Seed: Science is Culture

The Damnedest Lies

The success of fivethirtyeight.com is a credit not only to statistical prowess but also to keen intuition about social habits.

Large and in Charge

Particles are accelerated to unprecedented speeds at CERN's Large Hadron Collider with ultimate hopes of uncovering the universe's darkest secrets.

The Shape of Music

How do harmony and melody combine to make music?

The Reality Tests

A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it?

Cribsheet #15: Quantum Computing

Seed's Downloadable Tool for Living in the 21st Century

Paola Antonelli + Benoit Mandelbrot

The curator and the mathematician discuss fractals, architecture, and the death of Euclid.

Cribsheet #13: Light

Seed's Downloadable Tool for Living in the 21st Century

Who Speaks for Earth?

After decades of searching, scientists have found no trace of extraterrestrial intelligence. Now, some of them hope to make contact by broadcasting messages to the stars. Are we prepared for an answer?

Natalie Jeremijenko + Lawrence Krauss

The artist and the physicist meet up to discuss science as a public enterprise.

Seeing the Unseeable

The limits of our senses confront the limitlessness of the universe.

Brian Cox: Lord of the Ring

Though he gave up a successful music career in favor of particle physics, Brian Cox can't seem to escape showbiz. A rising science communicator in the UK, he advised director Danny Boyle on the new sci-fi thriller, Sunshine.

Saving the Sun

A review of Danny Boyle's sci-fi thriller Sunshine.

A Cyclic Universe

Does the universe repeat once every trillion years?

Chuck Hoberman + Lisa Randall

The inventor and the physicist meet up to talk about shape.

Seed Salon: Lisa Randall + Chuck Hoberman (Highlights)

The Harvard physicist enters the Seed Salon to discuss shape, magic tricks, and the definition of "see" with the architect/designer.

To Keep on Looking

As we explore Mars, it forces us to imagine otherworldly evolution, challenging our definition of life and our sense of place in the solar system.

Cribsheet #9: String Theory

Seed's Downloadable Tool for Living in the 21st Century

Found: Most of the Universe

An Astronomer Puts the COSMOS Survey In Perspective

Then There Were Eight

Pluto's demotion made us angry, confused, dismissive, and sad. We'd broken the cardinal rule--we'd gotten emotionally involved.

Cribsheet #8: The Elements

Seed's Downloadable Tool for Living in the 21st Century

Rock Stars (And Proteins, Too)

How two groups of scientists coax music from nature

Why the US Should Spring for a New Particle Accelerator

The US must develop a compelling bid to host the International Linear Collider in order to safeguard American science.

Study Suggests New Election-Day Strategy: Imagine the Vote

Composing in Code

Rudresh Mahanthappa brings mathematics to the music room.

The Proof Is in the Blogging

Flawed solution to famed math problem spurs cyber soap opera.

Newly Discovered Element 118 Helps Chart the Seas of Instability

Math's Architect of Beauty

How Terence Tao's quest for elegance earned him a Fields Medal and a MacArthur Fellowship

No Strings Attached

String Theory is the darling of theoretical physics but there's no way to test it. Does this qualify as a dead end?

Putting His Money Where His Math Is

A billionaire ex-mathematician believes he has a simple formula for improving math education and making America more competitive.

Seed Interview: James Simons

The billionaire hedge fund manager discusses the impact of mathematics on his former life in academia and his new one in finance.

The Poker-Playing Physicist

Michael Binger had a big summer between his third-place finish at the World Series of Poker and earning his Ph.D.

The Day The Earth Went for a Spin

Best Week Ever

Between Pluto, stem cells, dark matter and long-term potentiation, last week brought a slew of scientific discoveries, reminding us why we love this stuff.

Time Before Time

An event like the Big Bang is about as likely as billions of coin tosses all coming up heads. Explaining why that is might take us from empty space to other universes--and through the mirror of time.

The Great, Dysfunctional Planet Debate

The contentious new planet definition passed by the International Astronomical Union leaves Pluto out.

Scientists Confirm Dark Matter's Existence

Not Feeling the Fields

Grisha Perelman becomes the first person ever to turn down math's top prize.

Infants May be Able to Detect Arithmetic Errors

Over the Moon

MIT researchers solve a 200-year-old Moon mystery.

Einstein in Lust

What the press missed in its rush to paint Einstein as a philanderer.

The Secret of the Booming Dunes

A team of researchers constructs an experimental apparatus to explore the intonation of sand dune avalanches.

Look Around You

A Visual Exploration of Complex Networks

What if Black Holes Didn't Exist?

How an alternate theory of the universe exposes the 'war of words' that underlies modern cosmology.

CERN: Discovery for Discovery's Sake

Seed's first audio slideshow explores the workings of the Large Hadron Collider.

A Festival of Likeness

Everything from butterflies, to algebra, to the universe is based on symmetry. So how come we know so little about it?

Seed Short Film: Lords of the Ring

An exclusive tour of the underground accelerator at CERN led by the scientists who work there.

How Chopin is Like Jazz

A Princeton researcher has developed an algorithm that turns music into geometry and has uncovered surprising similarities between seemingly disparate compositions.

Best to Bid Late on eBay

Korean researchers find "sniping" to be the best way to win an auction on eBay.

Why a Large Hadron Collider?

Seed asks some of the greatest physicists alive what we hope to learn from the LHC.

Scientists Triple Your Ability to Rock Out

A new musical instrument exemplifies the love affair between math and music.

The Future of Fusion

After years as a purely experimental science, a decade-long international effort will make nuclear fusion a reality.

Quantum Pulp

Some physics is just crime fiction with math.

Infinite Jest

Encountering the threshold of humankind's capacity for mathematical gamesmanship, at the annual Gathering for Gardner

Discovery for the Sake of Discovery

From the new particle accelerator at CERN may emerge answers to the most fundamental questions of the universe.

CERN by the Numbers

How big is this Large Hadron Collider, really?

CERN 2007: The Universe Begins. Again.

Seed's exclusive online coverage of the Large Hadron Collider.

The Universe Before It Began

Scientists use quantum gravity to describe the universe before the Big Bang.

The Secret of Our Success

How a faceless, underground collective of scientists has helped determine the fate of the American empire.

Is the Universe Older Than We Thought?

A cyclical universe with multiple Big Bangs could explain one of the greatest mysteries in cosmology today.

Meet the Geeks

A chat with the science-savvy writers behind "The Simpsons" and "Futurama"

The Quantum Shortcut

Researchers explain how enzymes use quantum tunneling to speed up reactions.

Prime Numbers Get Hitched

In their search for patterns, mathematicians have uncovered unlikely connections between prime numbers and quantum physics. Will the subatomic world help reveal the elusive nature of the primes?

John D. Barrow Wins Templeton Prize

Cosmologist honored for his work on the limits of human understanding.

A Head for Numbers

A new study shows the different thinking involved in "how much" versus "how many."

Getting Physical

Einstein, Feynman and other famous swingers.

Mathematical Uncertainty

Are today's most advanced mathematical proofs impossible to verify?

Crunchy Granola Suite

How our brains analyze the sound of food to determine crispness.

Show Me the Money

...And I'll show you how diseases may travel.

A Finger on the Pulse of the World

Constructal theory, once used to explain river basin shape, predicts all animal locomotion.

Keeping Control

The University of California retains control of Los Alamos National Lab.

The Electric Slide

Experimentally-inspired theorists describe electron choreography in a hydrogen molecule.

Mapping the Invisible

Researchers create images of dark matter distribution.

New & Notable: 12/03 - 12/09

A boy genius, drugged-out elephants, the end of aging, and prairie voles in love!

Pump It Up

How to stop Venice from being swallowed by the sea.

Surveying the Landscape

Physicists weigh in on a controversy of universal proportions.

First Runner-up

When the Nobels are handed out, some get left out.

Einstein Wrong About Being Wrong

"Biggest blunder" not really a mistake at all.

New & Notable: 11/19 - 11/25

Singing with Alzheimer's patients, the length of the Great Wall, more on climate change, and nasty boys!

Udder Impossibility

The physics of cow tipping stand on shaky ground

Mark Your Answers with a Number 2 Relativistic Pseudo-Particle

Inside a pencil's tip is a metal that's a veritable playground for physicists

Betting on Baseball

Model correctly predicts Cy Young Award winners

Message in the Sky

Cosmic background radiation in our universe could hide a code from a higher power

Why We Love Einstein

100 years after his "miracle year," it's no exaggeration to say that Einstein changed the world...

Of Mice and Medicine

Gambling has long had a place in science, occasionally it even moves discovery along

Blogs: A New Force in Physics?

Conversations on blogs are revolutionizing the exchange of information amongst physicists

3D Is Our Cosmic Destiny

Our lives unfold in three dimensions. Why did our universe evolve this way? Is there anything special about 3-D?

The Ascent of Sand

Physicists devise a model for sturdier sandcastles