St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, and with it comes tales of mischievous leprechauns and the pots of gold that they guard at the end of rainbows.You may already know that there is no “end” of a rainbow — science tells us that their arch shape is simply an illusion. In reality, while those of us on the ground can only see the light reflected by raindrops above the horizon, viewers in aircraft can sometimes see a rainbow’s full, 360-degree circle.But that doesn’t mean the m ...read more

The Greek historian Herodotus reported over 2,000 years ago on a misguided forbidden experiment in which two children were prevented from hearing human speech so that a king could discover the true, unlearned language of human beings.Scientists now know that human language requires social learning and interaction with other people, a property shared with multiple animal languages. But why should humans and other animals need to learn a language instead of being born with this knowledge, like ...read more

The Han Chinese court welcomed Western trade for one of the first times in its history around 2,000 years ago. What its courtiers couldn't have imagined was that they were laying the foundations for one of the oldest, largest and longest-lasting systems of trade in the world.That said, the ancient Silk Road system endured the formation and the fall of countless cultures and civilizations throughout its 1,600-year existence, emerging from almost every experience bigger and better than before.So, ...read more

This article was originally published on March 14, 2021.March 14 is Pi Day — so what’s with that? A holiday to celebrate a number (and eat lots of pie)? Well, yes, but pi is not just any number. There is much more to the pi day meaning than that.Why Is Pi Day Celebrated on March 14?Pi is simply (well, it’s not really simple, but bear with me) the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. If you take a circle —  any circle — and divide its circumference by its diameter, y ...read more

This article was originally published on May 19, 2021.Decades after his death, Albert Einstein's legacy carries on. He is often regarded as the father of modern physics in light of his revolutionary ideas that have shaped our understanding of the universe. The prolific scientist's rise to celebrity status, however, didn't happen overnight. Unlike many other famous scientists of his time, Einstein lacked a flawless education record and wasn’t well connected in the scientific community. He perfe ...read more

Our growing knowledge of physical laws has allowed us to rewind the tape on the universe, tracing its evolution back to within a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Here, however, when the sum total of matter and energy coalesces in a ball of infinite density and temperature, the equations of general relativity break down.As a theory, “the Big Bang leaves out the bang,” physicist Brian Green writes in The Fabric of the Cosmos. Whatever happened in that instant, let alone before that mom ...read more

Nikola Tesla: Genius, visionary, inventor extraordinaire! What did he invent? Why, only the Era of Electricity, developing the very power system that still lights the world today. Oh, and also radio, X-ray imaging, radar, remote control, death rays and wireless communications with other worlds.Well … that’s if you believe the hype once generated by the man himself, amplified by the media of the early 20th century, and perpetuated today by legions of admirers.What Did Nikola Tesla Do?Even ...read more

Did early hominins create their first tools by accident? And if so, how does one define tool creation, the sophisticated use of which has long set our species apart?These are questions at the heart of a new study led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, which could also disrupt much of Stone Age archaeology, if not intentionally. The team studied long-tailed macaque monkeys in a Thai national park. The monkeys are prolific bashers of palm nuts using a rudimentary but effect ...read more