Does technological advancement need a place to go? ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
November 17, 2025—A spy agency releases Amelia Earhart records, a Leonids meteor-shower guide and Scientific American's new editor in chief talks about an e-mail time machine. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | Image of two gold beams colliding at near the speed of light June 14, 2000. The collision took place at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) run by Brookhaven National Laboratory in Brookhaven, NY. Getty Images | | - Scientists have measured for the first time the temperature of quark-gluon plasma, a bizarre state of matter that mimics the cosmos as it was just after the big bang. How hot was it? Oh, just 3.3 trillion degrees Celsius. | 2 min read
- The U.S. Director of National Intelligence released long-promised records related to vanished pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart. More records are promised on a rolling basis. | 1 min read
- The Leonid meteor shower is peaking under relatively dark skies, thanks to a thin crescent moon. Here's how to watch this fireball-filled event. | 2 min read
- The same brain areas that help us map physical space aid us in charting social connections. Social success depends not just on who you know but also on how well you understand the invisible architecture of your social world. | 4 min read
- City-dwelling raccoons are showing early signs of domestication. The telltale feature is the evolution of a shorter snout, as seen in our pets and other domesticated animals. | 3 min read
| | Twenty years ago, as a reporter for Forbes.com, David Ewalt launched a special project: an e-mail time capsule. His team built a tool for the website that allowed users to write themselves a message and choose whether they wanted to receive it in one, three, five, 10 or 20 years. They received hundreds of thousands of submissions from readers. And then the real work began: How to store messages digitally for 20 years? David is now the new editor in chief of Scientific American, and I recommend his compelling account of how the time capsule project survived until today (as we speak, nearly 18,000 people have received an e-mail from a different kind of old friend—their own past self). I sat down with David and asked him a few questions about the legacy of this project. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor AG: You tell the story of how this cool project came to be. One thing I loved that you said was that human relationships, not technology, made such a project possible. How true do you think that maxim will be in the coming years as more and more technology integrates into our lives?
DE: Twenty years ago high-tech tools were uncommon in our daily lives. Now they're everywhere, and we struggle to connect in-person with friends. I think in the future technology will be a commodity, and in-person human relationships will be valuable and rare.
AG: How was the original time capsule project different (or not) in your mind, compared to some other work you've done throughout your career?
DE: In 2005 the Internet was still wild and new, and even conservative business magazines were willing to do strange things like building email time capsules. Media has gotten a lot less weird since then. (But keep your eyes on this space! We're like mad scientists here at SciAm.)
AG: What do you think readers will find appealing about messages from the past and to the future?
DE: It's a kind of time travel! Wouldn't we all like to jump in the TARDIS or Doc Brown's Delorean and go have a conversation with our younger or older selves?
AG: If you could talk to your future self, say in another 10 to 20 years, what do you think you'd tell him about living during this time?
DE: Our society is deeply divided, but I think we'd all agree we're glad there's a future to talk to at all! Listen to today's Science Quickly podcast to hear David's reflections on the time capsule project. In honor of the time capsule project, we've published a collection of articles about communicating with the future, the preservation of information, and more: | | | | How to Send a Message to Future Civilizations | 11 min read | | | Does the Universe Keep Secrets? Inside the Black Hole Information Paradox | 5 min read | | | The Mind-Bending Challenge of Warning Future Humans about Nuclear Waste | 10 min read | | | | | |
- UK minister unveils funded plan to phase out the use of animals in science through greater use of AI. | The Guardian
- Centuries of Black Death misinformation started with a 14th century poem, a trickster tale that was misread as fact. | Popular Science
- We analyzed 47,000 ChatGPT conversations to identify common topics discussed by users and patterns in the chatbot's responses. Here's what people really use it for. | The Washington Post
| | - Three water pumps, A, B and C, can be used to fill a pool. Pump A can fill the pool in two hours, pump B takes three hours, and pump C takes six hours. How long does it take for the pool to fill if you use all three pumps at the same time? Click here for the solution.
| | —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor
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