The Botanist Who Defied Stalin - Issue 99: Universality

In 1913, 26-year-old Russian biologist Nikolai Vavilov went to the John Innes Horticultural Institute to study at the feet of legendary… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

A Wrinkle in Nature Could Lead to Alien Life - Issue 99: Universality

I grew up in a small village in a very rural part of England. It was a landscape capped with the huge skies of a low-lying coastal… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Do We Have Free Will? Maybe It Doesn't Matter

It’s hard to change people’s beliefs about free will. So, it can feel like a relief to realize that even when you can change people’s… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Why Men Don’t Live as Long as Women (2017)

Years ago when I was conducting my doctoral research on the evolutionary history of men among a remote indigenous community of hunter-gatherers… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

A selection of illustrations from the new book Carbon, One Atom’s Odyssey

Like most American high school students, I was required to take Chemistry and English. Chemistry thrilled only by way of the absurdity… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Logic Puzzle You Can Only Solve with Your Brightest Friend

You have to cleverly build “common knowledge” to solve this lethal riddle.WikicommonsYou’ve been caught snooping around a spooky… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Carbon, It’s Elementary, Dear Reader

Like most American high school students, I was required to take Chemistry and English. Chemistry thrilled only by way of the absurdity… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Weak Case for Grit

It might surprise you to find out how little evidence there is to support the idea that boosting students’ “grit”—their propensity… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

“My Octopus Teacher” Defied Convention

It all started with an odd pile of shells: a pile that, upon closer inspection, fell apart like a flower losing its petals, introducing… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

How “My Octopus Teacher” Defied Convention - Issue 99: Universality

It all started with an odd pile of shells: a pile that, upon closer inspection, fell apart like a flower losing its petals, introducing… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Carbon, It’s Elementary, Dear Reader - Issue 99: Universality

Like most American high school students, I was required to take Chemistry and English. Chemistry thrilled only by way of the absurdity… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Weak Case for Grit - Issue 99: Universality

It might surprise you to find out how little evidence there is to support the idea that boosting students’ “grit”—their propensity… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Vast Viral World: What We Know (and Don’t Know)

Slightly ovoid in shape and somewhat blurred at the edges, the black splotches were scattered across a mottled gray background, looking… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Do We Have Free Will? Maybe It Doesn't Matter - Facts So Romantic

It’s hard to change people’s beliefs about free will. So, it can feel like a relief to realize that even when you can change people’s… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Gaia, the Scientist - Issue 99: Universality

There exists a social hierarchy within science that strikes people who are not mixed up in it as ridiculous. It goes like this: Mathematicians… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

How to Conquer COVID-19 Amid a Confederacy of Dunces - Issue 99: Universality

Robert Burioni is a virologist at the San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy, and a serious scientist. But in 2016, something happened… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Vast Viral World: What We Know (and Don’t Know) - Issue 99: Universality

Slightly ovoid in shape and somewhat blurred at the edges, the black splotches were scattered across a mottled gray background, looking… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

A Quiet Path Out of the Coronavirus Shadow

Eleven years ago, I sat down across from a man named Edward Espe Brown. I had returned home to Texas from a four-month stay at the… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

I Am Not a Machine. Yes You Are. Debating the Impact of Machine-Created Art

I’m trying to explain to Arthur I. Miller why artworks generated by computers don’t quite do it for me. There’s no human being… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

A Quiet Path Out of the Coronavirus Shadow

Eleven years ago, I sat down across from a man named Edward Espe Brown. I had returned home to Texas from a four-month stay at the… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Trouble with Brain Scans

One autumn afternoon in the bowels of UC Berkeley’s Li Ka Shing Center, I was looking at my brain. I had just spent 10 minutes inside… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Debating the impact of machine-created art

I’m trying to explain to Arthur I. Miller why artworks generated by computers don’t quite do it for me. There’s no human being… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Trouble with Brain Scans

One autumn afternoon in the bowels of UC Berkeley’s Li Ka Shing Center, I was looking at my brain. I had just spent 10 minutes inside… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Trouble with Brain Scans - Issue 98: Mind

One autumn afternoon in the bowels of UC Berkeley’s Li Ka Shing Center, I was looking at my brain. I had just spent 10 minutes inside… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

A Quiet Path Out of the Coronavirus Shadow - Issue 98: Mind

Eleven years ago, I sat down across from a man named Edward Espe Brown. I had returned home to Texas from a four-month stay at the… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

I Am Not a Machine. Yes You Are. - Issue 98: Mind

I’m trying to explain to Arthur I. Miller why artworks generated by computers don’t quite do it for me. There’s no human being… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

AI Zombies Cannot Answer Questions About Consciousness

Zombies are supposed to be capable of asking any question about the nature of experience. It’s worth wondering, though, how a person… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

How We’ll Know an AI Is Conscious

Zombies are supposed to be capable of asking any question about the nature of experience. It’s worth wondering, though, how a person… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Here’s How We’ll Know an AI Is Conscious - Facts So Romantic

Zombies are supposed to be capable of asking any question about the nature of experience. It’s worth wondering, though, how a person… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Blackout in the Brain Lab

When the power goes out, the two young scientists are plunged into pitch blackness. After exclamations and fumbling they turn their… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Tenet Shows Time Travel May Be Possible

Time travel has been a beloved science-fiction idea at least since H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895. The concept continues… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Tenet Shows Time Travel May Be Possible

Time travel has been a beloved science-fiction idea at least since H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895. The concept continues… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

I Have Come to Bury Ayn Rand

My father, Sloan Wilson, wrote novels that would help define 1950s America. I loved and admired him, but the prospect of following… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Blackout in the Brain Lab - Issue 98: Mind

When the power goes out, the two young scientists are plunged into pitch blackness. After exclamations and fumbling they turn their… | Continue reading


@Nautil.us | 3 years ago

This Tenet Shows Time Travel May Be Possible - Issue 98: Mind

Time travel has been a beloved science-fiction idea at least since H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895. The concept continues… | Continue reading


@Nautil.us | 3 years ago

I Have Come to Bury Ayn Rand - Issue 98: Mind

My father, Sloan Wilson, wrote novels that would help define 1950s America. I loved and admired him, but the prospect of following… | Continue reading


@Nautil.us | 3 years ago

Blackout in the Brain Lab - Issue 98: Mind

When the power goes out, the two young scientists are plunged into pitch blackness. After exclamations and fumbling they turn their… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

This Tenet Shows Time Travel May Be Possible - Issue 98: Mind

Time travel has been a beloved science-fiction idea at least since H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895. The concept continues… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

I Have Come to Bury Ayn Rand - Issue 98: Mind

My father, Sloan Wilson, wrote novels that would help define 1950s America. I loved and admired him, but the prospect of following… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

How Intelligent Could Life Be Without Natural Selection?

I could stridently insist that natural selection is the only way that complex life can evolve, but that’s not strictly true. We… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Life Beyond Human Has to Play by the Rules

There are many ways to think about alien, extraterrestrial life forms. Science-fiction writers do it all the time. Scientists, more… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Charmed Life of Frank Wilczek

Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek’s new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, is both a way of thinking about the abundance that characterizes… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

How Intelligent Could Life Be Without Natural Selection?

I could stridently insist that natural selection is the only way that complex life can evolve, but that’s not strictly true. We… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Charmed Life of Frank Wilczek

Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek’s new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, is both a way of thinking about the abundance that characterizes… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Life Beyond Human Has to Play by the Rules - Issue 98: Mind

There are many ways to think about alien, extraterrestrial life forms. Science-fiction writers do it all the time. Scientists, more… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

The Charmed Life of Frank Wilczek - Issue 98: Mind

Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek’s new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, is both a way of thinking about the abundance that characterizes… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

How Intelligent Could Life Be Without Natural Selection? - Issue 98: Mind

I could stridently insist that natural selection is the only way that complex life can evolve, but that’s not strictly true. We… | Continue reading


@nautil.us | 3 years ago

Life Beyond Human Has to Play by the Rules - Issue 98: Mind

There are many ways to think about alien, extraterrestrial life forms. Science-fiction writers do it all the time. Scientists, more… | Continue reading


@Nautil.us | 3 years ago