Tag Archive

Looking in the shadows

Image by Royalty-free image collection via Flickr

The search for a second Earth gets serious
IN THE 19th century astronomers spent a lot of time seeking shadows crossing the sun. They were searching for Vulcan, a putative planet inside the orbit of Mercury, by looking for its transits. These are the moments when, viewed from Earth, the [...]

The Long Shot

Image via Wikipedia

Two rival scientific teams are locked in a high-stakes race to discover other Earth-like worlds—and forever change our own.
From the Chilean seaside town of La Serena, it’s a journey of 80 kilometers to the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), through the Elqui River Valley, past huddled clusters of houses and lush fields of [...]

A Writing Revolution

Nearly universal literacy is a defining characteristic of today’s modern civilization; nearly universal authorship will shape tomorrow’s.

Nearly everyone reads. Soon, nearly everyone will publish. Before 1455, books were handwritten, and it took a scribe a year to produce a Bible. Today, it takes only a minute to send a tweet or update a blog. Rates [...]

Early Warning Signals Of Change: ‘Tipping Points’ Identified Where Sudden Shifts To New Conditions Occur

What do abrupt changes in ocean circulation and Earth’s climate, shifts in wildlife populations and ecosystems, the global finance market and its system-wide crashes, and asthma attacks and epileptic seizures have in common?