Nearly every group has its extreme outliers. Where does fundamentalism come from? How does the most powerful organ in the known universe, the human brain, make emotionally driven decisions that …

Every Google search, OKCupid date, and Netflix recommendation, and even the items and prices you see at the grocery store is uses massive amounts of data. Algorithms of increasing complexity …

Powerful new genetic tools allow scientists to alter the DNA of any organism—with tests on human embryos already underway. Even more ambitious, synthetic biologists on the verge of creating the genetic material for a living organism from scratch are setting their long-term sites on fashioning a fully synthetic human genome.

We make tools. It defines us. But since the first proto-human tied a stick to a stone, tools have also been making us. Join our panel of philosophers, anthropologists, and …

The notion of a “tortured genius” or “mad scientist” may be more than a romantic aberration. Research shows that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia correlate with high creativity and intelligence, raising tantalizing questions: What role does environment play in the path to mental illness?

Congratulations to Shep Doeleman and the Event Horizon Telescope team, winners of the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics! At the 2019 World Science Festival, Shep presented the methods used …