Nautilus is a science and culture magazine founded in 2013 by John Steele that organizes each issue around a single guiding question, publishing literary long-form writing at the intersection of science, philosophy, art, and the humanities.
The publication launched online on April 29, 2013 with a roughly $5 million two-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation, framed at the time as funding for sustained dialogue between empirical and philosophical inquiry. It won two National Magazine Awards in its first year of eligibility — then a record for first-year recognition — and has since extended into a quarterly print magazine, a daily online edition, and a podcast, positioning itself between general-interest science publications and academic journals.