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Joshua Sokol

Contributing Writer

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Latest Articles

Photo of Corina Tarnita 520px
Q&A

A Mathematician Who Decodes the Patterns Stamped Out by Life

By Joshua Sokol
December 20, 2017
Comment
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Corina Tarnita deciphers bizarre patterns in the soil created by competing life-forms.

Magellan Baade telescope and CMB illustration
astrophysics

Earliest Black Hole Gives Rare Glimpse of Ancient Universe

By Joshua Sokol
December 6, 2017
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It weighs as much as 780 million suns and helped to cast off the cosmic Dark Ages. But now that astronomers have found the earliest known black hole, they wonder: How could this giant have grown so big, so fast?

astrophysics

Squishy or Solid? A Neutron Star’s Insides Open to Debate

By Joshua Sokol
October 30, 2017
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The core of a neutron star is such an extreme environment that physicists can’t agree on what happens inside. But a new space-based experiment — and a few more colliding neutron stars — should reveal whether neutrons themselves break down.

Abstractions blog

For Astronomers, Neutron Star Merger Could Eclipse Eclipse

By Joshua Sokol
August 25, 2017
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Even as the solar eclipse was mesmerizing millions, astronomers were training their space- and land-based telescopes on a far more violent astrophysical event.

Andrea Ghez in Hawaii
Q&A

Black-Hole Hunter Takes Aim at Einstein

By Joshua Sokol
July 27, 2017
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The astrophysicist Andrea Ghez spent two decades proving that a supermassive black hole anchors the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Her new plan? Test what happens when things get too close.

Jessica Flack
Q&A

How Nature Solves Problems Through Computation

By Joshua Sokol
July 6, 2017
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The evolutionary biologist Jessica Flack seeks the computational rules that groups of organisms use to solve problems.

Is a spiderweb part of the animal’s mind?
cognitive science

The Thoughts of a Spiderweb

By Joshua Sokol
May 23, 2017
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Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head.

Abstractions blog

Exoplanet Puzzle Cracked by Jazz Musicians

By Joshua Sokol
May 10, 2017
Comment
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A system of seven Earth-like exoplanets appeared to be unstable. Now their orbits have been rewritten in the music of the spheres.

astrophysics

A New Blast May Have Forged Cosmic Gold

By Joshua Sokol
March 23, 2017
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For decades, researchers believed that violent supernovas forged gold and other heavy elements. But many now argue for a different cosmic quarry.


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