Today marks one month since the dramatic U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president, and brought him to New York City to face federal drug trafficking charges. While many details about the operation are clearer now than they were in the immediate aftermath, it remains uncertain how the sudden change in… Continue reading Venezuela After Maduro: Q&A with RAND Experts
Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard?
This brain drain appears to be real. I spoke to Jared Kaplan, co-founder of Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude. He was a physicist the last time we spoke. As a grad student at Harvard in the 2000s, he worked with the renowned theorist Nima Arkani-Hamed to open up the new directions in amplitude… Continue reading Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard?
RFK, Jr.–Backed Lyme Disease Conspiracy Theory May Be Probed under New Bill
December 16, 2025 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm RFK, Jr.–Backed Lyme Disease Conspiracy Theory May Be Probed under New Bill President Donald Trump is expected to sign a defense bill this week that orders an investigation into whether the U.S. military bioengineered Lyme disease By Claire Cameron edited by Andrea Thompson Oleg… Continue reading RFK, Jr.–Backed Lyme Disease Conspiracy Theory May Be Probed under New Bill
The Israel-Iran Détente Won’t Last
If there is a single through line of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy, it has been his hard-line stance on Iran. For decades, he has been warning of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons in the hands of the ayatollahs. Understandably, he sees a regime whose refrain is “death to Israel” and that… Continue reading The Israel-Iran Détente Won’t Last
Networks Hold the Key to a Decades-Old Problem About Waves
By the 1970s, mathematicians had figured out that embedded within the structure of Cayley graphs is information about the Fourier series from Chowla’s problem. A Cayley graph’s eigenvalues, it turns out, correspond exactly to different values that the cosine sum can have. The smallest eigenvalue therefore tells you how low the cosine sum can get.… Continue reading Networks Hold the Key to a Decades-Old Problem About Waves
China Could Play Spoiler in Venezuela’s Debt Restructuring
U.S. officials have framed Venezuela’s post-Maduro path as a three-step process: stabilization, recovery, then political transition, with early emphasis on restoring oil exports. But oil production alone cannot stabilize Venezuela. Decades of hyperinflation, collapsing public services, and the emigration of nearly 8 million people have left the country with acute macroeconomic and humanitarian challenges. Oil… Continue reading China Could Play Spoiler in Venezuela’s Debt Restructuring
Once Thought To Support Neurons, Astrocytes Turn Out To Be in Charge
The human brain is a vast network of billions of neurons. By exchanging signals to depress or excite each other, they generate patterns that ripple across the brain up to 1,000 times per second. For more than a century, that dizzyingly complex neuronal code was thought to be the sole arbiter of perception, thought, emotion,… Continue reading Once Thought To Support Neurons, Astrocytes Turn Out To Be in Charge
Ukraine Will Be the Business Opportunity of the Decade
President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky met in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday to discuss an end to Russia’s war. No concrete plans were drawn up, but both leaders emerged optimistic about their progress. Attention should now turn to what peace might bring—not just for security, but for business. When the fighting stops,… Continue reading Ukraine Will Be the Business Opportunity of the Decade
Hitler’s Marriage (and More Weird Questions)
Podcast: Download MYS402: It’s a fifth Friday, so Jimmy Akin is answering weird questions from Catholic Answers listeners, about topics like Hitler’s marriage in the Fuhrerbunker; getting married on a desert island; what demons can posses; how salvation would work in a multiverse; and more. Get all new episodes automatically and for free: Follow by… Continue reading Hitler’s Marriage (and More Weird Questions)
Monster Neutrino Could Be a Messenger of Ancient Black Holes
Nearly three years ago, a particle from space slammed into the Mediterranean Sea and lit up the partially complete Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope (KM3NET) detector off the coast of Sicily. The particle was a neutrino, a fundamental component of matter commonly known for its ability to slip through other matter unnoticed. The IceCube observatory in… Continue reading Monster Neutrino Could Be a Messenger of Ancient Black Holes