Numbers | Math
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Chapter one
Falling
Matter | Chemistry
The Executioner We Can’t Live Without
You’re dead meat without special molecules that kill rotten proteins.
Ideas | The Web
The Meme as Meme
Why do things go viral, and should we care?
Matter | Technology
How a Snowflake Turns Into an Avalanche
Meet the avalanche engineers of the Subzero Laboratory.
Chapter two
Crashing
Numbers | Computer Science
How the Computer Got Its Revenge on the Soviet Union
Condemned as a capitalist tool, the computer would help expose the USSR’s weakness.
Biology | Psychology
Fear in the Cockpit
The tragic plane crash in Taipei was the result of mechanical and psychological failures.
Culture | Fiction
The Best Little Bar in Manhattan
An experiment in belief versus bourbon.
Biology | Environment
What the Deer Are Telling Us
A lesson in home improvement.
Chapter three
Breaking
Biology | Health
Yes, You Can Catch Insanity
A controversial disease revives the debate about the immune system and mental illness.
Matter | Climate
The Hidden Ocean Patch That Broke Climate Records
Why the recent global warming hiatus may have ended.
Biology | Mortality
Can You Die From a Broken Heart?
What happens to our bodies when the bonds of love are breached.
Culture | Psychology
PTSD: The Wound That Never Heals
Coming back to life after losing my first child.
Chapter four
Modeling
Numbers | Economics
Why the Flash Crash Really Matters
The debate about what caused the 2010 stock market Flash Crash is missing the point.
Biology | Health
The Man Who Drank Cholera and Launched the Yogurt Craze
Ilya Metchnikoff laid the foundation for modern probiotics.
Biology | Neuroscience
Ants Swarm Like Brains Think
A neuroscientist studies ant colonies to understand feedback in the brain.
Culture | Math
Ingenious: David Krakauer
The systems theorist explains what’s wrong with standard models of intelligence.
Chapter five
Fixing
Biology | Health
The Man Who Beat HIV at Its Own Game for 30 Years
A survivor’s story is about to change.
Numbers | Technology
Meet the 17-Year-Old, Award-Winning, Rube Goldberg Parts Manufacturer
Tommy George and the Agents of SHIELD shot a Nerf ball and erased a whiteboard.
Culture | Psychology
Want to Get Out Alive? Follow the Ants
Ants show that emergency exits can work better when they’re obstructed.
Culture | Math
Five Short Stories About the Life and Times of Ideas
A complexity theorist explores how science and culture co-evolve.
Related Facts So Romantic
“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” —Jules Verne
See All Blog Posts-
Numbers
Why Hasn’t the World Been Destroyed in a Nuclear War Yet?
When opposing nations gained access to nuclear weapons, it fundamentally changed the logic of war. You might say that it made questions about war more cleanly logical—with nuclear-armed…
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Numbers
How Enormous Dominoes Can Help You Rethink Saving for Retirement
It’s a clear warm day in early August, and the Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert is lucky it isn’t windy. Towering right behind him stands a 30-foot tall domino. It’s 15 feet wide,…
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Biology
Why Expectant Mothers Can Just Chill Out
When philosopher Nicolas Malebranche peered at a fetus floating in a glass jar, in a shop of curiosities in Paris in 1672, he blamed its monstrous shape on the mother. At the time it was…
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Matter
What Facebook, Blue Jeans, and Metal Signs Taught Us About Tornado Science
On April 27, 2011 a monstrous EF5 tornado traveled 132 miles across northern Alabama and into southern Tennessee, missing one of the nation’s largest nuclear power plants by less than…
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