The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “science”

How Our Story Ends: Richard Powers on Rewriting Earth’s Future History
How Our Story Ends: Richard Powers on Rewriting Earth’s Future History

Reawakening to the rapture and responsibility of “a changing world that by every calculation ought never to have been.”

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The Seamstress Who Solved the Ancient Mystery of the Argonaut, Pioneered the Aquarium, and Laid the Groundwork for the Study of Octopus Intelligence
The Seamstress Who Solved the Ancient Mystery of the Argonaut, Pioneered the Aquarium, and Laid the Groundwork for the Study of Octopus Intelligence

“I armed myself with patience and courage, and only after several months managed to dissolve my doubts and see my research crowned with happy confirmation.”

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Victorian Instagram: The 19th Century’s Most Adorable Natural History Illustrations of Monkeys, Lemurs, and Other Tree-Dwelling Mammals
Victorian Instagram: The 19th Century’s Most Adorable Natural History Illustrations of Monkeys, Lemurs, and Other Tree-Dwelling Mammals

A furry celebration of the dazzling variousness of this world.

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What America Means: Poet Muriel Rukeyser on the Source of Character and Creativity
What America Means: Poet Muriel Rukeyser on the Source of Character and Creativity

“Creation is a delicate and experimental thing… Knowledge and effective action here become one gesture; the gesture of understanding the world and changing it.”

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The Boltzmann Brain Paradox: An Animated Thought Experiment About the Hallucination of Reality
The Boltzmann Brain Paradox: An Animated Thought Experiment About the Hallucination of Reality

A pleasingly disorienting foray into the fundamental perplexity of life.

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Love, Music, Solitude, and How to Be More Alive: The Best of The Marginalian 2022
Love, Music, Solitude, and How to Be More Alive: The Best of The Marginalian 2022

From Emily Dickinson to Bruce Springsteen, by way of galaxies and gardening.

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Symbiosis and the Unself: Evolutionary Biologist Lynn Margulis on How Interbeing Shapes Life on Earth
Symbiosis and the Unself: Evolutionary Biologist Lynn Margulis on How Interbeing Shapes Life on Earth

“Living beings defy neat definition… We abide in a symbiotic world.”

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What Is Time: 200 Years of Ravishing Reflections, from Borges to Nina Simone
What Is Time: 200 Years of Ravishing Reflections, from Borges to Nina Simone

“The moment is not properly an atom of time but an atom of eternity.”

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Favorite Books of 2022
Favorite Books of 2022

From Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music.

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Trees, Rivers, and the Exquisite Interdependence of Life: Artist Meredith Nemirov’s Consummate Map Paintings
Trees, Rivers, and the Exquisite Interdependence of Life: Artist Meredith Nemirov’s Consummate Map Paintings

“To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.”

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