💡 Discovering the First Other Earths

The latest from Nautilus, this week’s Facts So Romantic, today’s question, and your free story of the day. [View in browser](| [Join Nautilus]( Together with Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here.]( Hello there Nautilus readers, and thanks for being here. Today we have Lisa Kalteneggar’s personal take on discovering the first other Earths, an environmental case for genetically color-coding crops, and some help from Christof Koch on what counts as consciousness. Plus, in this week’s Facts So Romantic—what truly exists for itself, warm ocean ice, and more. Check out your question of the day (on not following advice) and free story (on evolution and Go) below. David Krakauer, the president of the Santa Fe Institute and an eloquent genetics wiz, plays with the idea of evolution as a rich game of strategy. Have a nice day! —Brian Gallagher The latest in Nautilus [ASTRONOMY]( Discovering the First Other Earths Inside the hunt for habitable planets. BY LISA KALTENEGGER Yes, you can get bad coffee in Vienna. [Continue reading→]( Time to Stop Buying Seltzer With the [Drinkmate OmniFizz]( you can make clean, crisp sparkling water from the comfort of your kitchen. That means there’s no wasteful packaging, no harmful shipping emissions, and no more lugging heavy cases home from the store. Best of all, the [Drinkmate OmniFizz]( can carbonate almost any beverage—something other machines can’t do. Cut out the middleman and the waste and get a [Drinkmate OmniFizz]( today. [BUY ON AMAZON]( [TECHNOLOGY]( Color-Coding Crops for Climate Change Novel ways to use gene-editing to make farming more sustainable. BY KATHARINE GAMMON [Continue reading→]( [PHILOSOPHY]( What Counts as Consciousness Neuroscientist Christof Koch on human minds, AI, and bacteria. BY DAN FALK [Continue reading→]( Kiss Dead Batteries Goodbye The [Anker Power Bank]( is small enough to slip in your pocket and [powerful enough]( to charge a laptop and your phone. [BUY ON AMAZON]( FACTS SO ROMANTIC The 5 Best Things We Learned Today What truly exists for itself is your consciousness. When you’re unconscious, you don’t exist for yourself. [Nautilus→]( Exoplanets with extremely deep oceans could exert enough pressure to create a warm yet icy ocean floor. [Nautilus→]( Anthocyanins, which make blueberries blue, can help humans gain resistance to infections and other environmental stressors. [Nautilus→]( Whale codas—pulses of between three and 40 clicks—are so quick that the human ear can miss a rubato. [The New York Times→]( Laurent Ballesta took the first ever photograph of a living coelacanth, a creature once thought to have died out with the dinosaurs. [BBC→]( WE'RE CURIOUS TO KNOW... What reasonable advice are you happy you didn’t follow? Let us know! Reply to this newsletter with your response, briefly explaining your choice, and we’ll reveal the top answers. (This question was inspired by“Discovering the First Other Earths.”]([)]( Top Answers to Our Previous Questions • [On losing consciousness:] I was playing right field during little league baseball practice on a beautiful cloudless day. The batter hit a pop fly really high. I was tracking its trajectory for several seconds, but as I got under it to make the catch, I lost the ball in the blaze of the sun. I raised my opened mitt toward the ball, positioning it over my face as protection, but I must have misjudged its course. The next thing I remember was opening my eyes to see my teammates surrounding me, my back on the grass. I think I remember them saying I was out for about a minute. – Brian Gallagher • [On the prior question about hypnosis:] Long ago, on a straight Colorado highway at night during a ground blizzard, I was driving with my wife and then-infant daughter and could not keep my eyes and mind alert. It wasn't due to lack of rest, or other tiring factors. The blowing snow in my low-beam headlights, moving hypnotically from right to left, was lulling me to sleep. I had to stop and step into the bracing wind to refresh myself. It was still a struggle until we got out of the valley and into winding mountain roads. – Steven J. Your free story this Thursday! EVOLUTION Playing Go with Darwin New research elevates evolution from a tactical process to one of strategic possibility. BY DAVID KRAKAUER In 1938, Yasunari Kawabata, a young journalist in Tokyo, covered the battle between master Honinbo Shusai and apprentice Minoru Kitani for ultimate authority in the board game Go. [Continue reading for free→]( Step into the Void “Somewhere across the plain of imminence, shouting into the void …” That’s singer Nate Hardy from the second track of Microwave’s latest album Let’s Start Degeneracy. Voids—of the emotional sort—are a recurring theme across the album from the cheekily self-described “adult mid-tempo psychedelic contemporary rock band from Atlanta, GA.” It’s fitting then, that Nate has chosen to read [this story]( from one of our most prolific contributors, theoretical cosmologist Paul M. Sutter. Sutter tells us, “This story about voids is deeply personal to me, as voids have always struck a chord with me and been the focus of my scientific research. But there's so much more to the concept of nothingness than just their physical manifestation, and it's beautiful to hear echoes of that search in Nate's narration.” You can now [watch]( or [listen]( to Hardy read Sutter’s story “Why We Need to Study Nothing.” [WATCH]( [LISTEN]( P.S. The Nobel Prize-winning biophysical chemist Manfred Eigen was born on this day in 1927. He suggested that we [understand evolution through the lens of games](. Inspired by the Go-like lattice in Herman Hesse’s uncanny novel, The Glass Bead Game, Eigen and his co-author Ruthild Winkler wrote, “Play is a natural phenomenon that has guided the course of the world from its beginnings. It is evident in the shaping of matter, in the organization of matter into living structures, and in the social behavior of human beings.” Russian Chess grandmaster Boris Spassky, David Krakauer noted, might have been surprised to learn that his assertion, “Chess is like life,” went beyond the simile. Today’s newsletter was written by Brian Gallagher Thanks for reading. [Tell us](mailto:brian.gallagher@nautil.us?subject=&body=) your thoughts on today’s note. Plus, if you find our content valuable, consider [becoming a member]( to support our work, and inspire a friend to sign up for [the Nautilus newsletter](. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( Copyright © 2024 NautilusNext, All rights reserved. You were subscribed to the newsletter from [nautil.us](. 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