Science & Tech

Science & Tech

Explore the discoveries that reveal how the world works, alongside the technologies that extend, reshape, and sometimes challenge what’s possible.

Open book showing two pages: the left page has a red-toned illustration of early humans, while the right page features a blue-toned photo of an ocean wave, capturing the hyperefficient balance between art and nature.
From hunter-gathers to desk jockeys, we work best when short, intense sessions are followed by lighter fare.
Parker Solar Probe
It would get rid of our hazardous, radioactive, and pollutive waste for good, but physics tells us it's a losing strategy for elimination.
A dense cluster of young stars and bright blue-white spots set against a dark reddish-brown background, with scattered sparkles of light from numerous stars in the outer Milky Way, captured stunningly by JWST.
Almost all of the stars, planets, and interesting physics happens in the inner portions of galaxies. Is that conventional wisdom all wrong?
Illustration comparing generative and predictive AI with a visual of Earth connected to digital data icons.
8mins
Eric Siegel, Co-Founder & CEO, Gooder AI, argues machine learning (ML) projects go astray because their stakeholders focus too often on the technological fireworks — the “rocket science” of predictive models.
View of Earth from a spacecraft window with "T-MINUS" displayed in bold text overlaying the image.
These startups, space agencies, and aerospace giants are building humanity's next off-world homes.
Young child sitting on a couch, illuminated by the screen of a tablet they are holding in a dimly lit room.
The digital world will always entail risks for teens, but that doesn’t mean parents aren’t without recourse.
Rows of identical Earth-like planets stretch out into the vast copy multiverse, with a dark starry background visible between them.
Within our observable Universe, there's only one Earth and one "you." But in a vast multiverse, so much more becomes possible.
A stylized digital shield in the center, surrounded by red pixelated designs, with quantum code fragments displayed on the shield. The background has black, swirling patterns, reminiscent of encryption tools at work.
Quantum computing brings significant opportunities — but equally significant cybersecurity risks.
A technician in a cleanroom suit works by a large cylindrical piece of equipment in a high-tech laboratory setting with industrial tools and machinery.
A recent experiment challenges the leading dark matter theory and hints at new directions for uncovering one of the Universe's biggest mysteries.
Satellite image showing a dense cloud mass over the southeastern United States and the Gulf of Mexico, with an inset graph from NOAA depicting hurricane frequency peaking around mid-August to late September, a trend exacerbated by global warming.
The laws of physics aren't changing. But the Earth's conditions are different than what they used to be, and so are hurricanes as a result.
atom illustration
Most fundamental constants could be a little larger or smaller, and our Universe would still be similar. But not the mass of the electron.
Image of Mimas, one of Saturn's moons, partially illuminated. The large Herschel crater is prominently visible on the right side of the moon's surface.
The existence of another watery world in the outer solar system may offer clues to how such seas form — and hope for another spot to search for life.
A collage features a tennis player and a basketball player against a backdrop of financial charts, graphs, and mathematical equations on a checkered pattern.
How Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky cracked open behavioral economics and enlightened all our choices.
Two breathtaking pictures of a galaxy and a star taken by the Hubble telescope, highlighting the beauty and cosmic magnitude that fuels the Hubble tension.
In the expanding Universe, different ways of measuring its rate give incompatible answers. Nobel Laureate Adam Riess explains what it means.
A black-and-white portrait of a man with curly hair, glasses, and a beard is centered against a green and blue background with abstract DNA helix patterns, representing leadership essentials.
Benjamin Oakes — CEO of buzz-worthy biotech company Scribe Therapeutics — joins Big Think for a chat about innovation, human endeavor, and more.
White text on a black background reads "The Impact of Nothing.
3mins
From nothing to everything: How zero changed our understanding of the universe, forever.
The image shows a bright spot labeled "JADES-GS-z13-1-LA," seemingly an impossible light captured by the JWST, surrounded by measurement markers, including a scale bar for 1 kpc and 0.28 arcsec. Filters and colors are listed at the bottom.
The Lyman-α emission line has never been seen earlier than 550 million years after the Big Bang. So why does JADES-GS-z13-1-LA have one?
A detailed image of two galaxies in space, one with spiral arms on the left and the other, more elliptical, on the right, surrounded by distant stars.
Galactic activity doesn't just arrive when supermassive black holes feast on matter. Before, during, and after all create fascinating signs.
A fern frond unfurling in a spiral shape against a plain green background.
1mins
What would the world be like if we focused on “the inherent beauty of math,” rather than its technical aspects? A statistician reflects: