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We will become billions of people who share a single vast intellect.

A heated debate is occurring at the University of Miami.

In 1931, Norway annexed part of Greenland. It could have been the start of a very Cold War indeed. 

500 sheep were slaughtered to produce the 2,060 pages of the “Codex Amiatinus,” a Latin translation of the Bible.

Old coal mines can be converted into “gravity batteries” by retrofitting them with equipment that raises and lowers giant piles of sand.

Thinking about the problem of meaning is unsettling because it introduces us to a list of solutions that all feel a bit insane.

Before there were planets, stars, and galaxies, before even neutral atoms or stable protons, there was the Big Bang. How did we prove it?

Archaeologists turn to other scientific fields to fill in the picture of how victims lived and why they died.

Deep underwater, temperatures are close to freezing and the pressure is 1,000 times higher than at sea level.

Everyone loves a good underdog story, but the lessons we derive from them depend on how they’re told.

In the West, discussions of 20th-century painting are dominated by Warhol and Picasso, but trendsetting artists are found everywhere.

In a citizen science project, thousands of pet dogs are helping scientists to understand what happens to memory and cognition in old age.

It’s time for Tetris.

About the project The goal of driving more progress across the world—scientifically, politically, economically, socially, etc—is one shared by many. And yet, debates about the best way to maximize progress […]

The world isn’t ending! But we are likely at the beginning of a profound transformation.

If you have an old TV set with the “rabbit ear” antennae, and you set it to channel 03, that snowy static can reveal the Big Bang itself.

Lasers are all around you. This ubiquitous technology came from our understanding of quantum physics.

We often laugh at inappropriate things, but not when we are emotionally invested. Laughter cannot be serious. So, can we ever laugh at death?

It doesn’t matter how ridiculous a lie is. As long as it is repeated often enough, some people will believe it.

Most cities reeked of death, defecation, and industrial waste. Still, focusing only on stench means turning a blind eye (or nose) to the many other smells that helped shape human history.

From Brahms to Tchaikovsky, here’s a curated list of composers whose music has shaped the classical canon.

Can a non-native species be a friend instead of a foe?

Developing an awareness of and an appreciation for science is what we all truly need, not what we’ve been doing.

The singer-songwriter distilled the essence of the holidays into a hit song, and for her efforts she was crowned the Queen of Christmas.

Awe makes us feel smaller but also more connected to life and each other.

An unprecedented number of new satellites threatens the night sky as we know it. Will we act in time to save it?

Without these two elements, we’re doomed to fail. In this day and age, it’s virtually impossible to have sufficient expertise to figure out what the complete, comprehensive, scientifically validated truth surrounding […]

Our brains did not evolve to shop on Amazon.

The few seconds of nuclear explosion opening shots in Godzilla alone required more than 6.5 times the entire budget of the monster movie they ended up in.

While Mars is known as a frozen, red planet today, it has all the evidence we could ask for of a watery past, lasting for approximately the first 1.5 billion […]