Author: Lee Billings
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G is for Goldilocks
October 01, 2010
Gliese 581g is the most promising habitable world astronomers have found so far. But the chances of finding life there are vanishingly slim.
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Ebbs and Flows
August 27, 2010
Alien-yet-familiar worlds are discovered around distant stars, extreme weather batters the Earth, stimulus spending energizes renewables, and the stem-cell debate reignites.
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Music of the Spheres
August 17, 2010
The composers of One Ring Zero’s new astronomy-themed album, PLANETS, discuss the scientific inspiration behind their music.
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Two Wrongs from the Right
July 23, 2010
The deaths of a climate scientist and of meaningful climate-change legislation bode poorly for a prosperous energy-independent future.
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An Embarrassment of Riches
June 18, 2010
Kepler’s planetary gold rush, a Japanese spacecraft that rides sunlight, a virtual Cambrian explosion, and the problem of performance metrics.
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A Titanic Challenge
June 11, 2010
What might a glut of hydrocarbons in the Gulf of Mexico—and a dearth of them on Saturn's moon, Titan—imply about humanity's long-term prospects?
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Weapons of Fast Destruction
May 28, 2010
A nuclear summit winds down, an ambitious defense initiative ramps up, synthetic biology enters the limelight, the BP oil spill grows, and new pathogens emerge.
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Bottom of the Barrel
May 21, 2010
A new book argues that marketplace innovations will make the future brighter, better, and more prosperous, but is such unbounded optimism rational?
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A Distressed Asset
May 14, 2010
Volatility prompts rapid regulatory reform on Wall Street, while biodiversity crashes and a climate change bill flounders. What if we treated Earth like a company?
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Ashes to Ashes
April 23, 2010
A deeper understanding of the modern world's fragile complexity is glimpsed in the aftermath of a disruptive volcanic eruption.
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We Are Not Alone
April 20, 2010
In his new book, astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch says that extraterrestrial life has already been found.
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The Rocket Experience
April 15, 2010
The Obama administration unveils its controversial new plan for the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program.
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Truth and Inconsequence
April 09, 2010
A leaked video of wartime atrocities sparks a media firestorm and raises questions about the accuracy and validity of new media.
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Embracing the Anthropocene
March 19, 2010
The Earth has entered a new geological period in which human influence dominates the state of the planet, compounding uncertainty about the future.
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Going, Going, Gone
March 16, 2010
The second most common element in the universe is increasingly rare on Earth—except, for now, in America.
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Extinction’s Tipping Points
March 12, 2010
How the extinction of the dinosaurs, Arctic methane leaks, and nuclear weaponry reveal the precarious thresholds of life on Earth.
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The Outer Limits
December 15, 2009
For half a century computer performance has roughly doubled every two years, but the laws of physics place insurmountable barriers on how long this growth can occur.
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Let There Be Light
November 17, 2009
Astronomers will soon find scores of Earth-sized exoplanets, but imaging them may be decades away. That is, unless NASA decides to build a starshade.
funding, pace, scale, space, technology
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Up the Cosmic Distance Ladder
October 19, 2009
The development of astronomy can be seen as a millennia-long quest to measure and know the true scale of the natural world.
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A Rocket for the 21st Century
September 29, 2009
Former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz explains how his plasma rocket engine could revolutionize space travel and why we need nuclear power in space.
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Illuminating Dark Economies
September 21, 2009
Measuring economic activity from outer space is a new frontier in the struggle to quantify humanity’s impact on the natural world.
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Studying the Strangest Man
September 15, 2009
Graham Farmelo explains why Paul Dirac may be the 20th century’s most misunderstood physicist, and speculates that Dirac may have had undiagnosed autism.
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Why In-Vitro Meat Is Good for You
August 31, 2009
Jason Matheny on the world’s addiction to meat and how to grow ground beef in a test tube.
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A Bloom in Biofuels
August 05, 2009
The same organisms that created the oil and gas now powering our industrial society and warming the globe can also be used to make carbon-neutral fuels.
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Getting Solar Off the Ground
July 28, 2009
William Maness on why alternative energy and power grids aren’t good playmates and his plans for beaming solar power from space.
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Ideas
I Tried Almost Everything Else
John Rinn, snowboarder, skateboarder, and “genomic origamist,” on why we should dumpster-dive in our genomes and the inspiration of a middle-distance runner.
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Ideas
Going, Going, Gone
The second most common element in the universe is increasingly rare on Earth—except, for now, in America.
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Ideas
Earth-like Planets Aren’t Rare
Renowned planetary scientist James Kasting on the odds of finding another Earth-like planet and the power of science fiction.
