Who gets the job? Here's how computers could help catch unfair rankings
I am weirdly hopeful that it could be easier to notice biased AI than biased humans?
Latest
About "to" and "around" the Moon
Technically correct is not, in fact, the best kind of correct in scicomm
AI-generated science is now "good enough"
The "AI Scientist" is mediocre and uninspired. Don't dismiss it.
How do social movements win?
Timo Damm blends qualitative and quantitative research to understand how small groups push for change
You and a frog might have the same taste in music
Citizen science revealed a shared "taste for the beautiful" across species
Are the Stardew Valley wiki authors scientists?
Science is the generational project of finding out true things about the real world — and that project needs catalogers
The asteroid Ryugu contains every letter of the genetic alphabet
This is awesome, but does not mean life fell to Earth from space
Is your willpower stronger than a proton beam?
How much are researchers — especially marginalized researchers — expected to endure just to stay in science?
Stingers and spikes across nature have the same shape. Here's why.
Not everything in biology evolved for a purpose.
Networks are math squares disguised as drawings
This is why neural networks are linear algebra under the hood
A tiny scrap of the genetic molecule RNA can *almost* copy itself.
Here's what it means for the origin of life
Complexity is less than the sum of its parts, not more
Patterns are a shorthand for reality
TLDR
Elon Musk wasn't stupid to buy Twitter
New research shows that the X algorithm pushes people to the political right
Q&A
The origin of life wasn't fat-free
James Sáenz studies how fatty molecules might have helped life get started
Tell me how you really feel
And by that I mean: please fill out my survey.
Science Communication
Pop science doesn't reach a "general audience"
Pop sci readers are wealthy, educated, and left-leaning
Astrobiology
Maybe don't call exoplanets "Earth-like" until the 2040s
A plea and a note on science communication
Space
Hot rocks are what's cool in rocky exoplanet research
Habitable zone? Pfft. For exciting planetary science discoveries, keep your eye on lava worlds and hot rocks.
Astrobiology
A bad month for space whales
Two new papers on Europa and Titan complicate the case for habitable oceans on the icy moons. They're still our best bet for finding aliens.
Paper Roundup
Paper Roundup December 2025: computing billiards, an impossible atmosphere, and Roman constructions
Papers on big questions at the frontiers of science, curated by hand each month
Brain
More than words: prosody in the brain
The brain's dedicated hardware for handling the melody of speech overlaps with regions involved in language processing and recognizing facial expressions.
Q&A
There's no gene for being human
Barbara Molz found supposedly extinct ancient gene variants in hundreds of modern humans. They don't seem to do much.
Astrobiology
What do space sugars tell us about the origin of life?
The mystery of life's origin is not a missing magic ingredient, it's a missing process.
Paper Roundup
Paper Roundup November 2025: Mars lightning, language processing, and autism microbiome
This month's curated list of interesting new papers