Posts

Scientists have been using quantum theory for almost a century now, but embarrassingly they still don’t know what it means. An informal poll taken at a 2011 conference on Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality showed that there’s still no consensus on what quantum theory says about reality—the participants remained deeply divided about how […]

Tech companies are eyeing the next frontier: the human face. Should you desire, you can now superimpose any variety of animal snouts onto a video of yourself in real time. If you choose to hemorrhage money on the new iPhone X, you can unlock your smartphone with a glance. At a KFC location in Hangzhou, […]

This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. If you want an unusual but punchy telling of the world’s explosion of climate-warping gases, look no further than this visualization of CO2 levels over the past centuries soaring like skyscrapers into space. “2A Brief History of CO2 Emissions” portrays the cumulative amount of this […]

Huntington’s disease is brutal in its simplicity. The disorder, which slowly bulldozes your ability to control your body, starts with just a single mutation, in the gene for huntingtin protein. That tweak tacks an unwelcome glob of glutamines—extra amino acids—onto the protein, turning it into a destroyer that attacks neurons. Huntington’s simplicity is exciting, because […]

Every week, two million people across the world will sit for hours, hooked up to a whirring, blinking, blood-cleaning dialysis machine. Their alternatives: Find a kidney transplant or die. In the US, dialysis is a roughly 40-billion-dollar business keeping 468,000 people with end-stage renal disease alive. The process is far from perfect, but that hasn't […]