Browsing: Lens_ideas

Epigenetics and behaviorism suggest the ancient Greeks were right.

Samsø runs on renewable energy—and makes money doing it.

The rush for success is driving science into a corner, apart from wider culture.

Thirty thousand years ago, a woolly mammoth in Siberia shed a giant virus. It soon became encased in ice and, for tens of thousands of years, the virus slept. As global temperatures warm and the permafrost begins to melt, the virus stirs. It is sucked into the nostril of a researcher where it injects its […]

A step-by-step guide to True, False, and Random.

My wife can’t seem to walk for a half-hour around Ottawa, a city with nearly a million people, without running into at least three of her friends. Some people, like my wife, seem to have a zillion of them, while others appear to be content with just a handful. Having more friends seems like a […]

What do the Volkswagen diesel scandal and the European migrant crisis have in common? They’ve both been referred to as the “tip of the iceberg.” The popular expression reflects the fact that, as impressive as the visible portion of an iceberg is, the vast majority of it (usually about 90%) is underwater. Over the past […]

Say goodbye to stable orbits and knotted shoelaces.

From atoms to brains, bigger isn’t always better.

When scale confounds our perceptions, stories can clarify them.