Nautilus is a different kind of science magazine. We are science, philosophy, and culture connected, offering a new perspective on human uniqueness and our universe—all beautifully illustrated. Each month, we explore a single topic from various scientific disciplines, pairing award-winning journalists with illustrators to create features that are unlike any other science journalism—fascinating, inspired, and innovative. Nautilus publishes online and print long-form features, as well as a blog, Facts So Romantic, and a news service, Three Sentence Science. Beautiful, intriguing, and full of wonder—Nautilus is what science journalism should be.
"It helps to have a sunny outlook. People are more likely to maintain broader attention and solve problems when they’re in a positive mood."
I pour a cup of coffee, sharpen my pencil, and get ready to create. I’ve dusted off a half-conceived novel outline I abandoned three…
Too much analysis is “like trying to drive a car with a parachute hanging off the back,” Puccio says. “It just puts a drag on your thinking.”
I pour a cup of coffee, sharpen my pencil, and get ready to create. I’ve dusted off a half-conceived novel outline I abandoned three…
"Gauging opponents can help players parse the talented from the lucky."
Scrabble is a volatile game. It’s not uncommon for underdogs to make tournament upsets. Why? Luck. It plays a large role in Scrabble,…
"Scrabble is a volatile game. It’s not uncommon for underdogs to make tournament upsets."
Scrabble is a volatile game. It’s not uncommon for underdogs to make tournament upsets. Why? Luck. It plays a large role in Scrabble,…
"We should be delighted that we get to look and get to know. We never get to know everything; we don’t get to see everything."
Leading off this week’s chapter of Nautilus, physics writer Michael Brooks carries on a playful, imaginary conversation with Jerome…
"The scientific revolution is rooted in a mentality that doesn’t rely on authority."
Leading off this week’s chapter of Nautilus, physics writer Michael Brooks carries on a playful, imaginary conversation with Jerome…
"My lab is a place where it’s just as well that I can’t sleep, because there are so many things to do in the world."
There is nothing in the world more perfect than a slide rule. Its burnished aluminum feels cool against your lips, and if you hold…
"People are like plants: They grow toward the light. I chose science because it gave me what I needed: a safe place to be."
There is nothing in the world more perfect than a slide rule. Its burnished aluminum feels cool against your lips, and if you hold…
A fascinating way to bring music to the deaf, from our friends at Narratively:
The team at Cymaspace creates cutting-edge technology that helps the hearing-impaired experience the thrill of music.
"I’ve been schooled in quantum physics and trained to think rationally. So why am I carrying on imaginary conversations with a 16th-century astrologer?"
I’ve been talking to Jerome Cardano for years now. What’s more, he talks back to me—in a voice that often drips with gentle…
"Whenever the powerful are threatened by progress, they will suppress debate. Science has not escaped this phenomenon."
I’ve been talking to Jerome Cardano for years now. What’s more, he talks back to me—in a voice that often drips with gentle…
"What gets chosen is usually whatever is easiest to quantify, rather than the fairest."
We don’t know what our customers look like,” said Craig Berman, vice president of global communications at Amazon, to Bloomberg…
"There is no conceptual reason why sophisticated AI systems could not qualify as bearers of free will."
It’s not just in politics where otherwise smart people consistently talk past one another. People debating whether humans have free…
"Selling the lottery dream is possible because, paradoxically, the probabilities of winning are so infinitesimal they become irrelevant."
To grasp how unlikely it was for Gloria C. MacKenzie, an 84-year-old Florida widow, to have won the $590 million Powerball lottery…
"It’s a game where reason and logic are rendered obsolete, and hope and dreams are on sale."
To grasp how unlikely it was for Gloria C. MacKenzie, an 84-year-old Florida widow, to have won the $590 million Powerball lottery…
"The relationship between games of war and has become intertwined in today’s computer game industry."
In the spring of 1964, as fighting escalated in Vietnam, several dozen Americans gathered to play a game. They were some of the most…
"Buckminister Fuller had a solution to the Vietnam War: Host a world peace game out in the open."
In the spring of 1964, as fighting escalated in Vietnam, several dozen Americans gathered to play a game. They were some of the most…
"Unlike other astronomers who subsist on starlight like manna from heaven, Guyon seeks to ruthlessly suppress it, to annihilate a star’s light with exquisite optical violence."
Some dark, clear nights, when the blazing stars cast shadows down on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, the astronomer Olivier Guyon steps away from…
How one team of researchers is using freediving to try to understand the language of whales, from our friends at Narratively:
We know these giant predators communicate through thunderous clicks. James Nestor and his ragtag crew are determined to find out what they’re saying.
"Today we are our own informants, writing the most detailed personal accounts ever collated."
It’s 9 a.m. on a typical morning in Chengdu and I’m awakened by the sound of my phone alarm. The phone is in my study, connected…
"People are regularly arrested for messages they send in “private” group chats."
It’s 9 a.m. on a typical morning in Chengdu and I’m awakened by the sound of my phone alarm. The phone is in my study, connected…
"WeChat knows what I am reading. It would discover I am doing research for this article."
It’s 9 a.m. on a typical morning in Chengdu and I’m awakened by the sound of my phone alarm. The phone is in my study, connected…
"Drawing has its own ways of revealing the truth."
When Chernobyl happened, I knew it was time for me to act. Nineteen years earlier, I had first drawn malformed and mutated flies while…
"The more feral horses from New Zealand play, for example, the better they survive their first year."
The 19th-century physicist Hermann von Helmholtz compared his progress in solving a problem to that of a mountain climber “compelled…
"The house took on the atmosphere of a war-room."
My 4-year-old daughter and I were deep into a game of checkers one day about three years ago when her eye drifted to a nearby table.…
"As we get older, there is one thing at which we get worse: Being a novice."
My 4-year-old daughter and I were deep into a game of checkers one day about three years ago when her eye drifted to a nearby table.…
"There’s a German word for this style of research work: Wissenskunst or literally, 'knowledge-art.'"
When Chernobyl happened, I knew it was time for me to act. Nineteen years earlier, I had first drawn malformed and mutated flies while…
"I found terribly deformed insects, even though the levels of radiation there were relatively low. "
When Chernobyl happened, I knew it was time for me to act. Nineteen years earlier, I had first drawn malformed and mutated flies while…
"The scenes of tangled vegetation were not necessarily beautiful or symmetrical, not blessed with remarkable lighting or visually striking objects or any kind of grandeur. They were not the kind of thing that your brain could easily tell itself a story about."
For many years I ran a field station in Amazonian Peru. The station was a five-hour canoe ride from the nearest road, and every Friday…
"I’d start looking at the pictures like a scientist determined to miss the point—reducing each of the photographs to a list of plant species."
For many years I ran a field station in Amazonian Peru. The station was a five-hour canoe ride from the nearest road, and every Friday…
How do you practice living on Mars? Our friends at Narratively give us the inside scoop:
This is the true story of six strangers picked to live together in a geodesic dome, on top of a volcano, in a barren atmosphere chosen to replicate life in outer space.
"Mind-wandering is staggeringly frequent. The typical mind is absent between a third and half the time."
The 19th-century physicist Hermann von Helmholtz compared his progress in solving a problem to that of a mountain climber “compelled…
"Male spiders practice how to copulate fast enough to get away from a female before other males attack them."
The 19th-century physicist Hermann von Helmholtz compared his progress in solving a problem to that of a mountain climber “compelled…
"Nature loves to play. Let's talk spiders ..." That and more, in the new Nautilus issue, "Play."
Nautilus is a different kind of science magazine. We deliver big-picture science by reporting on a single monthly topic from multiple perspectives. Read a new chapter in the story every Thursday.
“This has the potential to be the nail in the coffin for seeing stars in most communities.”
If you see a car along that road,” Tyler Nordgren warned me, “don’t look at the headlights. It’ll ruin your night vision for…
“We’re losing the stars ...”
If you see a car along that road,” Tyler Nordgren warned me, “don’t look at the headlights. It’ll ruin your night vision for…
"It is to molecular biologists what the periodic table is to chemists—the foundation for all future discoveries."
I once knew a scientist who worked in the lab all of her waking hours for weeks on end. Indeed I’ve known a few. When a big discovery…
"Being scooped drives a wedge between two forces that motivate scientists: curiosity and ego. You get the thrill of learning the answer to the question that has obsessed you, but at the same moment you’re crushed to learn that you won’t be the one who discovered it."
I once knew a scientist who worked in the lab all of her waking hours for weeks on end. Indeed I’ve known a few. When a big discovery…
Support science journalism: http://bit.ly/support-science
"Many Christians today believe in a loving God. Belief in Hell is on the decline."
A god who knows everything, is everywhere, and wields impossible power, is a potent fantasy. Allegiance to it animates the lives of…
"People who believe in gods that are more punishing, or more moralizing, are more generous."
A god who knows everything, is everywhere, and wields impossible power, is a potent fantasy. Allegiance to it animates the lives of…
"The purpose of a scientific approach to art is not to take the mystery out of the art. It’s to give you new insight into why you think it’s so wonderful and mysterious."
The neuroscientist was in the art gallery and there were many things to learn. So Eric Kandel excitedly guided me through the bright…
A look inside a tiny, completely off-the-grid house in Canada, from our friends at Narratively:
Squeezing solar power and repurposed glass for all they’re worth, an Arctic artist handcrafts one seriously sustainable home—strong enough to brave the Yukon winters.
"Religion is about belief and experience. We can’t separate the two."
The invention of religion is a big bang in human history. Gods and spirits helped explain the unexplainable, and religious belief…
"A lot of football fans hold their team and all its emblems sacred."
The invention of religion is a big bang in human history. Gods and spirits helped explain the unexplainable, and religious belief…
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Clean meat is anatomically identical to animal flesh—because that’s precisely what it is—but without any drugs, animal suffering, or the need for large expanses of land and water. So if we can create a delicious, juicy, sizzling burger that is a win-win across the board, why wouldn’t we embrace it as the future of food?
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In our latest "Ingenious" we spoke to the linguist Julie Sedivy about the power and limitations of language. In the following interview, Sedivy explains how language both enraptures and deceives. She explains why Donald Trump’s language shrinks the world into gross simplicities. Our discussion delves into what makes good fiction and bad writing. Throughout, in her words and insights, Sedivy reveals what makes her a true language expert. Watch the entire interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/ingenious-julie-sedivy
Will a rat sink or swim? Your mental health may be riding on the answer. That story, plus ethical dealings with aliens, climate change, and a test to see if animals are self-aware. http://nautil.us
Consciousness is a hard problem because it is emergent, mixes software and hardware, and is dizzyingly self-referential. It’s harder still because, in a sense, it impossible to study directly. We can measure how some living (or even inanimate) thing interacts with the world. We can learn to recognize intelligence and reflexivity in that behavior. But how can we tell what it is like to be that thing? Christof Koch, one of today’s leading thinkers on consciousness, describes it as “physics from the inside.” It’s a different category of question than we’re used to, and one that has a growing set of intersections with other sciences. It is even a short distance from some common laments. Why don’t we understand each other, or even ourselves? This issue is full of discovery, re-discovery and argument by analogy. Because that’s a good place to start. Welcome to “Consciousness.” http://nautil.us
Do we all share a certain set of given emotions—anger, joy, sadness, envy? Lisa Feldman Barrett doesn't think so. The neuroscientist explains her theory of constructed emotion. Watch the full interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/ingenious-lisa-feldman-barrett
Do you think you can read emotions like joy or anger in another person’s face and actions, because joy and anger are universal emotions and we all know what they look like? Well, if so, says neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, you are winging it, guessing at best. Emotions like happiness and despair are not baked into our brains, waiting to be triggered by experiences in the world. So what are emotions? In this month's Ingenious, we spoke to Barrett about her theory of "constructed emotion." Watch the full interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/ingenious-lisa-feldman-barrett
When you look down from a high place, do you ever fight the urge to jump? That story, plus the first woman to attend MIT, the origin of emotions, New York City’s noise addiction, and why you should work less, all this week at Nautilus. http://nautil.us
If you want to find out who someone really is, give them power. That story, plus cooperative evolution, dark energy, extraordinary female scientists, and why storms make us happy, all this week on Nautilus. http://nautil.us
How close are we to a Grand Unified Theory of physics? Physicist and bestselling author Lawrence Krauss brings us up to date. That story, plus a fifth force of nature, what art can teach us about physics, and whether immortality is realistic all this week on Nautilus.
How is pleasure related to fear? That story, plus how aging changes the genetic lottery, the multiverse as VR, and the thin line between genius and madman, all this week on Nautilus. http://nautil.us
A glacier’s mass balance is the difference between how much snow and ice it accumulates, and what it loses to melting. A negative mass balance will, given enough time, skew other balances. As less sunlight is reflected by the shrinking glacier’s bright ice, more is absorbed by the dark ocean, pushing temperatures up. Warmer temperatures increase the amount of human-produced carbon dioxide stored in the atmosphere, which speeds ocean acidification and the dissolving of deep-water carbon deposits. These deposits make oceans more alkaline, balancing out their acidification. Peel back one balance, and you find another. In this issue, each balance leans against the next: mental against physical, evolutionary against ecological, one infinity against another. The web of balances that make up our world is intricate, full of tiny stable points and unexpected transitions. That can make it inscrutable. But, as living participants, we can still tell when it is broken. This February saw over 3,000 record high temperatures across the United States, compared to 30-odd record lows, the most lopsided ratio in history. This January was 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century global average. Which brings to mind another balance—a moral one. Welcome to “Balance.” http://nautil.us
"What makes someone a pedophile or struggle with sexual impulses if not their brain? And, if the locus is in their brain, then what makes their responsibility any more or less than someone who has a tumor? A hundred years from now we may be able to talk about brain function in a deterministic way, even if there’s not such a clear obvious organic issue." Carl Erik Fisher weighs in on the complicated intersection of neuroscience and justice. Watch the full interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/ingenious-carl-erik-fisher
The idea of mindfulness has permeated our zeitgeist. We are exhorted to be "mindful" at every turn—mindful about work, mindful in our relationships, mindful in our diet. Is the concept all it's cracked up to be? The meditating psychologist Carl Erik Fisher weighs in. Watch the whole interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/ingenious-carl-erik-fisher
The reactions to Carl Fisher’s Nautilus essay, “Against Willpower,” ranged from the appreciative to the sorely defensive. Why should we be asked to give up the idea of willpower? Aren’t we just giving ourselves and others permission to fail? Is this a political idea in disguise? In this month's "Ingenious," we gave Fisher a chance to respond in depth, and explain some of the nuances of his relationship with "willpower." Watch the full interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/ingenious-carl-erik-fisher
A man in Ohio is about to break open the oldest quarantine in mathematics. That story, plus isolated scientists, addiction, and the dark side, all this week on Nautilus. http://nautil.us
This week at Nautilus, magnetic leaders, computer models of atheism, water wars, the Stanford Prison Experiment, all the single ladies, and more. http://nautil.us
"When you think back to your career what do you remember? You remember the headwinds you faced. You don’t remember all the tailwinds that were pushing you along." We spoke to our latest ingenious, Robert Frank, about the invisible role luck plays in all of our lives. Watch the entire interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/44/luck/ingenious-robert-h-frank
“To imagine that everybody does best by being purely selfish is a socially moronic posture to bring to the study of human behavior,” economist Robert Frank says. The American Dream needs a rewrite, he believes, and with it comes wider personal and social perspectives, ones that might guarantee a more equitable and just land. “If we acknowledge luck, the experimental evidence is really quite clear that we become much more inclined to pay forward for the common good, to contribute things that will benefit not just us but the community at large.” In our latest "Ingenious," we spoke to Frank about the invisible hand of luck in our lives and economy: http://nautil.us/issue/44/luck/ingenious-robert-h-frank
What is the moral boundary between using genetics to prevent disease, and using it to enhance ability? Siddhartha Mukherjee, the author of "The Gene: An Intimate History," weighs in. http://nautil.us/issue/43/heroes/ingenious-siddhartha-mukherjee
Watch out exclusive interview with Siddhartha Mukherjee, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Gene: An Intimate History," as he discusses the most profound effects that genetics will have on our culture as its technology rapidly advances.
We spoke to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Gene: An Intimate History," about the powerful role genetics is poised to play in the future of human culture and medicine. Watch the full interview on our website.
If there's a true hero of the ocean, it's Sylvia A. Earle, who has spent a lifetime passionately defending the life in the waters. As President Barack Obama said of her, "I am in awe of how much she has done for ocean conservation." Watch our video interview with her here: http://nautil.us/issue/43/heroes/voice-of-the-ocean-rp
New on Nautilus Cosmos: A video interview with Harvard astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger about a career spent looking for life among the stars. Watch the full interview here: http://cosmos.nautil.us/video/70/this-woman-knows-the-weather-forecast-on-other-planets
The year was 1962, and it seemed like cell biologist Leonard Hayflick had made a mistake. After all, for 60 years it had been known that human cells were immortal, capable of dividing forever if they were cultivated in the right medium under the right conditions. But some of Hayflick’s cells were not dividing. Maybe his sample had been contaminated, or there was a problem with the way he’d prepared the cells. A few weeks passed, however, and not only did his finding remain the same, but a pattern emerged: The cells would double around 50 times, then stop dividing. Today, we take it for granted that human cells multiply a finite number of times. They stop at the aptly-named Hayflick Limit, when their telomeres—the protective caps at the ends of our chromosomes—get too short. But at the time, the scientific community deemed Hayflick’s discoveries—that normal cells are mortal, that they have memory and an internal counting mechanism, that cancer cells are uniquely immortal—preposterous. It would take nearly a decade of criticism and skepticism before his ideas were accepted as fact. Today, as a storied expert in the field of aging, Hayflick is still dispelling misconceptions. This month, we spoke to him in our latest "Ingenious." Watch the complete interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/42/fakes/ingenious-leonard-hayflick
If you think you're unique for being lactose intolerant, well, think again. In fact, 2/3 of people develop lactose intolerance as adults—along with all other mammal species. So how and why did that other 1/3 develop? What is the evolutionary advantage of lactose tolerance? Follow human geneticist Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society, as he tracks down the biological and cultural history of humans' ability to digest lactose, in this fascinating video: http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/why-most-of-us-shouldnt-drink-milk
Has tusklessness among Mozambique's elephants become a distinct genetic advantage? http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/how-an-elephant-loses-its-tusks
Joyce Poole can tell you exactly why she loves elephants: They share many of our best characteristics, and avoid many of our worst. They are familiar, social, and intelligent, like us, but also mysterious and foreign—and, occasionally, terrifying. In our newest "Spark of Science," the elephant researcher tells us her story: http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/spark-of-science-joyce-poole
Watch our mini documentary on the tuskless elephants of Gongorosa National Park. http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/how-an-elephant-loses-its-tusks
Is the study of engineering in crisis? Richard K. Miller, the president of Olin College, weighs in. http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/ingenious-richard-k-miller
Imagine you were a violin student. In the first year, you would be asked to take a year-long course in the physics of vibrations of strings. In the second year, you’d take a year-long course in the theory of music. In the third year, you would take a course on orchestration. And in the fourth year, if you are still here, you would be given a real violin and asked to play a scale. Then you'd have a degree in music. As crazy as it may sound, this is the format of engineering education today. At Olin College, President Richard K. Miller is trying to change that. Watch our video interview with this month's "Ingenious." http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/ingenious-richard-k-miller
Freeman Dyson once told Lawrence Krauss that "“There’s no way we’re ever going to measure gravitons”—the supposed quantum particles underlying gravitational forces—“because there’s no terrestrial experiment that could ever measure a single graviton.” In consequence, “There’s no way that we’ll know whether gravity is a quantum theory.” On this point, the two preeminent scientists disagreed. http://go.nautil.us/gravitons
Watch the former physics pioneer Fotini Markopoulou explain her unorthodox approach to quantum gravity, one of the biggest questions in physics. http://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/this-physics-pioneer-walked-away-from-it-all
Is the importance of the Nobel Prize in science essentially overblown and overrated? The science historian Nathaniel Comfort weights in. http://go.nautil.us/nobel
We love athletes who break records, but are critical when they dope. Are we moral hypocrites? Two philosophers go head-to-head in a video debate, in our latest "Ingenious."
What is the key problem in quantum gravity? Fotini Markopoulou, the pioneer physicist turned tech entrepreneur, explains it to us. Watch the full, exclusive interview here: http://go.nautil.us/second_act
"Design is possibly the most ubiquitous thing that humans do. It’s a very human thing. We make things. We envision things. It’s about how we understand our lives, what we want from our lives." Watch our exclusive interview with the pioneer physicist turned tech entrepreneur, Fotini Markopoulou: http://go.nautil.us/second_act
"If you really want to press me on when I decided to become a physicist, I have an almost embarrassing story of walking through the wrong door." Watch the whole interview here: http://go.nautil.us/second_act
Quantum theory and general relativity don't play well together. Watch pioneer physicist Fotini Markpoloulou explain the disconnect in our exclusive interview.
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