Two recent science stories, one in anthropology and the other in physics, have me wondering which field is "hard" and which "soft." The first story involves the decision of the American Anthropological Association to delete the word "science" from its mission statement...
Latest research deflates the idea that the Universe cycles for eternity.
The discovery that elliptical galaxies have many more red dwarf stars than the Milky Way means that the universe might have three times as many total stars as previously thought. Cynthia Graber reports...
First Bose-Einstein condensate of photons could help build solar cells and lasers.
The orientation of hundreds of galactic pairs provides a new test of the standard cosmological view
The new DOC NYC documentary film festival just ended, and it began last week with a bang, featuring distinguished filmmaker Werner Herzog’s new 3-D film Cave of Forgotten Dreams ...
Astronomers locate an oddball exoplanet that orbits a star from a cannibalized galaxy
Antihydrogen has been produced before, but it must be corralled for detailed physical study
Researchers may have re-created an elusive black hole phenomenon in the lab
Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg spoke to an audience of science journalists, and then to podcast host Steve Mirsky
An analysis of public data from a NASA satellite turns up massive, previously unseen galactic structures
Even in the best-case scenario, the future of the James Webb Space Telescope now looks worse than before
Massive galaxies acting as lenses have revealed five ancient galaxies behind the lensing galaxies. Hundreds more old galaxies should be discovered this way. Steve Mirsky reports
Does a universe of dark matter exist alongside ours, but hidden from view? This digital feature is a rich-media presentation of the article, "Dark Worlds," which appears in the November 2010 issue...
A shadow cosmos, woven silently into our own, may have its own rich inner life
The Foundational Questions Institute announced this week its latest essay contest, "Is Reality Digital or Analog?", and if it's anything like the past two contests, we're in for a real treat: the contest should draw entrants from some of the deepest thinkers of our time...
Analysis of 166 stars found almost a quarter--much more than expected--had small, rocky planets, which should force a change in thinking on the overall frequency of such bodies. Adam Hinterthuer reports...
A precision measurement of a high-mass neutron star rules out some exotic models for the ultradense stellar remnants
A galaxy that existed just 600 million years after the big bang is the most distant object ever seen
Two recent papers have proposed possible "first cores"--short-lived objects that give rise to protostars
