Unexplainable Meets Scientific American: Diving Into Science’s Biggest Unanswered Questions

Hey there, curious minds – I’m Rachel Feltman, and in a recent episode of Vox’s Unexplainable I got to sit down with Noam Hassenfeld to talk about a shiny new issue of Scientific American called Impossible Questions. It’s the sort of issue that makes you feel the universe is winking at you, like someone just flicked on a giant cosmic question‑mark in the night sky.

First, a quick primer for anyone who hasn’t heard of Scientific American. Founded in 1845, it’s the oldest continuously‑published science magazine in the United States – a legacy that still feels fresh because each generation passes the subscription down, just like Hank Green told Noam, “My parents gave me a Scientific American when I was a kid; I still read it now.” That kind of continuity gives the magazine a special authority when it decides to flag the questions we can’t yet answer.

In the Impossible Questions issue, the editors gathered some of the most stubborn puzzles across biology, physics, astronomy, and even ethics. Noam thought it would be fun to sort them into a loose taxonomy – four buckets, he says, that help explain why some mysteries stay in the dark. I was all ears.

Bucket One: “Just Need More Data.” These are the questions that feel almost within reach, except the experiments are hard, expensive, or just take a bit longer. Think of the smell of rain on dry earth – we have a vague idea, but the precise chemical pathways are still fuzzy. Or the classic “Do aliens exist?” – we’re scanning the skies, listening for whispers, but we haven’t caught a clear signal yet. Even everyday medicines fall here. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and many antidepressants work wonders for millions, yet scientists can’t point to a single, definitive mechanism. It’s maddening, but also hopeful – a little more data and the answer could pop out.

Bucket Two: “We Haven’t Invested Enough.” This one hits close to home. Certain health topics – like endometriosis or broader reproductive‑health research – have historically received far less funding than they deserve. The science isn’t impossibly hard; it’s just that the money, labs, and dedicated teams haven’t been there. As Noam noted, “It’s not that the question is insurmountable, it’s that nobody has put the resources toward it yet.” That’s a stark reminder that scientific progress is as much about policy and priorities as it is about brilliance.

Bucket Three: “We Might Not Want to Know.” These are the ethically sticky ones. Imagine needing to test a dangerous pathogen on humans to prove a hypothesis – the answer might be scientifically valuable, but the moral cost is too high. Or consider climate‑geoengineering proposals that could solve warming but also unleash unforeseen side effects. Sometimes the answer exists in a lab, but society draws a line in the sand, preferring uncertainty over potentially hazardous experimentation.

Bucket Four: “It’s Probably Unanswerable – At Least for Now.” Finally, there are those questions that sit at the edge of what our current tools can even approach. The nature of consciousness, the exact composition of dark matter, or whether a “multiverse” is a real physical reality – these may require new physics or entirely novel ways of thinking. It’s not that scientists give up; it’s that they recognize the need for paradigm shifts before the puzzle becomes tractable.

Our chat hopped back and forth between these categories, peppered with anecdotes and a few chuckles. Noam, ever the enthusiastic host, likened the whole issue to a “bat signal for the unknown,” while I tried not to sound too much like a science‑news announcer. We both agreed that the beauty of these unanswered questions lies in their ability to keep the scientific enterprise honest – they remind us that we don’t have all the answers, and that’s perfectly okay.

For listeners who love a good mystery, the episode ends with a teaser: a second Unexplainable installment will dive deeper into a few specific questions from the issue, and we’ll hear from the researchers who are wrestling with them day in, day out. So stay tuned, keep asking, and remember – the next big breakthrough could be just a “more data” away, or it might require us to rethink the very way we look at the universe.