Culture | Science Practice
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ebook editions
Chapter one
Classifying
Biology | Physics
Why Nature Prefers Hexagons
The geometric rules behind fly eyes, honeycombs, and soap bubbles.
Biology | Neuroscience
The Paradox of the Elephant Brain
With three times as many neurons, why doesn’t the elephant brain outperform ours?
Biology | Neuroscience
What Alzheimer’s Feels Like from the Inside
An investigative reporter chronicles the progression of his own disease.
Culture | Psychology
How to Avoid Empathy Burnout
Caregivers can benefit by understanding a patient’s pain without feeling it themselves.
Chapter two
Personal Space
Culture | Food
Why Revolutionaries Love Spicy Food
How the chili pepper got to China.
Biology | Psychology
Parents Shouldn’t Spy on Their Kids
Apps that make it easy to invade kids’ privacy are a recipe for arrested development.
Biology | Animals
The Other Crisis on the Mexican Border
Animals are struggling to cope with the US-Mexico border wall.
Culture | Neuroscience
Caitlyn Jenner and Our Cognitive Dissonance
While biology shows us gender can be fluid, our brains struggle to see it that way.
Culture | Psychology
No, You Can’t Feel Sorry for Everyone
The idea of empathy for all ignores the limits of human psychology.
Culture | Psychology
When Dating Algorithms Can Watch You Blush
The next generation of dating algorithms will use real-life interactions.
Chapter three
Buried Treasure
Ideas | Science Practice
Why Physics Is Not a Discipline
Physics is not just what happens in the Department of Physics.
Biology | Animals
Parasites Are Us
How biological invaders challenge our idea of self and other.
Biology | Paleontology
Reading the Book of Life in Prehistoric Dung
“Paleoscatologist” Karen Chin has uncovered the humble origin of life after dinosaurs.
Culture | Psychology
Not All Practice Makes Perfect
Moving from naive to purposeful practice can dramatically increase performance.
Ideas | Philosophy
This Philosopher Helped Ensure There Was No Nobel for Relativity
Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein reached and swayed the 1921 Nobel committee.
Chapter four
Universals
Biology | Animals
Can a Cat Have an Existential Crisis?
Treating my cat for depression caused me to question the state of anxiety in animals and us.
Matter | Extraterrestrial Life
Spark of Science: Chiara Mingarelli
How stars and UFOs set one astrophysicist on her path.
Matter | Astronomy
Where Nature Hides the Darkest Mystery of All
There’s no boundary quite like a black hole boundary.
Matter | Physics
Ingenious: Robbert Dijkgraaf
The director of the Institute for Advanced Study on theoretical physics, art, and education.
Ideas | Science Practice
Are There Barbarians at the Gates of Science?
The increasingly complex border between science and society is changing both.
Related Facts So Romantic
“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” —Jules Verne
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Matter
Science Should Be Totally Beautiful
Felice Frankel lives between the lines. Along with being a part-time science photographer, she’s a researcher at the Center for Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts…
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Culture
Is Multilingual Rap Eroding Canada’s French Language?
Recently a Quebec arts foundation required the Francophone rap group Dead Obies to give back an $18,000 grant they’d been awarded to record their newest album. The problem? A word count…
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Biology
Should We All Be Helping Trees Relocate?
Torrey pines seem like they could use some human help. According to the U.S. Forest Service, they are the rarest pine species in North America, with fewer than 10,000 trees growing in the…
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Biology
Why Is Hawaii Evolving So Many Species of This Wingless Beetle?
Two Mecyclothorax beetles abandon their relatives on the forest floor to climb up a tree. They settle into a moss home, eat, mate, and die. A couple hundred years or so pass until one of…
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