A physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology once said, “If somebody sneezed on [the] kilogram standard, all the weights in the world would be instantly wrong.” He was referring to a cylinder, sometimes called Le Grand K, which is housed in a vault in Paris and handled like a priceless gem. The […]

The story of the genetically engineered mouse cosmonaut.

Out in the clear waters near the Great Barrier Reef, a common blanket octopus male swim toward a female. This male need not worry about showing his brightest colors or engaging in a showy battle of strength in hopes of winning the female’s permission to approach. In fact it’s unclear if the female even notices […]

At small scales, gravity seems to blow up—but not if space becomes 1-D.

Scientists are slowly scaling up quantum effects from atomic to human size.

As nature scales, complexity gives way to universal law.