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Darren Staples / Reuters The Dark Side of Original Thinking
Lying and cheating might be indispensable in planning a surprise party, or a surprise heist. Is creativity always a moral good?
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Eddie Keogh / Reuters Could Ancient Humans Have Lived as Long as We Do?
Across time and place, our species’ life span is remarkably consistent.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt (IPAC) Tiny Suns Are Transforming the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
It’s time to set aside the “Earth Twin” strategy.
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Bettmann / Getty Can Scientific Discovery Be Automated?
Progress in the sciences can only move as fast as humans can think—outsourcing to A.I. could change that.
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Amir Dalsh / Reuters Why Space Operas Will Never Come True
The universe is just too big.
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Morteza Nikoubazl / Reuters Why Fractals Are So Soothing
Jackson Pollock’s paintings mirror nature’s patterns, like branching trees, snowflakes, waves—and the structure of the human eye.
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Pierre Albouy / Reuters What Happens If You Stick Your Head in a Particle Accelerator?
It’s a great physics thought experiment—and an awful accident in 1978.
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Michaela Rehle / Reuters Kids Aren't Interested in Moral Conflict
Adults admire people who overcome temptation, but children judge them for feeling tempted in the first place.
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Andrew Winning / Reuters The Mysterious Physics of Rainbows
Scientists have been refining their understanding of rainbows’ unusual features since René Descartes first studied them in 1637.
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CDIC / Reuters How the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis Explains Our Taste for Liquor
Early apes’ ability to metabolize alcohol increased about 20-fold due to a single-point mutation in their genes.
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Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters The Overhyping of Precision Medicine
Science has a history of inflated promises when it comes to disease treatment.
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Jim Urquhart / Reuters How the Concept of Deep Time Is Changing
The idea that humans are ephemeral compared to the workings of nature isn’t as persuasive as it once was.
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Amy Sussman / AP Why Bigfoot Sightings Are So Common Across Cultures
Visions of hairy “man-apes” speak to something deep in the human psyche.
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Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters Pikachu Has Hijacked Your Brain’s Reward System
The yellow Pokémon captures attention by exploiting a neural bias towards cuteness, sugar content, and other rewards.
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Alessia Pierdomenico / Reuters Galileo Fought Dirty With His Fellow Scientists
The Italian astronomer had critics inside and outside the Church.
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Mark Blinch / Reuters Why Panpsychism Is Probably Wrong
It’s enchanting to think that everything—from atoms to rocks to trees—is conscious, but it doesn’t explain much about the world.
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AP America's Secret Cold War Mission to Build the First Chinese Computer
The head of the project hoped the machine would help bring about world peace.
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Bettmann / Getty The Constellations Are Sexist
Greek and Roman star configurations depict men as conquerors and heroes, while women are victims and bit players.
