Science

How One Farmer’s Curiosity Revealed the Hidden Beauty of Snow Crystals and Pioneered Meteorology
How ‘Flatland’ Explains Higher Dimensions Through Mathematical Fiction
How Victorians Learned About Sound Through Popular Science
How Nehemiah Grew Helped Establish Modern Plant Anatomy
How Artificial Intelligence Challenges the Concept of Authorship
The Genetic Secrets That Help Some Animals Defy Aging
How an Astronomer Hallucinated Marxism Into the Cosmos
How Fingerprints Became a Tool for Both Science and Racial Pseudoscience
When Science Met the Supernatural: The Strange History of the Fourth Dimension
How Technology Shapes How We Move, Speak, and Think
Between Life and Death: What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Consciousness
Why Celebrities, Actors, Writers, and Artists Fear AI
The Humble Carrot’s Colorful History
Jonathan Schell’s Legacy of Tracking the Global Nuclear Weapons Threat
Sperm Whales Have Culture Too: Strong Evidence That Clans, Culture, and Dialects Are Not Unique to Humans
How the Bayh-Dole Act Wrested Public Science From the People’s Hands
Are Plant-Eaters Smarter and More Empathetic Than Meat-Eaters?
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Guide to Artificial Intelligence

Leslie Alan Horvitz, The Observatory

“It really is godlike,” says Geoffrey Hinton about artificial intelligence. He’s been called the “godfather of AI,” so he should know. “Magical intelligence in the sky” is how Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI, regards AI, while Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, warns that AI could bring about the appearance of the Antichrist. In contrast, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicts that AI will result in “the defeat of most diseases, the growth in biological and cognitive freedom, the lifting of billions of people out of poverty… a renaissance of liberal democracy and human rights.” Is AI really so transformative, or is it an evanescent trend whose importance has been overhyped? This guide won’t give you the answers. It certainly won’t tell you whether AI is a harbinger of the Antichrist. What it can do, though, is explore AI’s unresolved issues, which will almost certainly be with us for years to come
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Guide to Death Literacy

Reynard Loki, The Observatory

As people live longer and face increasingly complex end-of-life decisions, understanding death and dying has never been more important. This guide explores the emerging movement of death literacy, offering practical tools, knowledge, and community resources to help individuals navigate mortality with clarity and confidence. From fostering open conversations about death to exploring near-death experiences and preparing for end-of-life care, these articles provide insights into how we can approach death as a natural, supported, and meaningful part of life.
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Kensy Cooperrider
Kensy Cooperrider is a cognitive scientist, writer, teacher, and podcaster.
Anne Petermann
Anne Petermann is the executive director of Global Justice Ecology Project.
Sophie A.H. Osborn
Sophie A. H. Osborn is an award-winning environmental author and wildlife biologist whose work has focused on bird conservation across the Americas.
Jennifer Barckley
Jennifer Barckley is the vice president of communications at The Humane League.
Richard Heinberg
Richard Heinberg is senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and the author of ''Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival''.
Julieta Campagna
Julieta Campagna monitors coastal protected areas for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Ginger Fedak
Ginger Fedak is a lifelong animal welfare advocate and horse professional, having spent decades teaching about and advocating for domestic and wild horses.
Nina Jackel
Nina Jackel is the founder of Lady Freethinker, a nonprofit media organization dedicated to exposing and stopping the suffering of animals, humans, and the planet. Find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Bill Wasik
Bill Wasik is the editorial director of the New York Times Magazine.
Maryellen MacDonald
Maryellen MacDonald is a cognitive scientist who focuses on psycholinguistics.
Reynard Loki
Reynard Loki is a co-founder of the Observatory, where he is the environment and animal rights editor.
Marcelo Gleiser
Marcelo Gleiser is a theoretical physicist. He is a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College, where he also serves as the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and the director of the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement.
Tia Schwab
Tia Schwab is a former news fellow for Stone Pier Press, a San Francisco-based environmental publishing company with a food focus. She is a graduate of Stanford University, where she studied human biology with a concentration in food systems and public health. Tia was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and she is passionate about using storytelling to create a healthy, just, and sustainable food system.
Valeria Falabella
Valeria Falabella is a director at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Carter Dillard
Carter Dillard is the policy adviser for the Fair Start Movement.
Steve Taylor
Steve Taylor is a freelance journalist and the host of the podcast Breaking Green produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.
John J. Berger
John J. Berger is an environmental science and policy specialist, prize-winning author, and journalist.
Karen Davis
Karen Davis, PhD, (1944–2023) was the president and founder of United Poultry Concerns. She was an award-winning animal rights activist and the author of numerous books.
Mary Losure
Mary Losure is an author of narrative nonfiction and former environmental reporter whose books explore unusual episodes from history, science, and culture.
Natalie Lawrence
Natalie Lawrence is a writer, researcher, and illustrator living in London.
Stephen Buchmann
Dr. Stephen Buchmann is a pollination ecologist specializing in bees and an adjunct professor with the departments of entomology and of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona.
Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner
Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner is a writing fellow at Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, AlterNet, Architectural Digest, Travel & Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, and other publications.
Erika Schelby
Erika Schelby is the author of ''Liberating the Future from the Past? Liberating the Past from the Future?'' (2013) and ''Looking for Humboldt and Searching for German Footprints in New Mexico and Beyond'' (2017). Schelby lives in New Mexico.
Marc Bekoff
Marc Bekoff is an ethologist, behavioral ecologist, compassionate conservationist, and author. He is professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Matthew Ponsford
Matthew Ponsford is a London-based journalist and producer who has written for Thomson Reuters, CNN International, Financial Times, the Guardian, the Independent and Vice. Follow him on Twitter @mjponsford.
Hal Whitehead
Hal Whitehead is a professor at Dalhousie University in Canada.
Kevin Dann
Dr. Kevin Dann is a historian, naturalist, and troubadour.
Thea Applebaum Licht
Thea Applebaum Licht is a writer and researcher.
Michael S. Fenster
Michael S. Fenster is a cardiologist, chef, author, and professor of culinary medicine at the University of Montana.
D. Graham Burnett
D. Graham Burnett is a historian of science, writer, and professor at Princeton University whose work explores attention, perception, technology, and the history of human knowledge.
Lucy Goodchild van Hilten
Lucy Goodchild van Hilten is a writing fellow at [https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/{{EFL
Laurel Sutherlin
Laurel Sutherlin is the senior communications strategist for Rainforest Action Network. He is a lifelong environmental and human rights campaigner as well as a naturalist and outdoor educator with a passion for birds and wild places. Follow him on Twitter @laurelsutherlin.
Alicia Graef
Alicia Graef is a guardian and dog meat campaigner at In Defense of Animals. A lifelong animal lover and freelance writer with a Bachelor’s degree in animal and veterinary science, Alicia has covered issues relating to animals for more than a decade.
Marjorie Hecht
Marjorie Hecht is a longtime magazine editor and writer with a specialty in science topics. She is a freelance writer living on Cape Cod.
Claudio Campagna
Claudio Campagna is a senior marine conservation consultant for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Jessica Pierce
Jessica Pierce is a bioethicist and author of numerous books.
Mary Mazzoni
Mary Mazzoni is the senior editor of TriplePundit and director of TriplePundit’s Brand Studio.
Sy Montgomery
Sy Montgomery is a naturalist, documentary scriptwriter, and author of 31 books of nonfiction for adults and children. She is the recipient of lifetime achievement awards from the Humane Society and the New England Booksellers Association.
Adam Frank
Adam Frank is the Helen F. and Fred H. Gowen Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester and a winner of the Carl Sagan Medal.
Janet McIntosh
Janet McIntosh is a sociocultural and linguistic anthropologist.
Chris Smaje
Chris Smaje has co-worked on a small farm in Somerset, southwest England, since 2007. Smaje is the author of ''A Small Farm Future'', writes a blog at about farming, ecology, and politics, and is a featured author at resilience.org.
Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Hugh Aldersey-Williams is an author, journalist, and curator.
Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart is a mathematician, science writer, and emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick.
Lisa Jones-Engel
Lisa Jones-Engel is a primatologist.
Mike Jay
Mike Jay is an author, cultural historian, and curator.
Elizabeth Henderson
Elizabeth Henderson is an organic farmer. She is the co-chair of the Interstate Council policy committee of the Northeast Organic Farming Association and represents the Interstate Council on the Board of the Agricultural Justice Project.
Claire Preston
Claire Preston is a professor of early modern literature at Cambridge, specializing in the intersection of 17th-century science and rhetoric. Renowned for her award-winning work on Sir Thomas Browne and Edmund Spenser, she explores how the “New Science” and the era’s information overload shaped English prose and the cultural history of the natural world.
Leslie Crawford
Leslie Crawford is the author of ''Sprig the Rescue Pig'' and ''Gwen the Rescue Hen'', both published by Stone Pier Press.
Sam Davis
Sam Davis is a staff scientist at the Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI), a nonprofit that uses science, litigation, policy analysis, and strategic communications to promote policies that protect climate, ecosystems, and people.
Keith C. Heidorn
Keith C. Heidorn was a meteorologist and climatologist.
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