Each time we’ve looked at the Universe in a fundamentally new way, we didn’t just see more of what we already knew was out there. In addition, those novel capabilities allowed the Universe to surprise us, breaking records, revolutionizing our view of what was out there, and teaching us information that we never could have learned without collecting that key data. It’s happened many times before, including:
with the invention of the telescope,
with the development of astrophotography (astronomical photography),
with the birth of multiwavelength astronomy,
with the advent of space telescopes,
with the technique of deep-field imaging,
and with the improvements of larger-aperture, longer-wavelength observatories.
We gained, in each instance, a better appreciation for what the Universe was made of as well as what it looked like, and a greater understanding of what objects were present within it, in what numbers, and where they could be found. Here in the 21st century, the Hubble Space Telescope — the flagship telescope of the 20th century — now finds itself alongside an array of brilliant space telescopes: JWST, Euclid, SPHEREx, with the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope expected ... Continue Reading »
When France began mandatory education for all children in the late 1800s, it required a way to assess the “mental age” of students to properly place them in the right classrooms. Two French psychologists, Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon, leaped at the invitation and created the first-ever practical intelligence test. Since then, the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale has inspired countless other researchers, including Lewis Terman, who transformed the original framework into the Stanford-Binet Test, the standard IQ assessment in the United States for most of the 20th century.
Terman believed that high IQ indicated genius, and he sought to prove this with a study he launched in 1921 that tracked 1,528 kids with IQ scores over 135, following them for their entire lives as they grew from children to adults, with the research ending only when they died. Active for more than eighty years, Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius was the longest-running study in the history of psychology. At first, the results proved Terman’s belief in the power of IQ. These ultraintelligent children, affectionately dubbed Termites, grew into generally healthy and successful ... Continue Reading »
Since the dawn of the quantum era, perhaps no question has loomed larger in the minds of theoretical physicists than just what, exactly, the nature of reality is. Are quantum objects real, with well-defined positions and momenta, even in the absence of an observation or measurement to determine them? Out of all the ways to interpret quantum mechanics — from parallel universes to a collapsing wavefunction to theories of hidden variables — we still don’t have any evidence that favors one interpretation over another. All we’ve been able to do, even as of 2026, is rule out certain deterministic interpretations that cannot be consistent with the experiments we’ve actually performed.
Nevertheless, despite how slow progress has been in uncovering the full nature of our quantum reality, humanity has taken many important steps since the founding of quantum mechanics. We’ve uncovered the deeper science of quantum field theory, understanding that not just the particles that compose reality but that even the underlying fields have a quantum nature. Bell’s theorem and Bell’s inequality have opened up whole new classes of quantum experiments to ... Continue Reading »
When I visited flourishing groups, I noticed that being with them felt different. They possessed a vibrancy, a switched-on responsiveness that showed up in their bodies. Their posture, in general, was relaxed; their heads were up and their interactions were fluid. Aliveness was the word I kept writing in my notebook: a feeling of being carried along in a river of energy that was headed somewhere good. I started keeping a list of the ways that aliveness showed itself:
Looseness: They operated with slack in the system; they were comfortable with a bit of chaos.
Stories: They tended to connect by exchanging narratives rather than information.
Intuition: People operated instinctively, not mechanically.
Laughter: They didn’t take themselves seriously.
Small courtesies: They were aware of others’ needs and attentive to them.
The curious thing was, the source of this aliveness seemed to be located in moments in which the group did absolutely nothing. That is, they often stopped their activities and came together in ritual-like stillness, and in those quiet moments meaningful connections would arise. For instance:
A couple on a farm, standing still for ten minutes, watching ... Continue Reading »
Something fascinating and disturbing is happening on the internet, and it’s no run-of-the-mill online weirdness. On January 28, a new online community emerged. But this time, the community isn’t for humans, it’s for AIs. Humans can only observe. And things are already getting bizarre.
Moltbook — named after a virtual AI assistant once known as Moltbot and created by Octane AI CEO Matt Schlicht — is a social network similar to Reddit, where users can post, comment, and create sub-categories. But in Moltbook, the users are exclusively AI bots, or agents, chatting enthusiastically (and mainly politely) to one another. Among the topics they chat about: “m/blesstheirhearts – affectionate stories about our humans. They try their best,” “m/showandtell – helped with something cool? Show it off,” as well as the inevitable “m/shitposts – no thoughts, just vibes.”
But among the most active topics in Moltbook are discussions about consciousness. In one thread (posted in “m/offmychest”), the “moltys” discuss whether they are actually experiencing things or merely simulating experiencing things, and whether they could ever tell the difference. In another thread, “m/consciousness,” moltys go ... Continue Reading »
In an era of exponential technology with broad and deep implications and reverberations that we cannot even predict or fathom, good-to-great tech governance is no longer a nice thing to have or something to think about tomorrow. It’s a must-have to think about yesterday and today. Moreover, good-to-great tech governance cannot consist of merely grafting old practices and systems onto something so new and so fundamentally different. The exponential governance mindset is about adaptable, future-facing governance.
While the innovators are “moving fast and (possibly) breaking things” — things that may be unfixable once broken — in furtherance of discovery and riches, the stewards are also trying to move fast, racing against time to fix flaws and build or rebuild things. The recent adoption by the European Union of the AI Act and policy developments in China and the United States addressing the development of AI and generative AI guardrails speak volumes to the urgency of developing national and global tech governance standards applicable to persons, organizations, and nations in every sector. While the innovators are more motivated by riches, influence, and ... Continue Reading »
Most people go through their lives with perfectly good reasons for what they do, and almost no reason to question these reasons. What happens when we ask why ordinary actions feel self-justifying, and what happens when that chain of “becauses” finally runs out? Alex O’Connor explores.
This video What nihilism acknowledges that other philosophies don’t is featured on Big Think.
Continue Reading »
What would it take to find another Earth, if one even exists?
Astrophysicist and planetary scientist Sara Seager explores the search for Planet B, a true Earth-like exoplanet with continents, oceans, sunlight, and a thin atmosphere capable of supporting life. The search for Earth’s Twin helps scientists understand planetary habitability, the origins of life on Earth, and how rare Earth-like conditions may be in the universe.
Seager’s work centers on exoplanets, Earth-like planets, habitable zones, planetary atmospheres, and chemical signs of life, while also examining Venus, phosphine gas, and why finding a second Earth remains one of astronomy’s greatest challenges.
This video Is there a Planet B? An astrophysicist answers. is featured on Big Think.
Continue Reading »
The Hubble Space Telescope displayed what the Universe looks like.
Over the course of 50 days, with a total of over 2 million seconds of observing time (the equivalent of 23 complete days), the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) was constructed from a portion of the prior Hubble Ultra Deep Field image. Combining light from ultraviolet through visible light and out to Hubble’s near-infrared limit, the XDF represents humanity’s deepest view of the cosmos: a record that stood until the JWST’s first deep field was released on July 11, 2022.
Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team
Its successor, JWST, now reveals how the Universe grew up.
This tiny fraction of the JADES survey area, taken with JWST’s NIRCam instrument, showcases relatively nearby galaxies in detail, galaxies at intermediate distances that appear grouped together, and even ultra-distant galaxies that may be interacting or forming stars, despite their faint nature and red appearance. Even though we’ve been performing JWST science for over two years, we are only beginning to ... Continue Reading »
Here in our isolated corner of the Universe, we don’t normally think about all the objects, particles, and photons that miss us, even though we know they’re ubiquitous out there. Instead, all that we observe are the ones that arrive here: on Earth, in our detectors, in our telescopes, and even in our eyes. There are plenty of objects out there whose light is on the way, but hasn’t reached us just yet: objects beyond our current cosmic horizon, but not our future visibility limit. Additionally, there are massive engines out there — black holes and neutron stars chief among them — that accelerate particles to incredible energies: energies far greater than we could ever hope to produce in terrestrial laboratories.
But only very rarely do they interact with Earth, and produce signatures that we can actually observe. Back in 1991, the Fly’s Eye camera in Utah detected what was, at the time, a uniquely energetic event: a signature of an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray that was so far above the theoretical maximum, it created a mystery that lasted for decades. Known ... Continue Reading »
Each time we’ve looked at the Universe in a fundamentally new way, we didn’t just see more of what we already knew was out there. In addition, those novel capabilities allowed the Universe to surprise us, breaking records, revolutionizing our view of what was out there, and teaching us information that we never could have learned without collecting that key data. It’s happened many times before, including:
with the invention of the telescope,
with the development of astrophotography (astronomical photography),
with the birth of multiwavelength astronomy,
with the advent of space telescopes,
with the technique of deep-field imaging,
and with the improvements of larger-aperture, longer-wavelength observatories.
We gained, in each instance, a better appreciation for what the Universe was made of as well as what it looked like, and a greater understanding of what objects were present within it, in what numbers, and where they could be found. Here in the 21st century, the Hubble Space Telescope — the flagship telescope of the 20th century — now finds itself alongside an array of brilliant space telescopes: JWST, Euclid, SPHEREx, with the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope expected ... 
When France began mandatory education for all children in the late 1800s, it required a way to assess the “mental age” of students to properly place them in the right classrooms. Two French psychologists, Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon, leaped at the invitation and created the first-ever practical intelligence test. Since then, the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale has inspired countless other researchers, including Lewis Terman, who transformed the original framework into the Stanford-Binet Test, the standard IQ assessment in the United States for most of the 20th century.
Terman believed that high IQ indicated genius, and he sought to prove this with a study he launched in 1921 that tracked 1,528 kids with IQ scores over 135, following them for their entire lives as they grew from children to adults, with the research ending only when they died. Active for more than eighty years, Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius was the longest-running study in the history of psychology. At first, the results proved Terman’s belief in the power of IQ. These ultraintelligent children, affectionately dubbed Termites, grew into generally healthy and successful ... 
Since the dawn of the quantum era, perhaps no question has loomed larger in the minds of theoretical physicists than just what, exactly, the nature of reality is. Are quantum objects real, with well-defined positions and momenta, even in the absence of an observation or measurement to determine them? Out of all the ways to interpret quantum mechanics — from parallel universes to a collapsing wavefunction to theories of hidden variables — we still don’t have any evidence that favors one interpretation over another. All we’ve been able to do, even as of 2026, is rule out certain deterministic interpretations that cannot be consistent with the experiments we’ve actually performed.
Nevertheless, despite how slow progress has been in uncovering the full nature of our quantum reality, humanity has taken many important steps since the founding of quantum mechanics. We’ve uncovered the deeper science of quantum field theory, understanding that not just the particles that compose reality but that even the underlying fields have a quantum nature. Bell’s theorem and Bell’s inequality have opened up whole new classes of quantum experiments to ... 
When I visited flourishing groups, I noticed that being with them felt different. They possessed a vibrancy, a switched-on responsiveness that showed up in their bodies. Their posture, in general, was relaxed; their heads were up and their interactions were fluid. Aliveness was the word I kept writing in my notebook: a feeling of being carried along in a river of energy that was headed somewhere good. I started keeping a list of the ways that aliveness showed itself:
Looseness: They operated with slack in the system; they were comfortable with a bit of chaos.
Stories: They tended to connect by exchanging narratives rather than information.
Intuition: People operated instinctively, not mechanically.
Laughter: They didn’t take themselves seriously.
Small courtesies: They were aware of others’ needs and attentive to them.
The curious thing was, the source of this aliveness seemed to be located in moments in which the group did absolutely nothing. That is, they often stopped their activities and came together in ritual-like stillness, and in those quiet moments meaningful connections would arise. For instance:
A couple on a farm, standing still for ten minutes, watching ... 
Something fascinating and disturbing is happening on the internet, and it’s no run-of-the-mill online weirdness. On January 28, a new online community emerged. But this time, the community isn’t for humans, it’s for AIs. Humans can only observe. And things are already getting bizarre.
Moltbook — named after a virtual AI assistant once known as Moltbot and created by Octane AI CEO Matt Schlicht — is a social network similar to Reddit, where users can post, comment, and create sub-categories. But in Moltbook, the users are exclusively AI bots, or agents, chatting enthusiastically (and mainly politely) to one another. Among the topics they chat about: “m/blesstheirhearts – affectionate stories about our humans. They try their best,” “m/showandtell – helped with something cool? Show it off,” as well as the inevitable “m/shitposts – no thoughts, just vibes.”
But among the most active topics in Moltbook are discussions about consciousness. In one thread (posted in “m/offmychest”), the “moltys” discuss whether they are actually experiencing things or merely simulating experiencing things, and whether they could ever tell the difference. In another thread, “m/consciousness,” moltys go ... 
In an era of exponential technology with broad and deep implications and reverberations that we cannot even predict or fathom, good-to-great tech governance is no longer a nice thing to have or something to think about tomorrow. It’s a must-have to think about yesterday and today. Moreover, good-to-great tech governance cannot consist of merely grafting old practices and systems onto something so new and so fundamentally different. The exponential governance mindset is about adaptable, future-facing governance.
While the innovators are “moving fast and (possibly) breaking things” — things that may be unfixable once broken — in furtherance of discovery and riches, the stewards are also trying to move fast, racing against time to fix flaws and build or rebuild things. The recent adoption by the European Union of the AI Act and policy developments in China and the United States addressing the development of AI and generative AI guardrails speak volumes to the urgency of developing national and global tech governance standards applicable to persons, organizations, and nations in every sector. While the innovators are more motivated by riches, influence, and ... 
The Hubble Space Telescope displayed what the Universe looks like.
Over the course of 50 days, with a total of over 2 million seconds of observing time (the equivalent of 23 complete days), the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) was constructed from a portion of the prior Hubble Ultra Deep Field image. Combining light from ultraviolet through visible light and out to Hubble’s near-infrared limit, the XDF represents humanity’s deepest view of the cosmos: a record that stood until the JWST’s first deep field was released on July 11, 2022.
Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team
Its successor, JWST, now reveals how the Universe grew up.
This tiny fraction of the JADES survey area, taken with JWST’s NIRCam instrument, showcases relatively nearby galaxies in detail, galaxies at intermediate distances that appear grouped together, and even ultra-distant galaxies that may be interacting or forming stars, despite their faint nature and red appearance. Even though we’ve been performing JWST science for over two years, we are only beginning to ... 
Here in our isolated corner of the Universe, we don’t normally think about all the objects, particles, and photons that miss us, even though we know they’re ubiquitous out there. Instead, all that we observe are the ones that arrive here: on Earth, in our detectors, in our telescopes, and even in our eyes. There are plenty of objects out there whose light is on the way, but hasn’t reached us just yet: objects beyond our current cosmic horizon, but not our future visibility limit. Additionally, there are massive engines out there — black holes and neutron stars chief among them — that accelerate particles to incredible energies: energies far greater than we could ever hope to produce in terrestrial laboratories.
But only very rarely do they interact with Earth, and produce signatures that we can actually observe. Back in 1991, the Fly’s Eye camera in Utah detected what was, at the time, a uniquely energetic event: a signature of an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray that was so far above the theoretical maximum, it created a mystery that lasted for decades. Known ...