Is the human brain an elaborate organic computer? Since the time of the earliest electronic computers, some have imagined that with sufficiently robust memory, processing speed, and programming, a functioning human brain can be replicated in silicon.

What attributes set our species apart? Taming fire? Expressing artistically? Solving problems creatively? Recent discoveries that have already upended humankind’s origin story by expanding our family tree, are challenging long-held …

Albert Einstein spent his last thirty years unsuccessfully searching for a ‘unified theory’ — a single master principle to describe everything in the universe, from tiny subatomic particles to immense clusters of galaxies. In the decades since, generations of researchers have continued working toward Einstein’s dream.

Are we alone in this vast universe? Some think that’s highly unlikely. With new technologies joining the search, NASA estimates we’ll find definitive evidence of aliens within 20 to 30 …

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 …

Temperature and pressure. Two sensations of vital importance in one’s daily life. Yet science has been lacking a deeper understanding of how these sensations are detected and encoded on a …