Science

The first two collections explored physical mysteries and phenomena where physics meets wonder. This final collection examines life itself-organisms doing things that seem to violate the possible. These are events where biology reveals capabilities that challenge everything we thought we knew about living things. June 2012: Underwater Crop Circles-The Pufferfish Artist Location: Ocean floor off the coast of Japan (Amami Ōshima) The Discovery: Divers discovered intricate circular patterns on the sandy ocean floor at depths of 10-25 meters. The patterns were geometric, symmetrical, and beautiful-roughly 2 meters in diameter with radiating ridges and valleys. ...

The first collection revealed nature’s greatest puzzles. This second collection explores phenomena where our understanding of physics seems to break down-or where nature reveals capabilities that seem impossible. These are events where the boundary between explained and unexplained becomes beautifully blurred. January 1996: The Sailing Stones of Death Valley Location: Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California The Event (Ongoing): Rocks weighing up to 700 pounds move across a dry lakebed, leaving trails hundreds of meters long behind them. ...

Nature has always been humanity’s greatest puzzle book. Some pages we’ve decoded brilliantly. Others remain tantalizingly blank. This is a collection of events-moments when nature revealed something extraordinary, whether we understood it or not. March 1968: The Bloop Mystery Begins Location: Pacific Ocean, coordinates undisclosed The Event: Ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected. Researchers called it “The Bloop.” The sound was loud enough to be detected by sensors over 5,000 kilometers apart. Its frequency pattern didn’t match any known marine animal, submarine, or geological event. ...

Deeply Personal Current: Human Grade Pet Food Comfort Food for the Soul All Posts Cats and Empathy The Truth About ‘Human Grade’ Pet Food: Marketing vs. Nutrition Ace, our 3-year-old gray-and-white domestic shorthair, is pickier than most Michelin-star food critics. He weighs approximately 5 kilograms, has strong opinions about kibble texture, and has rejected more brands of cat food than I can count. ...

When I was in college, a professor made a claim that stopped me mid-note: “Intelligence is about 50-80% heritable. Your genes, not your effort or education, largely determine how smart you’ll be.” I was stunned. And honestly, a little angry. I’d grown up believing that hard work mattered most. That anyone could achieve anything with enough effort. That your background didn’t determine your destiny. Was all of that naive? Were we just puppets dancing to our genetic programming? ...

I was reading a psychology paper that promised to change how I thought about willpower. The study claimed that ego depletion-the idea that willpower is a limited resource that gets exhausted-had been proven through rigorous experiments. Hundreds of studies supported it. It was taught in psychology courses. It was in textbooks. I built my productivity system around this concept. I scheduled important decisions for the morning. I avoided making choices when I was tired. I believed willpower worked like a muscle that could be depleted. ...