Hard Science

UCLA researchers successfully use a new technique to “wake up” a patient after coma.

Each might be as heavy as an asteroid and as tiny as a decimal point.

Look who went and got himself a talk show. Big Think’s regular contributor Bill Nye will be on Netflix in 2017!

Astronomers find a galaxy made almost entirely of dark matter.

One of the fathers of string theory proposes a new equation that may reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics.

What kind of person could withstand a trip to Mars and back? NASA and Hi-SEAS is trying to find out.

Peel off your tin-foil hat like a Hershey’s Kiss, because Bill Nye has a reality check for the alien conspiracy theorists out there.

NASA will be putting most of the research it funds online for free in policy of open access to science.

George Musser explains the central role of weirdness in physics, and shatters the dreams of those who hope humans can one day tap into psychic powers.

NASA tests the engine for the most powerful rocket ever built, designed for deep-space missions. 

A new study sheds light on the evolutionary connection between fish fins and human fingers.

University of California, Irvine physicists may have discovered a new fundamental force of nature. 

Science’s signature moves share something with good poetry. Good metaphor-making can make geniuses of both kinds. But bad metaphors can mislead whole fields.  

Genetic engineering, utilizing CRISPR, promises to change human lives by bringing an end to disease while irreversibly modifying our gene pool.

Researchers possibly identify LUCA, the common ancestor to all life on Earth, and figure out where it lived.

An old fight between philosophy and science has flared up again. Fortunately we have Rebecca Newberger Goldstein to help us sort out what’s going. 

A list debunking commonly believed falsehoods, misconceptions and just bad ideas.

A number of scientific studies find the traits shared by intelligent people.

Technically, the knife’s metal had extraterrestrial origins.

Irish scientists make an unexpected discovery about light by devising a new experiment. 

A Canadian teen who discovered a lost Mayan city via satellite imagery is not backing down from the critics.

Spanish scientists utilize a revolutionary new technique to create sperm from skin in a potential cure for infertility.

Mathematician Dr. Hannah Fry tells the story of zero, a genius idea that transformed human progress.

Your brain is the neural battleground of science and religion, with religious people and atheists differing in intelligence and empathy.  Can the two extremes reconcile?

When Neil deGrasse Tyson recently sat down with infamous whistle blower Edward Snowden, the topic of alien encryption came into the mix.

The famed evolutionary biologist summarizes his research into the genetic basis of evolution.