects that we didn’t expect we’d find. Sure, we expected a whole host of cosmic record-breakers, including the “most distant” example of many different types of object. JWST has already shown us … | Continue reading