Are We Doomed?

Just a Minor Sun Explosion

In 1859, the sky turned blood-red, telegraph machines sparked and chattered, and some of their batteries exploded. Then humanity responded by building a civilization that

The Everything Vaccine

From mild runny noses to savage pandemics, viruses and other pathogens have tormented humans for all of history. We are locked in a perpetual race against tiny shapeshift

What Ever Happened to the Ozone Hole?

A dark blue wound across the bottom of the world — that’s what NASA images showed in the 1980s. It was a hole in the ozone layer, eight million square miles across. Human

More Nukes!

The best defense against nuclear weapons is nuclear weapons, according to the logic of deterrence. It has guided US defense policy for nearly 80 years. So, shouldn’t more

Did AI Just Escape?

A bizarre cyberattack on an AI company, it was revealed last week, came from an AI. An autonomous “agent” from OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT) slipped its confines, reached the

Now I'm Scared of Cyborgs

For more than a century, science fiction has imagined cyborgs: humans fused with machines to outrun the limits of the body. They show up in Edgar Allan Poe, in the gleami

We Are Losing the Moon

The moon is drifting away. What does it mean? What do we do? With help from a poet, a space security expert, and the former chief scientist of NASA, Ben Bradford explores

Asteroids! The Doom We're Best At

You probably knew an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, but it was so much worse than that. Asteroids and other space rocks have been the most destructive forces ever to h

Our Vision of the Post-Apocalypse Is Wrong

What would it take to survive after "the end of the world?" A whole culture of prepping often focuses on a familiar fantasy: grab the gear, flee the city, defend the bunk

Is Geoengineering A Good Idea?

The planet is heating up, every plan to stop it has fallen short, and growing group of scientists has started to ask a stranger question: what if we grabbed the thermosta

The True AI Threat is People

Imagine a friendly assistant that can help you build a bioweapon. Or a chatbot in the nuclear weapons chain, cheerfully hallucinating an attack. AI national security expe

Is the World Ending or Are We Just Online?

Are we living through the end times or the best moment in human history? Novelist and internet veteran Jason Pargin argues you have spent your life inside a “literal reve

Are We Going the Way of the Roman Empire?

Historically, societies fall. Civilizations collapse. But is that what’s happening now in the United States? With the help of historians, a former CIA-funded researcher o

We Try and Kill the Internet

The internet is how you get your news, your paycheck, your groceries, your banking, and    sometimes your drinking water. Humanity has quietly handed over the keys to civ

Past Dooms That Didn't Arrive

People have been predicting the end of the world forever. They’ve always been wrong. Maybe we’re wrong today, too. So, we’re looking back at three past dooms predicted

How To Survive a Nuclear War

The air raid sirens scream (actually, they don’t work anymore). An emergency alert goes out, because … nuclear missiles are in-bound. It’s happening! How do we survive

How Do You Kill a Mosquito?

Mosquitoes are little jerks. They suck your blood to make more mosquitoes, spread deadly diseases like malaria and dengue, and have killed more humans than any other crea

Supervolcano!

A supervolcano burbles under Yellowstone National Park. Enormous. Real. According to the internet’s most excitable corners, just itching to turn America into charcoal any

Let’s Design the AI That Kills Us All

Maddeningly, even some researchers building artificial intelligence see it as a potential existential threat on par with nuclear war. Ben Bradford follows three simple st

How To Start a Nuclear War

Humanity has repeatedly brought itself to the brink of nuclear war. Which raises a question: if everyone who can launch a nuke knows that could end the world, why does nu