We live in the era Big Data. Its algorithms pervade our lives–shaping our purchases, our finances, our health care, our education, our communities, our public policy. Armed with phones, computers, …

For all that Darwin contributed to our understanding of the biological world, he was haunted by one vexing question: How does the incremental process of evolution suddenly produce, say, humans—animals who walk upright, communicate through language, and possess the brainpower to travel to the moon?

Acknowledging the scientists who blazed intellectual trails before him, Isaac Newton wrote: “If I have seen a little further it was by standing on the shoulders of giants.” In this …

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 …

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,” …

After a storied career with 5 spaceflights (including three trips to fix the Hubble Space Telescope), NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld now helms the space agency’s scientific missions. He helps shepherd …