During Atlantic hurricane season, a disturbance thousands of miles from Florida can become one of the most searched subjects in the United States within hours. A colored blob appears on a weather map. A forecast cone follows. Social feeds f...
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On an autumn Sunday in the United States, a peculiar national clock starts ticking shortly before 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Televisions switch on. Fantasy lineups receive one last nervous inspect...
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Few English words have traveled as far politically as “woke.” Depending on who says it, the word can mean alert to racial injustice, broadly progressive, excessively politically correct, per...
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Stand on a beach and the ocean looks almost two-dimensional: a glittering surface stretching to the horizon. The reality underneath is closer to an inverted mountain world. Plains, ridges, v...
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You are reading an email, driving home or trying to fall asleep when one eyelid begins to flutter. It stops. Ten minutes later it starts again. By the third day, a tiny muscle movement that...
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You check your phone and it is 4:44. Later, a receipt ends in $4.44. That evening, three fours appear in an address or a license plate. After the third encounter, coincidence can start to fe...
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Artificial intelligence has become one of those phrases that seems to describe everything at once. It can mean the system that recommends a song, the software that detects a suspicious bank...
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On a clear Arctic night, the sky can begin almost imperceptibly. A pale band appears above the horizon, faint enough to be mistaken for a cloud. Then it brightens. The band folds into curtai...
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The most spectacular sign of a geomagnetic storm can look almost supernatural. Green curtains ripple across the night sky, red light appears hundreds or even thousands of kilometres farther...
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Some of the most senior people inside the U.S. military recently found themselves in an unusual position: sitting in a room, connected to physiological sensors, answering questions while inv...
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