You mention hiking boots over dinner. The next morning, an advertisement for hiking boots appears on your phone. You never remember searching for them. The coincidence feels too precise, and an unsettling explanation immediately suggests it...
Read article
You see someone stretch their jaw, squeeze their eyes shut and take a long, involuntary breath. A few seconds later, your own mouth opens. Sometimes you do not even need to see the yawn: hea...
Read
Ask a child to draw the Sun and there is a good chance they will reach for a yellow crayon. Search for a Sun emoji and you will find the same convention. For centuries, artists have painted...
Read
Stay in a swimming pool or bathtub long enough and something peculiar happens to your hands. The smooth pads of your fingers turn into a landscape of ridges and valleys, as if the skin has s...
Read
A black hole does something stranger than simply swallowing light. Before a photon crosses the point of no return, spacetime can bend its trajectory so violently that the light can travel ar...
Read
On most nights, Americans who want to see the northern lights need to travel a very long way north. Then the Sun becomes unusually active, NOAA issues a geomagnetic-storm watch or warning, a...
Read
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 we...
Read
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...
Read
There is a point in an Arctic winter when ordinary ideas about daytime stop being useful. The sun may skim the horizon without properly rising, snow can turn blue in the long twilight, and a...
Read
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...
Read