From the air, parts of the Namib Desert look as if someone has stamped an enormous sheet of polka dots across the landscape. Thousands upon thousands of roughly circular patches of bare ground interrupt the grassland, often with a taller fr...
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Open the Voynich Manuscript and almost everything about it looks tantalizingly close to comprehension. Lines of neat handwriting run from left to right. Words are separated by spaces. Paragr...
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Few words sound more futuristic than “robot.” It belongs to Mars rovers, factory arms, humanoid machines and today's arguments about artificial intelligence. Yet the word did not originate i...
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Imagine two identical buildings on the same street. One has a broken window that is repaired the next morning. The other has a broken window that remains shattered for weeks. Graffiti appear...
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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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If someone asks when World War II ended, the safest short answer is 1945. If they ask for the exact date, history becomes more interesting. Was it May 8, when Nazi Germany's defeat ended the...
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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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For millions of Americans, the phrase “2027 Social Security changes” sounds as though a new set of benefit rules has already been finalized. As of September 2026, the reality is more complic...
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Seal a cat inside a box with a radioactive atom, a radiation detector and a mechanism capable of releasing poison. Arrange the experiment so that, after an hour, the atom has a 50 percent ch...
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