Nautilus

There is just something obviously reasonable about the following notion: If all life is built from atoms that obey precise equations we know—which seems to be true—then the existence of life might just be some downstream consequence of these laws tha

Ten years ago this fall, Google gave us a glimpse of a new device unlike any it had ever built before—a computer-controlled car. It seemed such a strange thing for an Internet company to spend its time and energy on, a “moonshot” as the company’s eng

Who is Jeremy England? There are many answers to that question. He is a biochemistry graduate who became an MIT assistant professor in physics when he was 29 years old. He is an ordained rabbi. He is the grandson of Holocaust survivors. He is a desce

Not long ago, Joe Davis, the “artist-scientist” in George Church’s genetics lab at Harvard Medical School, was in Brittany, France. The region is known for thousand-year-old salterns that produce fleur de sel, or flower of salt—salt that forms as sea

Sparingly these days do I find myself thinking I’ve got some time to kill. Time has a way of making itself scarce. I’m like some Pleistocene hunter-gatherer, always scavenging for more. For that matter, isn’t “killing time” a rather misleading phrase

In early 2018, officials at University College London were shocked to learn that meetings organized by “race scientists” and neo-Nazis, called the London Conference on Intelligence, had been held at the college the previous four years. The existence

In the early 1960s, during the space race, neither American nor Soviet scientists really knew where planets like Mars or Venus were—especially at the accuracy and precision essential for spacecraft navigation. That may sound faintly ludicrous. They o

In September, a writer for HBO’s Watchmen series, Cord Jefferson, was awarded an Emmy. I enjoyed the show’s first season, a sequel to arguably the best movie (and graphic novel) about superhero vigilantism. The plot involves the protagonists combatti

When you bite into an ear of fresh corn, you are eating something profoundly unnatural. A modern ear is a big, flavorful thing packed with 18 rows of plump kernels. Its sad-looking wild ancestor had just six to eight rows of kernels, looking more lik

Joe Pettit is a person of contradictions. A lover of solitude who manages teams, an engineer who writes poetry and paints, a family man who spends several months a year on remote Antarctic glaciers, installing delicate scientific instruments. It’s a

The election of Joe Biden is good news for conservation. It won’t be easy to undo the damage done to environmental laws by the Trump administration, but at least the rectification can begin on a note of celebration. Which is the note we’re sounding b

Hiking the Franconia Ridge Loop is an intimidating proposition. The trail, in the heart of New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest, is close to 9 miles long, and peaks at over 5,000 feet above sea level. The ridge connects several of New Hamps