In March 2014, scientists working on the BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole reported an incredible discovery: a swirling pattern in the cosmic background radiation that appeared to indicate the presence of gravitational waves.

Award-winning writers take the stage to share their quirky, engrossing, and sometimes shocking insights about human anatomy and social psychology. Mary Roach, widely regarded as one of the country’s greatest …

Forget what you think you know about dark matter. After a 30-year search for a single, as yet unidentified, species of dark matter particle that would make up some 25% of the mass of the universe, physicists are starting to consider novel explanations.

At present, our brains are mostly dependent on all the stuff below the neck to turn thought into action. But advances in neuroscience are making it easier than ever to hook machines up to minds.

What happens when a black hole a billion times more massive than our sun powers a star-like object? It’s a quasar of a question. These massive and extremely remote celestial …

Reader’s Digest has called “Mathemagician” Arthur Benjamin “America’s Best Math Whiz.” Returning in an encore presentation, Arthur Benjamin displays feats of mental mathematical gymnastics and shares the secrets behind his skills.

Synthetic blood mass-produced to meet supply shortages. Livers and kidneys “bioprinted” on demand. Missing fingers and toes re-grown with a jolt of bioelectricity. Regenerative medicine promises to do more than …

By 2050, one of every four people on Earth will go hungry unless food production more than doubles. Science-based agriculture has proposed unconventional new tools—earthworms, bacteria, and even genes from sunny daffodils—to meet this towering challenge. But will such innovative ideas be enough?