The New Yorker23 hours agoThe Highest Tree House in the Amazonverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Allison KeeleyIn 2023, conservationists and carpenters converged on Peru to build luxury accommodations in the rain-forest canopy. Every day, empty logging trucks rumble into Puerto Lucerna, a small outpost on Peru’s Las Piedras River, which snakes through the lush Amazon rain forest. There, workers load them up …
The New YorkerA Guide to the Total Solar Eclipseverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Rivka GalchenEclipses dazzled the ancient world. Now that we understand them better, they may be even more miraculous. On April 8th, the moon will partly and then entirely block out the sun. The total eclipse will be visible to those in a hundred-and-fifteen-mile-wide sash, called the path of totality, slung …
The New YorkerBlack Holes Are Even Weirder Than You Imaginedverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Rivka GalchenIt’s now thought that they could illuminate fundamental questions in physics, settle questions about Einstein’s theories, and even help explain the universe. Black holes are, of course, awesome. But, for scientists, they are more awesome. If a rainbow is marvellous, then understanding how all the …
The New YorkerThe Magic of Bird Brainsverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Ben CrairCrows are smart enough to pick up trash. Why won’t they? At around 9 A.M. every weekday, a crow caws in the Jardin des Plantes, the oldest botanical garden in Paris. The sound is a warning to every other crow: Frédéric Jiguet, a tall ornithologist whose dark hair is graying around the ears, has shown …
The New YorkerA New Era of Moon Exploration Is Upon Usverified_publisherThe New Yorker - David W. BrownOn February 22nd, a robotic lander named Odysseus touched down on the sun-washed highlands near the south pole of the moon. It was the first time since the Apollo 17 mission, fifty-two years ago, that an American spacecraft had gracefully landed on the lunar surface. And yet NASA hadn’t designed or …
The New YorkerThinking About A.I. with Stanisław Lemverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Rivka GalchenThe science-fiction writer didn’t live to see ChatGPT, but he foresaw so much of its promise and peril. “We are going to speak of the future,” the Polish writer Stanisław Lem wrote, in “Summa Technologiae,” from 1964, a series of essays, mostly on humanity and the evolution of technology. “Yet isn’t …
