Biology | Neuroscience
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Chapter one
Dark Dream
Biology | Archaeology
The Curious Case of the Bog Bodies
Why do so many corpses found in Europe’s peat bogs show signs of violent death?
Biology | Psychology
Postcards From the Edge of Consciousness
Sensory deprivation goes from CIA torture manuals to a yoga studio near you.
Numbers | Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman
What kind of world is our code creating?
Chapter two
Dark Forms
Culture | Fine Art
The Reinvention of Black
As the means of creating the color black have changed, so have the subjects it represents.
Biology | Neuroscience
The Neuron’s Secret Partner
Glial cells are the brain’s architects, doctors, police, janitors, and gardeners.
Matter | Chemistry
The Executioner We Can’t Live Without
You’re dead meat without special molecules that kill rotten proteins.
Biology | Environment
The Hidden Warning of Fall Colors
Did autumn reds and yellows evolve to repel insects?
Chapter three
Dark Beginning
Ideas | Psychology
Read the Lost Dream Journal of the Man Who Discovered Neurons
An exclusive look at the dreams Santiago Ramon y Cajal recorded to prove Freud was wrong.
Biology | Animals
Big Data Is for the Birds
The mysteries of avian migration at night are being solved with computational power.
Biology | Genetics
This Gender Mystery Starts Nine Months Before Birth
The ratio of boys to girls at conception has been misunderstood for centuries.
Ideas | Philosophy
Parenthood, the Great Moral Gamble
The decision to have a child is more ethically uncertain than you might realize.
Chapter four
Dark Art
Matter | Chemistry
The Dawn of Life in a $5 Toaster Oven
How a homemade piece of lab equipment is recreating chemical evolution on early Earth.
Culture | Psychology
Ingenious: Nicholas Epley
Can we ever really know another person?
Matter | Astronomy
Falling in Love With the Dark
One astronomer has taken to U.S. National Parks to rekindle an old romance.
Ideas | Psychology
Why We Can’t Get Over Ourselves
Exposing the reasons we fail to understand the minds of others.
Culture | Food
What to Eat in Atlantis
Five menus for five mythical cities.
Related Facts So Romantic
“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” —Jules Verne
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Ideas
A Letter To Our Readers
Dear Nautilus reader,With your help, we’ve had an amazing first two years: Two National Magazine Awards, a Webby for best science website, and more than a dozen other awards. Nearly…
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Biology
How Utter Darkness Could Heal Lazy Eye
The email from a professor offered an unusual spring break adventure: Come spend five days in complete darkness. To Morgan Williams, then a sophomore at Swarthmore College and a psychology…
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Matter
The Supervolcano Under Yellowstone is Alive and Kicking
The wind shifts. The stench of rotten eggs makes it nearly impossible to breathe and the hot fog clouds my view. I hold my breath and close my eyes, imagining the fog growing thicker, crushing…
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Biology
This Legendary Deep-Sea Fish Sighting Continues to be Debated After 60 Years
Once, while fishing for salmon, I hooked a clam. It fought bravely, and when I finally pulled it from the water I could see that I hadn’t just snagged it, as you might expect, but that…
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