The automotive industry, once primarily composed of gas-guzzling belchers and major polluters, has in recent years begun a major trend toward cars that come with a sense of responsibility. Electric […]

Today, longevity is an industry. Influencers sell you diets and supplements, academics write books and stake their reputations on one antiaging strategy or another, and American entrepreneur Bryan Johnson has […]

In cryosleep, the pod signals the process. In science fiction, the pod is never displayed solely as a piece of hardware but rather as the beginning of a new future. […]

Left and right are distinctions as basic as which hand you use to pick up your toothbrush. Basic thought it may seem, that distinction—left versus right, dominant versus nondominant—describes a […]

The nature of dark matter remains a mystery. Almost a century has passed since its discovery, and so far, the quarry has eluded the hunters. It’s not that scientists lack […]

“You’re not actually going into an asteroid field?” In 1980’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, C-3P0, and R2-D2 are fleeing from the Galactic Empire’s […]

Speak, Beast Machine! In 1637, French philosopher René Descartes turned animals into machines. In his Discourse on the Method, he argued that animals are automata—collections of biological levers, hydraulic tissues, […]

Imagine a story set in a future of abundance, with flying cars and brain implants, yet people still casually die of smallpox. Or a tale of interstellar travel where characters […]

Tiny bears . . . in space! In 2007, bears went to space for the first time. Poetically, they did so during the Russian Foton M3 mission. These bears, however, weren’t big, burly […]

Imagine walking into a local coffee shop with a good friend, Gabriela. Gabriela orders a cup of drip and asks the barista to add the cream first to her cup […]

Rebellious speculative fiction gives us works that provide a compelling combination of striking imagery and broad reach that become real-life tools for protestors today. One of these works is 1984, […]

Humans have a gift for wiping out predatory species. Fear and misunderstanding sometimes motivate these decisions, and by the time we realize our mistake, it’s often too late. Those with […]

On the evening of January 7th, 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope to the sky and began viewing the planet Jupiter. He observed a trio of lights near […]

When Two Become One Roughly 2.2 billion years ago, a microscopic blob (an archaeon from the Asgard group) swallowed an even smaller blob (an alphaproteobacterium). This gastronomical mishap is one […]

Scorching temperatures, extreme storms, rising sea levels, and dry barren wastelands—these are the elements commonly depicted in the climate crisis. But this image misses a critical factor that walks hand-in-hand […]

During a 2002 astrobiology conference at NASA’s Ames Research Center, the slogan “follow the water to life” was born. Scientists are still debating whether that should be salty water, freshwater, […]

Human imagination can often be limitless, and when it is allowed to roam, we call it fantasizing. This is something we often take pleasure in—an activity that allows us to […]

The architects of the insect world, termites, demonstrate remarkable construction feats. Astronauts can even see some of their mounds from space. They will also destroy entire houses with quiet feasts, […]

Fighting arenas, entertainment, brawny competitions, zero-G. In this series on fight scenes in the weightlessness of zero-G, the piece described research on movement and martial arts in zero-G, as well […]

Space is not kind to the human body. Bodily fluids don’t benefit from gravity to get pulled down to where they need to go so the face swells. Noses get […]

We get used to what we have. Sometimes what we have is right in front of us, actively acknowledged and purposefully interacted with. Sometimes it’s background noise: useful, even appealing, […]

Almost every cell in your body contains 46 chromosomes, 22 identical pairs (autosomes) and one pair of sex chromosomes. That’s the common story. Sometimes, however, errors in chromosome segregation lead […]

African speculative fiction is a rich and vibrant set of literary works encompassing science fiction, fantasy, and literature with other explicitly speculative elements created by African1 authors. This article explores […]

Honeybees make a surplus of honey. As it turns out, honey is not only sweet and tasty, but also imbued with so much meaning in the English language and beyond: […]

Dream hacking has been a staple of science fiction old and new. In Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, the protagonist, George Orr, discovers that his dreams can alter reality; […]

Hive Minds. Colony Queens. Cells. Drones. Flight. Dances. Stings. Buzzing. Quivering. Pheromones. It’s no wonder that bees take flight in the human imagination. Their appeal in science fiction is grounded […]

There’s a scene in the original Firefly TV series that sticks out to me and probably many others—the infamous strawberry scene from the intended pilot episode, “Serenity.” What is this […]

From the headless ChickieNobs of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake who feel no pain to the Ameglian Major Cow from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who wants to be […]

We still don’t know the true nature of nature. The history of life on Earth is long and, at least to some degree, mysterious. For over three billion years, life […]

Imagine, if you will, a paradise with freely flowing oceans desirable to most life. Then, picture a hellscape inimical to any living thing. Could a world change from one to […]