We spend a lot of time here on Eons looking backwards into deep time, visiting ancient chapters of our planet’s history. But this time, we’re taking a look towards the deep future. After all, the story is far from over.

Predictive analytics uses math and historical data to make predictions about the future. It’s used in commerce, sports, politics, social media and tons of other places. And as it turns out, people have been using math to predict people’s...

Of all Shakespeare’s plays, perhaps none is stranger than “Macbeth”— a parable on power rife with supernatural elements. But according to texts from the 11th century, this tragedy has its roots in reality. What’s more, other accounts...

As of 2022, humans have deforested 17% of the Amazon, and scientists warn that we may be approaching a tipping point. It’s like removing bricks from a house: take a few and the house remains standing; remove too many and the whole thing...

Parallel Universes - Many Worlds

A couple has been considering getting engaged, but they’re worried about divorce statistics. An AI-based model was just released that can predict your likelihood of divorce with 95% accuracy. The only catch is the model doesn’t offer any...

No one truly understands AI, not even experts, says Helen Toner, an AI policy researcher and former board member of OpenAI. But that doesn't mean we can't govern it. She shows how we can make smart policies to regulate this technology...

Wouldn't it be nice if psychiatrists could stick patients with depression in an EEG and find out what antidepressant, like an SSRI, might be best for them, eliminating months of trial and error? A new study shows how that might be coming...

A majority of modern astronauts experience any one of a suite of symptoms scientists collectively call Space Motion Sickness, or SMS. But despite knowing about it for nearly as long as humans have gone into space, we still don't know...

Physicists have a long history of sticking our noses where they don’t belong - and one of our favorite places to step beyond our expertise is the question of consciousness and free will. Sometimes our musings are insightful, sometimes...

Hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones are Earth’s most powerful storms, capable of unleashing destruction and death on coastal areas worldwide. As climate change warms Earth’s oceans, we face more risk of storms rapidly...

What can we make of a design that shows up over and over in disparate cultures throughout history? Theorist Terry Moore explores "Penrose tiling" -- two shapes that fit together in infinite combinations without ever repeating -- and...

Decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky has a simple message: superintelligent AI could probably kill us all. So the question becomes: Is it possible to build powerful artificial minds that are obedient, even benevolent? In a fiery talk,...

There are two types of rain, and one of them is almost impossible to forecast.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a blood test that can identify pregnant women at severe risk for preeclampsia, a high blood pressure disorder that can develop during pregnancy and is a leading cause of maternal death...

Hank brings us breaking news from a team of geneticists working on figuring out what all that "junk DNA" in the human genome really is - turns out it's not junk after all.

Hank profiles this year's Nobel laureates in science, whose achievements have helped us understand questions as small as how our cells transport materials, and as big as why matter exists at all.

This week, a group of researchers use nuclear fallout to figure out how old liver cells are, while another gets one step closer to predicting volcanic eruptions.

Hank talks about why it is so difficult for scientists to predict earthquakes in the short term.

GPS devices aren't just for keeping you from driving into a lake. They're also helping lots of scientists in unexpected ways.

This week, scientists have managed to make tear gland organoids that cry, and have also found a bunch of new genes involved in eye color!

Hank tells us about the awesomeness of the periodic table and the genius of the man who invented it.

Living in space is pretty different from living on Earth, and not just because people can float around! Today, Jessi and Sam the Bat learn about the weird ways things like fire and water behave when they are in space.

In the early 20th century, Alfred Wegener's theory of Continental Drift laid the foundation for our modern theory of plate tectonics. And today we know something even more exciting: Pangea was only the latest in a long lineage of...