Nowadays, the tools for tracing your family tree have advanced far beyond looking back at names in the family Bible or compiling a scrapbook of paper records. Using your genetic information to find long-lost relatives is easier and cheaper than ever before—and scientists are looking to push the technology even further by analyzing our skin and facial features.

Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse joins Brian Greene for a conversation about the fundamental ideas in biology explored in his new book, What Is Life? Five Great Ideas in Biology. …

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.

The first electron microscopes enabled scientists to finally view the nanoworld. But because of limitations in the microscope’s lenses, achieving sharp images of individual atoms was not possible. For 60 …

Every generation benefits from the insights and discoveries of the generations who came before. “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” …

Why are we drawn to symmetry? Because it provides order in a seemingly chaotic world? Because our brains are the product of the very same laws that yield the flower, the snowflake and the solar system?