Is America Ready for a Global Pandemic?

The epidemics of the early 21st century revealed a world unprepared, even as the risks continue to multiply. Much worse is coming.

Has the quest for top-down unification of physics stalled?

After the success of the Standard Model, experiments have stopped answering to grand theories. Is particle physics in crisis?

Brains May Teeter Near Their Tipping Point

In a renewed attempt at a grand unified theory of brain function, physicists now argue that brains optimize performance by staying near — though not exactly at — the critical point between two phases.

Freeman Dyson: “I kept quiet for 30 years, maybe it’s time to speak.”

One of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, Freeman Dyson, is as much known for his significant contribution to science as he is for courting controversy throughout his life. Over six decades, he built a body of work that sits alongside some of the most renowned physicists, mathematicians, and intellectuals of our time.

Explainer: How scientists estimate climate sensitivity

The sensitivity of the Earth’s climate to increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration is a question that sits at the heart of climate science.

Joe and the Whale (via Nature Briefing)

Joe Howlett gave his life to save an animal that may already be past the point of no return. After ten centuries of annihilation, is there any way to undo the damage done?

Iran’s ancient engineering marvel

Dating back around 3,000 years, the qanat is an ingenious and sustainable solution to Iran’s dearth of easily accessible water.

The bizarre story of Australia’s floating hotel and its 14,000km round journey to North Korea

Australia was once home to the world’s first floating hotel, and over the past 30 years it’s been on a wild ride, from Singapore to the Great Barrier Reef — and eventually to North Korea.

The Boys From the Banlieues

The vast sprawl of suburbs and satellite towns around Paris, disdained by some as a breeding ground for crime and terrorism, is home to the greatest pool of soccer talent in Europe.

What Makes a Baseball Team Great?

Inside the wide-ranging search—led by economists and psychologists—for the elixir that turns good squads into great ones

Note: “10 stories to read this weekend” is a weekly feature of this blog. New issues are published every Friday at 22:00 IST / 16:30 GMT

Inside the battle against Russian influence at FIFA

Russia’s World Cup caps a decade of unrelenting efforts to speed that nation’s return to sporting superiority, employing some of the same tactics Vladimir Putin has used in politics.

The Politics of Now: The Last World Cup

The evidence for the premise that international sport spreads peace and goodwill has always been fairly thin: every major tournament is dressed up that way but the legacy is more often mothballed stadiums and simmering resentment, as was the case after South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014. Rarely, though, has a regime so brazenly signalled its indifference to the niceties of international sport, which require at least the pretence that bad behaviour gets put on hold. As the saying goes, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, and this is the currency in which Fifa likes to trade. But Putin isn’t having any of it. He seems to have treated the award of the tournament as a licence to try his luck.

How Not to Scout for Soccer Talent

Two new books raise interesting questions about the ethics and effectiveness of the sport’s selection system, with its early and intense winnowing process for aspiring players.

Coder-Physicists Are Simulating the Universe to Unlock Its Secrets

Computer simulations have become so accurate that cosmologists can now use them to study dark matter, supermassive black holes and other mysteries of the real evolving cosmos.

In her short life, mathematician Emmy Noether changed the face of physics

Noether linked two important concepts in physics: conservation laws and symmetries

Digging for Clues to an Ancient Extinction — and the Planet’s Future

If volcano-driven climate change was behind the Permian-Triassic land extinction, scientists might learn something crucial about our own fate.

The Endling: Watching a Species Vanish in Real Time

On the frontlines of extinction in the Gulf of California, where the vaquita faces its final days.

China Is Genetically Engineering Monkeys With Brain Disorders

A visit to a facility in Guangdong province, where researchers are tinkering with monkey brains in order to understand the most severe forms of autism

The Wounds of the Drone Warrior

Even soldiers who fight wars from a safe distance have found themselves traumatized. Could their injuries be moral ones?

The North Korean Axe Murders That Almost Started a War

In 1976, two American soldiers were axed to death over a poplar tree. What came next threatened to change the course of history.

Note: “10 stories to read this weekend” is a weekly feature of this blog. New issues are published every Friday at 22:00 IST / 16:30 GMT