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Finding: the virtual universe in video

  The science journal Nature released an extraordinary video this week. It’s of a computer model called Illustris, which aims to show the creation of the universe. An excerpt of the Nature report: “Mark Vogelsberger, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and his colleagues created a model of the Universe that follows the evolution of both visible and dark matter starting just 12 million years after the Big Bang (see video). While previous models have either been small and detailed or large and coarse, this simulation covers a region of space big enough to be representative of

On China’s dangerous assertiveness — Manthorpe

Backed by its arsenal of modern ships, submarines, warplanes and missiles, Beijing has become increasingly assertive over its territorial disputes with its neighbours,  writes International Affairs analyst Jonathan Manthorpe. The most recent — and most dangerous — case is in the South China Sea, an area of many territorial disputes including between China and Vietnam. An excerpt of Manthorpe’s column: The Chinese government seems determined to provoke a military clash with its neighbours over disputed ownership of islands and conflicting maritime boundaries. This week’s clashes between Vietnamese naval and coast guard vessels, and Chinese ships defending a deep-sea oil rig Beijing’s

On arming North Korea with nuclear weapons and “psychopathic violence”

North Korea is reportedly preparing for an underground bomb explosion at its Punggye-ri testing site, and also to test an inter-continental ballistic missile at its Sohae launch site. And amid rising tensions, there is no international consensus on a response. The country’s leader, writes International Affairs analyst Jonathan Manthorpe, “has shown a capacity for psychopathic violence that is unsettling in a man who, quite apart from his quest for nuclear weapons, already possesses conventional forces capable of flattening South Korea and much of Japan.” An excerpt of Manthorpe’s new column: If North Korea’s young and unpredictable leader Kim Jong-un nursed

Privacy Tools: Encrypt What You Can

  In the course of writing her book, Dragnet Nation, Julia Angwin tried various strategies to protect her privacy. In this series of book excerpts and adaptations, she distills the lessons from her privacy experiments into tips for readers. by Julia Angwin, ProPublica Ever since Edward Snowden revealed the inner secrets of the NSA, he has been urging Americans to use encryption to protect themselves from rampant spying. “Encryption does work,” Snowden said, via a remote connection at the SXSW tech conference. “It is a defense against the dark arts for the digital realm.” ProPublica has written about the NSA’s

The Legend at 50: Northern Dancer and a Doping Mystery

The Kentucky Derby of 1964, run 50 years ago this weekend, would in some ways turn out to be one of the most important and telling in horseracing history, its real and symbolic impact felt a half-century later throughout a sport roiled by doping scandals, writes Ryan Goldberg for ProPublica, in a story published in F&O’s Think-Magazine section. It sealed the reputation of Northern Dancer, one of the most iconic stallions of the 20th century, whose bloodlines today span the globe. And much of all that history turned on the outcome of one race, the length of a neck — and

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