Excerpted from Math for English Majors by Ben Orlin. September 2024, Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers. Published with permission. Every March 14, the mathematical world observes its favorite holiday by canceling lessons, gorging itself on pie, and reciting the decimal expansion of math’s most revered constant. Young and old, pure and applied, algebraist and analyst, we all […]
New technology only sometimes completely replaces the technology that came before. We’re well into the streaming age of television, for example, but broadcast TV still exists and likely will for decades to come. It’s the same way for ebooks: The market is growing but paper books are still extremely popular. And that makes sense to […]
There’s just something about walking through a neighborhood and seeing a streetside library. You know the ones: the small wooden boxes with glass doors and books inside. At this point it’s hard to remember a time they didn’t exist. They haven’t been around that long, though. The first was in 2009 According to Little Free […]
Physical books will always have their loyal fans—and rightly so—but there’s a lot to be said for the audiobook. They let you get through your reading (or listening rather) while you’re doing household chores, or driving the car, or out on your morning jog, and some of us just prefer hearing words spoken than reading […]
When a biogeochemist’s wife and 4-year-old daughter were both diagnosed with brain cancer, the family drew strength from the astonishment science can bring.
Excerpted from WHY WE DIE: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan with permission from William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. Copyright © 2024 by Venki Ramakrishnan. Lessons from a Lowly Worm We all know families of long-lived individuals. But exactly how much do genes influence longevity? A study of 2,700 […]
Vernor Vinge, prolific science-fiction writer, professor, and one of the first prominent thinkers to conceptualize the concepts of a “Technological Singularity” and cyberspace, has died at the age of 79. News of his passing on March 20 was confirmed through a Facebook post from author and friend David Brin, citing complications from Parkinson’s Disease. “Vernor […]
A new book shares fascinating details of the process behind JWST. We spoke with Chris Gunn, one of the primary photographers of the project.
We know you’re not reading any of the books in your TBR (to be read) pile any time soon. Please don’t feel bad; neither are we … because thanks to Barnes & Noble’s Book Haul sale, we’ve added stacks of deeply discounted new releases, audiobooks, ebooks, and even a Nook eReader. Nook GlowLight 4e $89.99 […]
Against a nationwide backdrop of book bans and censorship campaigns, Iowa educators are turning to ChatGPT to help decide which titles should be removed from their school library shelves in order to legally comply with recent Republican-backed state legislation, PopSci has learned. According to an August 11 article in the Iowa state newspaper The Gazette, […]
