Pure Science

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In the last couple of years, the world has become a kind of 24-hour casino. Anyone can place bets on anything at any time from the phone in their pocket. This shift hasn’t been gradual. It’s happened all at once. In the short time since a...

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If asked, most people would say lying is amoral. But if pressed, our true feelings on the matter are a little more complicated. Whether you call it “creative truth telling,” “massaging the truth,” or simple diplomacy, white lies are a...

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In outer space, floating between the stars, are cosmic dust clouds containing elements and molecules that are essential for the evolution of life. While these dust clouds are too far away to sample by conventional means, astronomers can...

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Walking from the RV campground to the village restaurant in the Grand Canyon National Park this winter wouldn’t have been my first choice. But the RV my family had rented wasn’t permitted in the village, and my teenage daughter and I...

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On land, most canyons are carved by erosion from rivers over millions of years. In the ocean, things are a bit trickier. The King’s Trough Complex, located more than 600 miles off the coast of Portugal, is a massive canyon that includes...

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Ever since he found a fossilized parrot mandible in 1983, Flinders University paleontologist Trevor Worthy has wondered about the backstory of fossils in Moa Eggshell Cave, North Island, New Zealand. The country is rife with fossil...

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There’s always that one moment in that one song that never fails to give you goosebumps. Whether it comes from the sonic depth charge of an EDM bass drop, the soaring strains of an operatic aria, or the explosive crescendo of a frenetic...

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The closest thing we have to a real-life Jurassic Park is the Morrison Formation, a sprawling deposit of fossil-rich sedimentary rock dating back to the Jurassic Period spanning several Southwestern states. While the dinosaurs unearthed...

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Our star has sent out a series of intense flares over the past day, including the strongest of the year so far. This bombardment arrived thanks to a quickly expanding sunspot that spaceweather.com called “a solar flare factory.” One of the...

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If you’re one of the millions of people who use a white noise machine at night, there’s a good chance it doesn’t actually produce true white noise. Instead, many of these sleep aids produce pink noise, a broadband sound that filters out...

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Farmers in North America are all too familiar with tobacco hornworms. These smooth, lime-green caterpillars, which look like they could be made from Play-Doh, are renowned agricultural pests. Tobacco hornworms, the larvae of the hawkmoth...

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A few years ago, psychologists began to report a surge in young people presenting with self-diagnosed dissociative identity disorder, a complex mental health condition that features multiple personalities and significant distress and...

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In some ways, people haven’t changed much over the past few millennia. Artifacts from around the world and across time have revealed that we’ve long cracked jokes. The Romans, for example, gave us the oldest joke book ever...

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If you have a German Shepherd, you’re probably familiar with the damaging effects of inbreeding on fitness. The weak hind ends and other health problems of German Shepherds are the result of more than a century of breeding between close...

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It took nearly a century of research and advocacy for people with a rare and painful blood condition to receive effective treatment—and barriers still exist for these patients. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or ...

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This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . We often learn about the past visually—through oil paintings and sepia photographs, books and...

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Sex differences in the structure of the brain are well-documented, hotly debated, and ultimately, kind of fuzzy. In humans, at least, they tend to be subtle with plenty of overlap in the bell curves between the sexes. The same is true for...

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Four decades after top tobacco executives discovered the health risks of smoking, they finally acknowledged these hazards under oath for the first time. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . On this...

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Over the weekend, a bomb cyclone is forecast to hit the Southeast United States. This prediction follows a week of bitter cold for most of the country and record-breaking snowfall in some areas, including New York City and Dayton, Ohio. ...

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It seems like every week there’s a new diet, exercise, or supplement that promises to extend our lives, but how much of our mortality is really in our control? And how much are we at the mercy of our genes?  Nautilus Members enjoy...

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In the opening lines of her latest novel A Guardian and a Thief, Megha Majumdar drops us directly in the path of the incipient climate catastrophe: “Kolkata in this ruined year, the heat a hand clamped upon the mouth, the sun a pistol...

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Whether it’s cronuts, ramen burgers, or loaded Instagram-friendly ice cream sundaes, there are always some people willing to line up for hours to get a taste of the latest food fad. What these people might not realize, however, is that...

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Have you ever wondered why lakes look so brown? Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . To many urban dwellers, tea-colored lakes are the norm, but venturing into the wilderness makes it clear that lakes...

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Millions of people across the United States now face frigid temperatures, and some areas are even vulnerable to “exploding trees” (though they’re not what you think). This cold snap can prove extremely dangerous for people not used to such...

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Middle-aged adults are the glue and the gears of modern society. They keep families, communities, and workplaces running smoothly, and form a critical bridge between the oldest and the youngest generations. But evidence increasingly shows...

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On this day 40 years ago, the nation watched with excitement as NASA prepared to launch the first civilian into space: Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire, trained for months to join six astronauts aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle...

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Studying the inner workings of the human mind is always a thorny endeavor, and models for how our brains operate are continually being reexamined, revised, and reconfigured. While neurologists have mapped which regions of the brain are...

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The question was asked in the cold alpine air of Davos, Switzerland, where ideas are often spoken with confidence and the future is treated as something that can be managed. Can we protect science? It sounded, at first, like a question of...

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During times of war, our primary concern is humans. A prolonged conflict, such as the war in Ukraine, takes a tremendous toll on lives, well-being, and finances. But other species suffer the blows of battle too, with potentially lasting...

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If there are other life forms across the cosmos, how could we possibly communicate with them? More importantly, what should we say? In 1977, NASA launched twin probes Voyager 1 and 2 on a mission to collect data from the most distant...

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The artificial sweetener aspartame, which is found in everything from diet soda to toothpaste to ice cream, was an accidental discovery. In 1965, American chemist James Schlatter was researching drugs to treat ulcers, which at the time...

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We might not be able to glow ourselves, but humans have harnessed bioluminescence for all kinds of practical purposes: medical imaging, genetic research, and even experimental cancer treatments. Soon, we might be able to add another:...

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Last week, the first astronauts planning to orbit the moon in more than half a century entered quarantine ahead of their much-awaited mission, which is slated to launch as early as February 6. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free...

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The term “superfood” is sticky. It seems as though every few months, a new food lands in this lofty category of nourishments. Bamboo, a popular ingredient in many traditional Asian cuisines, is one of the latest to receive the designation....

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Like humans, some other primates like to huddle in hot springs. Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), also called “snow monkeys,” famously gather at natural hot springs to soak together for hours. They prefer steaming temperatures of about...

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While Thomas Edison was at work on one of his greatest achievements, he may have accidentally produced a substance that wouldn’t be isolated for another century—and it’s currently in high demand. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free...

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The faster you go on a bike or in a car, the more things appear to visually stream past. Your brain synthesizes this “optic flow” to estimate your speed relative to a cognitive map of your surroundings. Bats face an analogous navigation...

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The COVID-19 pandemic was a seismic event rippling through nearly every aspect of our lives, but some of the most dramatic and devastating effects occurred in the workplace. Once bustling offices were hollowed out by remote and hybrid...

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Federal food guidelines recently got a major makeover—and controversy ensued. The new recommendations announced by United States Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prioritize foods including full-fat milk, steak, and...

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A little piece of fossilized elephant bone found in southern England offers a window into the life of our human ancestors. Just 4.3 inches by 2.4 inches, the triangular fossil bone came from either an elephant or a mammoth, given its...

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Tis the season of the non-alcoholic drink. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . It’s Dry January, after all—the month-long break from booze has become an annual tradition among many in the United...

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Next month, NASA is slated to launch the first crewed mission to the moon in more than half a century. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . During the 10-day Artemis II mission, scheduled for as early...

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Just like humans, most organisms that reproduce via sex are diploid, meaning they have two copies of chromosomes (one from mom and one from dad). With plants, however, things can get a lot more complicated, and several species—including...

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Last February, debris from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set the skies of Europe ablaze before crashing down to Earth in Poland, hitting a warehouse in a small village. The next month, the uncrewed trunk of another SpaceX spacecraft...

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This weekend, more than half of the United States—at least 170 million people—is bracing for a winter storm set to span 2,000 miles. On the northern front of the system, from Oklahoma to Massachusetts, people could face up to a foot of...

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Not long ago, cursing among kids elicited an almost universal clutching of pearls. It was seen as a major sign of disrespect and lack of education, a pathway to more problematic behavior. Up through the 1970s, it was common for parents in...

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For centuries, Stonehenge has attracted all sorts of theories—varying widely in credibility—as to how it cropped up some 5,000 years ago.  Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Some explanations...

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The recipe for life seems simple at first blush: Combine organic compounds and liquid water, add an energy source, then simmer for eons. Unfortunately, finding the finished product somewhere that isn’t Earth has proven to be a frustrating...

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On this day in 1997, a woman named Lottie Williams was working out in a park near Tulsa, Oklahoma, when she glimpsed a “huge ball of fire” in the sky. A couple minutes later, something hit her on the shoulder and bounced onto the grass....

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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool,” Richard Feynman said in a 1974 commencement address at Caltech. He wasn’t speaking as a lofty philosopher but as a working physicist, offering...