Knowledge about aliens might be as dangerous as the aliens themselves.

Galileo is the archetypal paradigm-busting scientist telling truth to hidebound authorities.Felix Parra: Galileo Demonstrating the New Astronomical Theories at the University of Padua, 1873. There’s a common trope in science in which a lone genius stands defiantly against a backward, close-minded establishment. Galileo’s Sun-centric astronomy vs. the Catholic Church; John Harrison’s longitude-revealing watch vs. the bigwigs […]

The meaning of light through history in science, religion, philosophy, and culture.

Two-thirds of a year ago, we set loose a new online science magazine, and along with it, Facts So Romantic. Since then FSR has served as the bloggy alter ego to the online-magazine version of Nautilus, burrowing into the same mind-expanding monthly topics with a quicker, lighter approach. Thanks to contributions from a great group […]

This month Nautilus is tackling the idea of home—what it is, what it means to us, and how we find our way there. Along the way, we’re discovering that home is an essential idea for humans, the subject of countless songs, poems, movies, paintings, novels, and idioms. In English, home is where the heart is. There’s […]

Chance encounters in the life of Andrei Kolmogorov.