As the media/communication/intellectual discourse landscape changes rapidly beneath our feet in response to the internet revolution, it’s great to see innovative new projects come to life that seek to enrich and elevate our conversation. Nautilus is one such effort. It’s a magazine — I have held the printed copy in my hand — but also a website and a multimedia effort. The focus is on Big Ideas within science and philosophy. News, essays, blogs, videos, graphics. Should be fun. I’m on the Board of Advisors, but to be honest I haven’t given that much advice as yet.
Every month there will be an issue focused loosely on a single theme. This month is human uniqueness (pro and con). Check out Amos Zeeberg’s nice graphical illustration of how our changing view of the universe has granted we human beings an ever-smaller slice of the cosmological pie.
Sean, you could advise them that a blog without a feed is … well … infuriating actually.
I second John Gordon’s comment. They’ll get me there a lot more often if I can add them to my feed list.
Hmm… you’re on the Board of Advisors of this Templeton-funded magazine?
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@ JG & SAP : They say they’re working on it…
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You know how windows tried to really spice up windows 8 by focusing solely on the graphic design of the interface? Well, it turns out windows 8 absolutely blows. The attempt to make it look hip and new age makes it ridiculously confusing and sloppy when you try to use it. People like things to line up because it makes it easier to absorb as much information in the shortest amount of time possible. All software designers take note; books have relied on the same general print format for hundreds of years because that’s what we got familiar with, and it’s how we learned to absorb that information.
Hi. I’m the digital editor of Nautilus and the writer of the illustrated piece Sean mentioned. I apologize for the lack of an RSS feed. There were some, shall we say, compromises involved with the launch of the site. As Dr. Ant says, we are working on it, and the feed should be released in a few weeks. We’ll announce the feed on Twitter, Facebook, and G+ when it’s ready (and probably also on the feed itself, though won’t do much good before anyone sees it).
Sean, I was surprised and dismayed that you are sitting on the board of a Templeton funded (front?) group.
Sean, I thought you’d publicly disassociated yourself from Templeton. Were you unaware that they fund this magazine?
I am very sorry I haven’t noticed that Nautilus is funded by an anti-science religious organization, Templeton Foundation, until now. They are on record for trying to insert among what we know ideas we now know are wrong.
Our inflationary zero energy universe, which recently both WMAP 9 year and Planck 4 year data releases tested as inflationary beyond reasonable doubt, can’t be a result of anything but a spontanous process according to thermodynamics or it would have shown in the CMB.
And the recent LHC Higgs field completion of the standard particle models up to 100s of GeV protects the biological EM sector of a few eV from new physics or that too would have shown in the high precision QED models. Sure, the haphazard cosmic ray hit or perhaps the minuscule heating of a dark matter particle colliding with a nucleus once in a long while. If it isn’t a biochemical mechanism, forget about it – no intercessory prayers, no souls, no eternal life, no rebirths, no homeopathy, no astrology.
I’m heading over there to see if I can undo the damage my comments the last week has done by supporting that ghastly site.
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I for one thought the first issue was nicely done, and appreciate Sean pointing it out. Some good popular science articles on important topics in cognitive psych/neurobiology. I’ll probably keep coming here for cutting edge physics, but there’s more to curiosity than physics…
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