science
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The Only Way to Travel
A new exhibit, Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction 1780–1910, is on view at the newly renovated Smithsonian Libraries Gallery at the National Museum of American History. The exhibit explores the imaginations of 18th and early 19th century science fiction writers like H.G. Wells,…
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The Rumpus Interview with Bernadette Murphy
Bernadette Murphy on her forthcoming book, Harley and Me: Embracing Risk on the Road to a More Authentic Life, the challenges of selling a memoir, and life beyond “the suburban-wife-mother picture.”
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The Case for Including More Female Scientists in Literature
If female characters are restricted to the roles of artist, dancer, waitress, or barista, their potential to generate fiction that explores existentially rich and original worlds also seems restricted. In the ongoing discussion of groups in sore need of better…
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Mapping the Brain
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley published a new study about brain activity in people listening to podcasts, the New York Times reported. “Using novel computational methods, the group broke down the stories into units of meaning: social elements,…
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Weekly Geekery
The government has always been spying on you. Updating the search for immortality. People could judge you for giving bad email. Facebook is not social networking.
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Weekly Geekery
The mystery of schizophrenia and the mystery of identity. History in the cloud. Opting out of social media. Sex restores the balance within us.
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Weekly Geekery
Spelling is important even when you are stealing money. An app for your mental health. Google wants to blend physical and digital books. Music unites us.
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Mary Somerville: Journalist, Scientist
Matthew Wills revisits the life and career of Mary Somerville, a 19th century scientist, translator, and a popular science journalist. Somerville also has a notable place in linguistic history: the word scientist was first used in a review of her…
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Romancing the Cure
Homer understood in the 8th century BCE what modernity has yet to accept—love can be an addiction, and when it is, we need substantial outside help. Angela Chen writes for Aeon on romantic love as addiction, and the taboos around…
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The Ache for Order
Nowhere do we crave order, and the powerful results reaped from that order, more than in nature. The mapping of the seasons permitted the development of agriculture. The ability to predict the swing of pendulums led to the creation of…
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Weekly Geekery
Opening the doors of Silicon Valley’s male-dominated culture. The Internet’s deep rift. Facebook, but for trees. Remembering Dawkins.
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The Fractal Structure of Finnegans Wake
Some very intelligent scientists recently published a study showing Finnegans Wake—among other novels, from The Waves to 2666—to have a structure comparable to mathematical fractals, in which each fragment (here, the sentence) has a structure resembling the whole. Jury’s out…