Mr. Mole is trapped indoors, alone. Spring is awakening outside, but he’s confined to his burrow. Birds are twittering, and rabbits are chattering, but he has only himself for company. Sound familiar? Spring—crocuses, daffodils, and hyacinths budding; leaves unfurling; and birds warbling—burst upon...
science - 4 days ago
London, at an hour that made Rosalind glad she’d nicked her brother’s black cloak instead of wearing her scarlet one. The factory alongside her had quit belching smoke for the night, but it would star...
I recited the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” to myself while walking across campus last week. A few hours earlier, I’d cancelled the seminar that I’d been slated to cohost two days later. In a few hours,...
There’s a famous parable about a group of blind men encountering an elephant for the very first time. The first blind man, who had his hand on the elephant’s side, said that it was like an...
Jonathan Monroe disagreed with his PhD supervisor—with respect. They needed to measure a superconducting qubit, a tiny circuit in which current can flow forever. The qubit emits light, which carries i...
On my right sat a quantum engineer. She was facing a melanoma specialist who works at a medical school. Leftward of us sat a networks expert, a flatworm enthusiast, and a condensed-matter theorist. Farther down sat a woman who slices up mouse brains. Welcome to “Coherent Spins in Biology,” a confer...
