The Long Now Foundation

08/14/2026

Why are 90% of people right-handed? This question has been studied exhaustively, with no clear answer. But new clues have emerged.

Great reporting from Natalie Wolchover at Quanta:

An invisible difference in 10% of humans poses deep mysteries in several fields at once.

08/13/2026

In the sci-fi short “Mammoth Steps” Andrew Dana Hudson explores a world where interspecies communication has flourished. What would happen if humans and animals worked together to care for the environment? Shared politics, economics, communities? We’ll never know until we try.

Read it on Ideas here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H074_400
Art by Casey Cripe.

08/12/2026

As wild fires rage this season, it's time to revisit this urgent and solutions-focused breakdown of air quality and the economy by Leo Kim:

Our attempts to insulate ourselves from the outside world are doomed to failure.

08/11/2026

The deadline for the Berggruen Institute's 02026 Essay Competition is approaching — and $50,000 in prize money on the line. This year's prompt is: Are we entering a Second Axial Age? Essays can be submitted in English and Chinese by Aug 17:

Submit your essay for a chance to win $50,000 and be published by Berggruen Press. Explore fundamental questions and bridge cultural perspectives. Make your mark on the future of philosophy and culture.

08/10/2026

What does a 5,000-year-old tree sound like? Composer Marko Bajzer, artist-in-residence at Great Basin National Park, lived on Wheeler Peak at 10,000 feet, using electrodes to record electronic data from bristlecone pines.

As a result, he composed "The Sacrifice of Prometheus" a piece inspired by the tragic legacy of Prometheus, a tree nearly 5,000 years old that was inadvertently felled by researchers. This event became a catalyst for the creation of Great Basin Park. Bajzer chose the haunting timbre of the bass oboe to represent Prometheus:

“When I was thinking about what instrument to represent the ghost of this 5,000-year-old tree, I thought, ‘What instrument has the most sort of bizarre, inscrutable, esoteric timbre?’ And then thought, ‘Oh, it's got to be the bass oboe.’”

Watch the interview with Marko Bajzer here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H074Z_H0

The Sacrifice of Prometheus premiered last March, performed by the Reno Philharmonic and Music Director Laura Jackson, featuring bass oboe soloist Russ DeLuna.

World premiere performance of The Sacrifice of Prometheus by compos...

08/07/2026

Meet Layer Player, a Jenga-style tower that brings Long Now cofounder Stewart Brand's pace layers framework to life.

Read its origin story from creator Roger Dennis on Ideas: https://na2.hubs.ly/H073K0Q0

08/06/2026

Geologically speaking, it’s quiet—too quiet—in California. Between 01800 and 01906, the San Andreas, San Jacinto, and Hayward faults ruptured eight times. Yet, over the last 120 years, there’s been an unsettling silence.

“We went from having basically one [earthquake] every 10 to 20 years,” said USGS geologist Katherine Scharer, “to zero over the last 120 years.”

What’s going on? And can we predict the next Big One? Read about paleoseismology and the science of reading geological time, by Evan Howell in Nautilus Magazine:

How to Predict an Earthquake: In the trenches with a paleoseismologist

08/05/2026

The chord change is happening today! The John Cage Organ Project Halberstadt's new chord means this 639-year project is about 4% complete.

More from the AP here: https://apnews.com/article/john-cage-organ-project-halberstadt-organ-aslsp-938b5a1d0bc3d8d0dec5cb19accd00a6

08/04/2026

One man’s quest to photograph all living species: Joel Sartore of National Geographic’s Photo Ark is celebrating 20 years of work and 18,000 species documented. He says, “I want people to care, to fall in love, and to take action.”

Learn more about the Photo Ark project and Sartore’s 20+-year quest to document at least 25,000 species: https://na2.hubs.ly/H06ZtkH0

Pictured:
An Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) at the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo in Great Bend, Kansas.
A federally endangered ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Nebraska.
A red-eyed tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas) at the Sunset Zoo in Manhattan, KS.
A federally endangered five-month-old mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
Courtesy of Joel Sartore

08/03/2026

A team of scholars are recreating ancient recipes from cuneiform tablets
via the BBC

A team of international scholars versed in culinary history, food chemistry and cuneiform studies has been recreating dishes from the world’s oldest-known recipes.