If you’ve ever gazed up at a dark and clear night sky, you might feel the same thing that I do each and every time: a feeling that it’s beckoning us and drawing us in to explore and wonder what’s out there in the great abyss of space. Each point of distant, twinkling light isn’t just a star in its own right, but also a chance: for planets, for biochemistry, and for life. If we really allow our imaginations to run wild, we might even imagine the existence of something better than mere life, such as the existence of intelligent, self-aware, and technologically advanced civilizations. But that b ..read more

Behind most every tech billionaire is a sci-fi novel they read as a teenager. For Bill Gates it was Stranger in a Strange Land, the 1960s epic detailing the culture clashes that arise when a Martian visits Earth. Google’s Sergey Brin has said it was Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, the cyberpunk classic about hackers and computer viruses set in an Orwellian Los Angeles. Jeff Bezos cites Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, which unreel in an utopian society of humanoids and artificial intelligences, often orchestrated by “Minds,” a powerful AI. Elon Musk named three of SpaceX ..read more

It was a long shot to trust the northern New England weather in early April, especially after a strange winter of warm spells followed by massive snowstorms. But hundreds of thousands of people gambled, or trusted their weather apps, and, as the atmospheric gods would have it, we were all in for a spectacular celestial treat. Clear blue skies, low humidity, great visibility. I drove for about 2.5 hours from Hanover to the north of New Hampshire with my two sons to an iconic mountain outcrop called Dixville Notch, part of a state park. There, we were to hike up for under a mile to reach Table ..read more

When it comes to the Universe, there are some things we can be confident are out there based on what we observe. We know that the Universe was hotter, denser, and more uniform in the distant past. We know that the stars and galaxies in the Universe have grown up and evolved as the Universe has aged. We know that gravitation has formed the large-scale structure in the Universe, and that structure has grown more complex over time. And we also know how much normal matter, altogether, is present in the Universe, and that it isn’t sufficient to explain the full suite of the gravitational effects t ..read more

Promising personalized cancer vaccines were a recurring theme at the American Association for Cancer Research’s (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, earlier this month. A multitude of companies are pushing forward with shots designed to help the immune system fight patients’ specific tumors. Personalized cancer vaccines: Cancer cells are covered in mutated proteins, called “neoantigens,” that are not found on healthy cells. Personalized cancer vaccines train the immune system to recognize a patient’s unique neoantigens and then find and destroy the cancer cells. Because research ..read more

In 1796, President George Washington lambasted political parties for allowing “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” to “subvert the power of the people.” His indictment seems brutally timely today, just a few months after 147 Republican US congress members publicly challenged the results of a free and fair general election. But even long before then, many Americans shared Washington’s concern. The popularity of parties is at a nadir, with both the Democratic and Republican parties widely condemned as not only unrepresentative but also hopelessly corrupt and hijacked by elites. Indeed, a ..read more

Using lasers and metal powder, Australian scientists have created a super strong, super lightweight new “metamaterial” — but they got the idea for this sci fi-sounding creation from plants. The challenge: Materials that are strong yet lightweight, such as carbon fiber and graphene, are used to make everything from medical implants to airships, and developing ones with ever greater “strength-to-weight ratios” is the goal of many material scientists. In pursuit of that goal, some have turned to nature, looking for ways to replicate in metal the hollow lattice structures, like tho ..read more

At roughly 11:19 a.m. on April 20, 1999, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold emerged from their vehicles in the parking lots of Columbine High School. Clad in black trench coats, they started strolling toward the school entrance. Klebold lobbed a pipe bomb. Then the duo brandished guns and started shooting. Armed with a TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol, two shotguns, a carbine, as well as dozens of pipe bombs and mounds of ammunition in a bag they were lugging, the two were out to kill hundreds of their classmates. Forty-nine minutes later, Harris and Klebold were dead from self ..read more

I have a friend at work; she’s kind of a friend, but only ever a “work friend.” We have lunch together and get along, but nothing more. Lately, she’s started to spend our lunch breaks ‘trauma dumping’ on me. I don’t mind venting or offloading, but this is more than that. It’s too much. It makes me feel uncomfortable, and I find I don’t want to eat with her anymore. Is she wrong to dump trauma on me?” — Lisa, London Friendships are complicated. In some ways, the term “friend” is such a sprawling, overused word that it’s now become pointless. We have work friends, school friends, home friends ..read more

The quest to build a robust pipeline of high-potential leadership talent is increasingly urgent as the challenges facing organizations gain in complexity and speed. However, the current leadership gap illustrates how difficult that quest can be.  One crucial question must be addressed at the outset: What differentiates high-potential leadership talent from high-performing professionals more generally? Both are essential to an organization’s success, but each brings unique capabilities.  Too often, high-potential leaders are identified by “I know it when I see it.” Not only does this ..read more