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New
Greening the Solar System
Edwin Kite Robin Wordsworth
A future where life flourishes beyond Earth is closer than you think. How, precisely, will we get there?
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Get In, Weirdos
The Editors
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interview
The Science of Woo
Kati Devaney
A conversation about neuroscience, meditation, and the many paths to insight.
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interview
Are AIs People?
Rob Long Kathleen Finlinson
Every year, AI models get better at thinking. Could they possibly be capable of feeling? And if they are, how would we know?
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The Case for Insect Consciousness
Bob Fischer
The evidence that insects feel pain is mounting, however we approach the issue.
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Automating Math
Adam Marblestone
Computers can already help verify proofs. One day soon, AI may be able to come up with new ones.
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Can We Build a Five Gigawatt Data Center?
Lynette Bye
By 2030, leading AI labs will need data centers so massive they will require the power equivalent of some of America’s largest cities. Will they be able to find it?
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A Defense of Weird Research
Deena Mousa Lauren Gilbert
Government-funded scientific research may appear strange or impractical, but it has repeatedly yielded scientific breakthroughs — and continues to pay for itself many times over.
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The Unbearable Loudness of Chewing
Jake Eaton
Why do some people find certain sounds intolerable? And why has it taken so long for scientists to get even a preliminary answer?
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Where the Wild Things Aren’t
Agnes Callard
We tell our children that weirdness is a blessing in disguise. That’s our fantasy, not theirs.
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Yes, Shrimp Matter
Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla
What made a private equity analyst decide to devote his life to tiny aquatic crustaceans?
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Deros and the Ur-Abduction
Scott Alexander
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We Can, Must, And Will Simulate Nematode Brains
Michael Skuhersky
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Where Babies Come From
Sam Kriss
09: Weird
Children’s literature. Chewing sounds. Habitable bubbles on potato-shaped asteroids. Are you a noncongenerist? Nirodha samapatti. Shrimp. Do fruit flies feel? Enough energy to power a large American city. Malevolent Atlantean dwarves. Math homework. What Is It Like to Be a Bot? The future of humanity rests on microscopic worm brains.