The smartest person in the world was Isaac Newton, a true polymath whose brilliance never has been, nor ever will be, surpassed.

A new analysis of an ancient hominin fossil sheds light on the “Out of Africa” dispersal events that occurred more than one million years ago.

We forget how unnatural a lot of formal education is. “Learning how to learn” requires bridging the gap between the abstract and the natural.

With launch costs dropping and enormous numbers of new satellites filling the sky, can’t we just do it all from space?

In scientific theories, the Multiverse appears as a bug rather than as a feature. We should squash it.

Scientists at UCLA and Penn argue that malfunctioning fat, not necessarily too much of it, is what makes people metabolically unhealthy.

According to Sigmund Freud, our revulsion at taboos is an attempt to suppress a part of us that actually wants to do them.

There are ~400 billion stars in the Milky Way, and ~2 trillion galaxies in the visible Universe. But what if we aren’t typical?

From physics and alchemy to theology and eschatology, Isaac Newton’s research was rooted in a personal pursuit of the Divine.

Elephants mourn the dead, dolphins give names to each other, and insects can recognize faces. The animal world is much smarter than we think.

Math offers good evidence that humans can solve any problem — as long as there’s money in it.

Travel half the distance to your destination, and there’s always another half to go. Despite Zeno’s Paradox, you always arrive right on time.

We know more about the universe than what is beneath our feet. But Earth’s mantle holds subtle clues about our planet’s past.

Iceland consistently ranks as the most gender-equal nation. It is also the nation where men and women are most likely to pursue sex-typical jobs.

The Siege of Leningrad lasted over two years and claimed nearly a million lives. It also inspired writers to record the bleak conditions in which they lived.

More than a decade ago, Armenia made chess a required subject in school because it teaches kids how to think and cope with failure. The U.S. should follow suit.

The Universe is supposed to be the same everywhere and in all directions. So what’s that giant “cold spot” doing out there?

Behind the scenes, Hitler had at least three disastrous relationships, including a short-lived marriage.

Neuroscience research suggests it might be time to rethink our ideas about when exactly a child becomes an adult.

Just 12 million light-years away, the galaxies Messier 81 and 82 offer a nearby preview of the Milky Way-Andromeda merger.

Wordle activates both the language and logic parts of our brain and give us a nice boost of dopamine, whether we win or lose.

If you want to have foamy beer inside the comfort of your own home, you need to invest in a special nucleated glass.

Dating of volcanic ash suggests the remains are at least 230,000 years old.

The death of God didn’t strike Nietzsche as an entirely good thing. Without a God, the basic belief system of Western Europe was in jeopardy.

What was once an art form has been drained of color and personality by ruthless algorithms. Can we make chess human again?

The catastrophic birth defect anencephaly affects about 1 in 4,600 pregnancies in the U.S. It is largely preventable with folic acid supplements.

Despite losing most of his extended family to the guillotine, Tocqueville grew up to become a fervent supporter of democratic revolution.

Is the Universe finite or infinite? Does it go on forever or loop back on itself? Here’s what would happen if you traveled forever.

Besides offering an incredibly cool way to get stuff into space, SpinLaunch promises to reduce the cost of a launch by 20-fold.

The most feared sexually transmitted disease (STD) of the last half-millennium was usually named after foreigners, often the French.