Science-fiction space battles have trained us to expect a particular soundtrack: engines roar, lasers crack and exploding spacecraft detonate with a cinematic boom. Put the same battle in the real vacuum between planets, however, and an obs...
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In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a match. The achievement looked like a milestone on the road to machine intelligence: a computer had conquered a game...
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A thirsty tomato plant can be surprisingly noisy. Not to us: stand beside it in a greenhouse and you will probably hear nothing beyond leaves rustling and the ordinary sounds of the room. Bu...
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High on a mountain in late spring, a patch of snow can suddenly look as though someone spilled watermelon juice across it. The surface turns pale pink, rose red or even crimson, sometimes st...
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Imagine taking the mass of a mountain and compressing it until its boundary is smaller than an atom. There would be no miniature rocky mountain inside, no visible sphere and certainly nothin...
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In daylight, the water may look ordinary — or even unappealingly reddish-brown. Then darkness falls, a wave breaks, and the shoreline suddenly flashes electric blue. Footsteps sparkle in wet...
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Put a slice of aged cheddar in a hot pan and things can become unpredictable. It may soften beautifully, but push the temperature too far and orange oil can pool around clumps of tightening...
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The James Webb Space Telescope is often introduced through spectacular pictures: glowing stellar nurseries, delicate shells of gas, galaxies from the young universe and strange worlds orbiti...
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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 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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