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.

Lemurs, capuchin monkeys, and macaques help cognitive psychologist Laurie Santos understand how we think and are able to use tools, do math, and perform other tasks that make us human. …

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.

Where do our dreams come from, why do we have them, and what do they mean? Can we harness them to foster creativity, solve problems, and prepare for the future? …

Are there limits to the human lifespan? Is it possible to stop the process of aging? On average, humans now live far longer than at any point in our history …

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, …