Ideas / Theory
Emotion’s Alchemy
Feature / by / March 30, 2010
New insights into the science of emotion unravel the seeming neurological magic that turns emotions into social expressions.
Now In Theory
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This is Your Brain on Food
The foods you eat often affect how your neurons behave and, subsequently, how you think and feel. From your brain’s perspective, food is a drug.
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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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The Body Politic
The deep symbiosis between bacteria and their human hosts is forcing scientists to ask: Are we organisms or living ecosystems?
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The Evolution of Cooperation
Insects that survive on plant sap alone offer insights into the likely origin and evolution of all multicellular life.
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Symbols from the Sky
Heavenly messages from the depths of prehistory may be encoded on the walls of caves throughout Europe.
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Slippery Cellularities
Synthetic biology can mean reconstructing organisms, redesigning biology, or recreating life—and each of these uses has different implications.
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The Meaning of Life
Last week, biologist J. Craig Venter crossed a momentous threshold—creating a living organism with no ancestor. In 2007, Carl Zimmer gave Seed this provocative look at the difficulties inherent in defining "life."
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Random Reality
Author and astronomer Marcus Chown on the early history of the universe, quantum reality, and the origins of information.
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We Are Not Alone
In his new book, astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch says that extraterrestrial life has already been found.
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In Search of the Tiniest Quantity
The director of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory talks about his experience of turning the ice cap at the South Pole into the world's largest dark matter detector.
Opinion
Buddhism and the Brain
Many of Buddhism’s core tenets significantly overlap with findings from modern neurology and neuroscience. So how did Buddhism come close to getting the brain right?
Feature
The Improvisational Brain
Watching a musician in the throes of an improvisational solo can be like witnessing an act of divine intervention. But embedded memories and conspiring brain regions, scientists now believe, are the true source of ad-hoc creativity.
From the Studio
Seed Salon: Paola Antonelli + Benoit Mandelbrot
In 2008, the late mathematician and founder of fractal geometry, Benoit Mandelbrot, met MoMA's senior design curator, Paola Antonelli for a conversation about geometry, architecture, and nature. Here are excerpts from their discussion.
Opinion
Divided Minds, Specious Souls
The experience of a unified mind and the possibility of an everlasting soul are connected. And there is scant evidence to support the existence of either.
Now on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
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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.
