For the last half century we have slipped the surly bonds of earth with landers, rovers and spacecraft that have allowed us to touch the very edge of the Solar …

This video is part of our Brilliant Breakthroughs series: our new 20-episode mini-series exploring the “Eureka!” moments and proud accomplishments of the greatest scientific minds of our time. Join us …

Pills the size of molecules to seek and destroy tumors. Miniscule robots performing surgery inside patients with a precision never before achieved. Nanobots, a billionth of a meter across, fixing mutations in DNA, or repairing neurons in your brain. Such are the possibilities as medicine enters the nano-era.

Archaeologists Hannah Morris and Becca Peixotto tell the story of their efforts to uncover remains of a new species of human relatives that are over 200,000 years old in South …

Consciousness is a terrible curse. Or so says a character in screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich. Part theater of the absurd and part neuroscience fiction, the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s work captures the splintering between what we perceive and what we feel as our brains grapple with multiple layers of reality.

Winners of the prestigious $1 million Kavli Prizes were announced May 31, 2012 live via satellite from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo.