At the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. last month, my friend Greta Christina told me something that I, a lifelong New Yorker, never knew: Harry Houdini is buried in a […]

--Guest post by Nicole Federica, American University student. News reports tracking the obesity epidemic in the United States offer a range of possible explanations for the problem.  These include government […]

          California’s initiative process can be both a wonderfully democratic and perilously dumb way to make law. On no issue could that be more true than the proposed initiative to […]

--Guest post by Alyssa Martori, American University graduate student. People around the world working toward environmental preservation, conservation, and sustainability are often described as part of a global environmental movement. […]

Why have humans evolved into an intelligent species? The complexity of our social relationships, which require cooperation, naturally selects for higher cognitive processes. 

When a complex organ like the brain experiences a malfunction, a complex problem can result. Here are some of the most bizarre delusions ever recorded by psychiatrists. 

Mea culpa if, out of irritation, I joined Troll-land, the last place on earth I want to be, when I wrote on Samantha Brick’s now-infamous “don’t hate be because I’m […]

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic, from which many of us get the notion that when a ship goes down, it's […]

What is the Big Idea? Leaders from many western hemisphere countries gathered for the Summit of the Americas meeting this weekend to discuss alternatives to the failed "war on drugs." President Obama […]

When patients in vegetative states register higher-order thinking on brain scans, our understanding of consciousness achieves an even subtler shade of gray. 

New research confirms that worry is associated with high intelligence levels, suggesting that an aversion to dangerous situations has evolved as an important survival skill for our species. 

Sedentary and over-night jobs present the most immediate health risks while working too many hours promotes unhealthy habits like drink and drugs. Finding a balance is essential.  

Scientists have engineered HIV-immune stem cells that can carry T cells to different organs in the body, laying the groundwork for one day eliminating the virus from infected patients. 

If I were trapped in a burning building, here's who I would want to see coming up the smoke-filled stairwell: A trained professional firefighter in full gear. Not Mayor Bloomberg. […]

University of Chicago researchers have found that one's place in a social hierarchy influences the body's response to illness and stress. Thus the best medicine may be a job promotion. 

By using digital medical sensors, physicians can collect a wide range of data from healthy people, creating a control group against which irregularities can be measured—and illness predicted. 

Exercising creates a plentiful new supply of brain cells, all eager to learn and make new associations. When they associate drugs with pleasure, however, the addiction is harder to break. 

Neuroscientist Susan Barry describes the first time she saw in three dimensions.

Art news always offers wonderful confluences that stir the imagination. The wonderful news that Paul Cézanne’s The Boy in the Red Waistcoat (detail shown above), which had been stolen by […]

What is the Big Idea? If rocket launches are a symbol of a country's ambitions, then what the world witnessed on Friday was North Korea's failed attempt at a Sputnik […]