Paper Roundup September 2025: Mars life, exploding black holes, quantum computing

Papers tackling the biggest questions in science, curated by hand each month.

There is no time telescope

The Mars that may have hosted life long ago is our neighbor in space only.

The Loeb Scale for science PR disasters

The Loeb Scale measures the severity of science PR disasters from typos to fraud

Hydra are a cosmos in a cuvette

To see order emerge from chaos, Anaïs Bailles shreds up immortal animals and watches them re-grow

Paper Roundup August 2025: Alpha Centauri Ab, Worm Circuits, AI Chess

Every month, I publish a curated list of scholarship on "big questions" in science — the stuff you'd find sitting on the desk of an old timey natural philosopher whisked to the present.

Why does complexity science like ants so much?

Ants are basically the unofficial mascot of complexity science. Why?

A habitable world next door?

More than you needed to know about the smudge of light that might be a planet in the habitable zone of the nearest Sun-like star

Paper Roundup July 2025: 3I/ATLAS "fanfiction," arsenic life retraction, K2-18b

Every month, I publish a curated list of scholarship on "big questions" in science — the stuff you'd find sitting on the desk of an old timey natural philosopher whisked to the present.

I'm trying something new here.

Reviewer, too is a new newsletter synthesizing the frontiers of complexity, astrobiology, and origins of life research — and an attempt at bridging journalism and scholarship. I hope you'll join me!