The Matterhorn, an Alpine peak that straddles the border between Switzerland and Italy, is one of the most iconic mountains in the world. Isolated at the head of the Zermatt Valley, climbing the perfectly shaped mountain, which has a summit height of 4470 m above sea level, is on the to-do list of thousands of climbers – and some physicists. In 2019, an international team of scientists set out to take a closer look at the Matterhorn and installed several seismometers at different locations to record its movement. They found that despite the Matterhorn appearing like a huge immovable mass, it is in fact constantly on the move, swaying gently back and forth about once every two seconds. The researchers say that this subtle vibration, with a fundamental frequency of 0.42 Hz, is stimulated by seismic energy in the Earth originating from oceans and earthquakes, as well as – rather surprisingly – human activity.

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Kim Stanley Robinson, one of the grandmasters of modern science fiction, released a new book on March 14: New York 2140. It's a sprawling adventure story/political drama/slice of life story set in New York City after climate change sends sea levels surging more than 50 feet--drowning Lower Manhattan and transforming a city of gridlike streets into a city of canals, a Super-Venice. We spoke extensively with Robinson about the book--check it out here. But we also spoke with the esteemed author about his last book, Aurora, and the big ideas behind it--from the present state and near future of space travel to what could happen when humanity does reach the stars. Aurora is set a hearty seven centuries or so from now, on an interstellar colony ship heading toward Tau Ceti. Heavily rooted in real science and realistic future science, the book takes a dramatic turn halfway through--one that left many SF fans gasping.

McCarthy created the term "artificial intelligence" and was a towering figure in computer science at Stanford most of his professional life. In his career, he developed the programming language LISP, played computer chess via telegraph with opponents in Russia and invented computer time-sharing. In 1966, John McCarthy hosted a series of four simultaneous computer chess matches carried out via telegraph against rivals in Russia. John McCarthy, a professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford, the man who coined the term "artificial intelligence" and subsequently went on to define the field for more than five decades, died suddenly at his home in Stanford in the early morning Monday, Oct. 24. McCarthy was a giant in the field of computer science and a seminal figure in the field of artificial intelligence.