How to See without Eyes
You don't see with your eyes, you see with your mind. Perhaps this is a trivial distinction but understanding it can open up our perspective. The hard truth is that the physical world is not full of colors and objects; it is full of, what Richard Feynman referred to as, a [...]
Life Without Water. Is it Possible?
Every single life form we have ever encountered requires water. And all of these organisms that seem to be very different are built from the same code. Much like how every computer program is made from bits of 1's and 0's; life as we know it is built from DNA. [...]
STUXNET: The Dawn of Cyber Warfare
Prepare yourself for extreme paranoia. In March of 2010, a weapon unlike any the world had seen before was unleashed upon a nuclear facility in Natanz, Iran. It was explosive but not a bomb; stealth but not a spy. The weapon was a computer virus: a string of 1's and [...]
How We Rigged the Speed of Light
The speed of light is considered the fastest speed possible in the universe; a speed so fast it was once thought infinite. Science now declares it a constant of nature and from this conclusion whole branches of scientific pursuit have emerged. To question its nature as a [...]
Featured Podcast
Why do we dream?: A Sensory Deprivation Chamber Story
It was beyond darkness; it was emptiness. A short time ago, I went with some friends to spend 2 hours in a sensory deprivation chamber. As strange as that may sound, the idea behind the chamber is simply to eliminate all of your senses so that your mind is free [...]
We are the Sims
Think back to the video games of your childhood. Imagine that one of the characters in your favorite game had such advanced programing that the character itself became "conscious." What would this character in this video game simulation think? What would it believe? However strange it may seem, new evidence has [...]
What SpaceX Means to Space Travel
Ask any expert and they will tell you that SpaceX will not be the first to take a man to Mars. This is quite a strange consensus since Elon Musk founded his space technologies company for that exact purpose. He can even be caught repping the tagline, "Occupy Mars," across his [...]
Clues of a Lost Global Civilization
Heinrich Schliemann was the only archaeologist alive to believe that the legendary city of Troy was real. Guided only by a copy of Homer's "Iliad," he set out on the dry plains of the Turkish Peninsula to find his lost city. At the time, Troy was merely a myth; after [...]