The mechanism of collapsing stars falls short of explaining the existence of supermassive black holes—giants that weigh millions or even billions of times the mass of the Sun. Astrophysicist Priya …

A self-driving car has a split second to decide whether to turn into oncoming traffic or hit a child who has lost control of her bicycle. An autonomous drone needs to decide whether to risk the lives of busload of civilians or lose a long-sought terrorist. How does a machine make an ethical decision?

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?

Visual illusions, from magic tricks to images that have sparked internet feuds, are providing scientists with evolving insight into the complex act of seeing. Illusions play with the way our …

Roboticist Chad Jenkins’s career started with the Atari 2600 video game, and after tinkering with other games, he began a new career creating robots that can sense, plan, and act …

Join us for #YourDailyEquation with Brian Greene. Every Mon – Fri at 3pm EDT, Brian Greene will offer brief and breezy discussions of pivotal equations. Even if your math is a …