Ideas / Theory
Into the Uncanny Valley
What We Know / by / November 16, 2009
New findings shed light on a century’s worth of bizarre explanations for the eerie feeling we get around lifelike robots.
Now In Theory
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Erasing Dark Energy
Why do we need dark energy to explain the observable universe? Two mathematicians propose an alternate solution that, while beautiful, may raise even more questions than it answers.
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Richard Dawkins Seeks Converts
In his new book, Richard Dawkins sets out to convince the unconvinced that evolution is true. Will he succeed?
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Not Just for Fence-Sitters
Dawkins’ new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, demonstrates the power of storytelling in communicating evolution’s biological evidence.
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Illuminating Dark Economies
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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The Asymmetry of Life
Look into a mirror and you’ll simultaneously see the familiar and the alien: an image of you, but with left and right reversed.
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Because E=mc2
On the beauty and significance of the world’s most oft-cited but less oft-understood equation.
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Mapping the Brain’s Highways
Neuroscientists are mapping out a complete atlas of connectivity in the human brain, but what’s emerging is a battle of scales.
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Knowing How to Pick a Fight
Paul Ehrlich believes in provocation and speculation, forcing us to consider: If not for the provocateurs, would we pay attention?
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Ants and Neurons
Insect colonies offer insight into the mysterious conversations of neurons, illuminating how billions of individual brain cells work in concert to make a single decision.
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The Deepest Links
Evolution is a tinkerer. When novel features evolve, old parts are co-opted for new roles.
Featured Blogger
Ethan Siegel
Mars: A Teeming Past?
Questions of extraterrestrial life rest on theories of Martian history.
What We Know
What Life Leaves Behind
The search for life beyond our pale blue dot is fraught with dashed hopes. Will the chemical and mineral fingerprints of Earthly organisms apply on other worlds?
Wide Angle
Folding Our Way to a Revolution
With a few strands of nucleic acids and some ingenious programming, DNA origami is remaking nanotechnology, from drug delivery to chip design.
The idea that evolution explains selfishness well and altruism poorly is so dead that it is beginning to smell.
Altruism vs. Selfishness
By David Sloan Wilson
Now on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
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Innovation
Let There Be Light
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.
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Ideas
Into the Uncanny Valley
New findings shed light on a century’s worth of bizarre explanations for the eerie feeling we get around lifelike robots.
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World
Signs from Above
The release of an apocalyptic movie prompts NASA to debunk planetary rumors, fowl play shuts down the LHC, and the Catholic Church discusses alien life.
