Immanuel Kant, who coined the term genius in the 1700s, defined it as the rare capacity to independently understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person. Since then, the spectrum of abilities that we call genius has widened, but pivotal questions remain: What exactly is genius?

For decades, inflation has been the dominant cosmological scenario, but recently the theory has been subject to competition and critique. Two renowned pioneers of inflation — Alan Guth and Andrei …

A novel intelligence has roared into the mainstream, sparking euphoric excitement as well as abject fear. Explore the landscape of possible futures in a brave new world of thinking machines, …

Stephen Wolfram joins Brian Greene to explore the computational basis of space, time, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and reality itself. This program is part of the Big Ideas series, supported …

The prestigious Kavli Prizes recognize scientists for major advances in three research areas: astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience—the big, the small and the complex. The 2016 winners, sharing a cash award of $1 million in each field, will be announced via live satellite from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo.

In the future, a woman with a spinal cord injury could make a full recovery; a baby with a weak heart could pump his own blood. How close are we today to the bold promise of bionics—and could this technology be used to improve normal human functions, as well as to repair us?