Weekend Reads 8/26/17

How to Roll Back Fanaticism

Progress is not made by crushing some swarm of malevolent foes; it’s made by finding balance between competing truths — between freedom and security, diversity and solidarity. There’s always going to be counter-evidence and mystery. There is no final arrangement that will end conflict, just endless searching and adjustment.

Record-shattering 2.7-million-year-old ice core reveals start of the ice ages

Bubbles in the ice contain greenhouse gases from Earth’s atmosphere at a time when the planet’s cycles of glacial advance and retreat were just beginning, potentially offering clues to what triggered the ice ages.

Earth Has The Solar System’s Best Eclipses

A total eclipse is only possible because the moon is positioned juuuust right relative to the Earth and the sun. This doesn’t happen on every planet with a moon and won’t always be possible for Earth. In about 600 million years, we won’t have total eclipses anymore, because by then, tidal forces will have flung the moon to a spot too distant to completely block the sun’s disk. Even today, total eclipses are only visible across a narrow path on Earth.

Dems prep for Trump primary challengers in 2020

For an opposition party to be scrutinizing potential intraparty reelection rivals to an incumbent president just seven months into his term is highly unusual. But the start of the Trump presidency — marked by unprecedented staff turnover, the appointment of an independent counsel and a perpetual state of chaos — has been nothing if not unusual.