the supernatural

Did I really need to learn How To Be Here, urgently, right now? The book’s publisher had sent me not one advance reading copy, but three. A sign from the universe? I decided to read the book to find…

We are living in the end times—or at least, in the post-“Lemonade” era. On April 23, Beyoncé released an hour-long visual album that serves up a tapestry of the experiences of Black women, including…

The hottest news in animal life right now is a story about “religious” chimpanzees. A group of researchers believes that chimps may be engaging in ritualistic, but seemingly purposeless, stone…

When scientists first mapped the human genome in 2000, public figures celebrated the milestone in the language of human unity. “In genetic terms, all human beings, regardless of race, are more than 99…

Could we be living in a simulation created by an advanced civilization? Philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that it’s possible, at least in theory, to create a program in which artificially conscious…

I have a theory: New Year’s resolutions have nothing to do with the turn of the calendar year. There’s a much stronger force at play: that, every December, America collectively visits its family…

It has now been almost two weeks since the press conference in Guizhou, China announcing that a recurring radio broadcast which appeared to be coming from NGC 6809 (a globular cluster located in the…

Perhaps, like me, you’re the right age and religious sensibility to have worn a WWJD bracelet in the 1990s. I got mine at the United Church of Christ summer camp where I worked for two summers during…

Ridley Scott’s The Martian just had a massive $55 million opening weekend. Matt Damon stars as Mark Watney, a stranded astronaut whose limited supplies are made up for by an abundance of wit and…

Ross Douthat’s latest column offers proof of Godwin’s law in the headline—and goes downhill from there. And the headline (a sly reference to The Producers’ “Springtime for Hitler”) isn’t even the…