Edward O. Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, is the influential naturalist and evolutionary theorist who introduced the concept of “sociobiology,” as well as one of the world’s leading experts on ants. Here, he explains the relevance of evolved insect behaviors to human nature.
Peter and Rosemary Grant explain how our understanding of evolution has changed in their lifetimes.
Tracy Slatyer explains why she’s not disappointed when a mysterious cosmic signal turns out to be something other than dark matter.
Miranda Cheng explains what umbral moonshine is and how it might illuminate string theory.
David Kaplan explains how the law of increasing entropy could drive random bits of matter into the stable, orderly structures of life.
Suchitra Sebastian talks about how extreme conditions can create unexpected quantum behavior.
Ken Ono explains how Ramanujan has served as his “guardian angel” throughout his life and career.
Janna Levin talks about her roles as scientific director at a “center for art and innovation” in Brooklyn and as a physicist and writer.
David Moore explains why we might expect to find strange things when we study gravity at small scales.
David Moore of Stanford University describes how, inside this chamber, silica spheres probe for distortions of gravity.