Latest

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big bang expanding universe
It's been 100 years since we discovered that the Universe was expanding. But if it's expanding, then what is it expanding into?
a painting of a wooden judge's hammer.
Memory, responsibility, and mental maturity have long been difficult to describe objectively, but neuroscientists are starting to detect patterns. Coming soon to a courtroom near you?
A person standing in the ocean captured in a haunting black and white photo.
The dying brain experiences a surge of electrical activity. Could this help explain the mysterious phenomena of near-death experiences?
a woman is putting a voting paper in a folder.
In a time when we dislike and distrust our politicians, why can't we get more popular leaders like Kim Jong Un and Bashar al-Assad?
a crowd of people walking down a city street.
Walking is rarer in the U.S. compared to similar nations. It is also deadlier: Nearly 7,500 pedestrians were killed in 2021.
a painting of two women sitting next to each other.
Emotion dysregulation has been linked to unhealthy risk-taking, relationship challenges, and negative physical health outcomes.
a drawing of a man sitting on top of a chair.
Mansa Musa, perhaps history's richest man, claims he ascended the throne of Mali after his predecessor sailed west and never came back. Could he have made it to the New World?
multiverse
If our Universe were born a little differently, there wouldn't have been any planets, stars, galaxies, or chemically interesting reactions.
a blurry image of a man standing in front of a blue background.
A recently identified stage of sleep common to narcoleptics is a fertile source of creativity.
a black and white photo of stars in the sky.
Perhaps the whole Universe is the result of a vacuum fluctuation, originating from what we could call quantum nothingness. 
emerging leaders program
An emerging leaders program can help organizations harness leaders from the inside. Read on to learn how to design one.
a map showing the percentage of men in europe who pee sitting down
Germans are masters of building cars, cooking brats — and sitting while peeing.
a painting of a green and a blue planet.
"Superhabitable" planets might be real, but Earth is probably as good as it gets.
a room with a bunch of different types of helmets on display.
Science fiction movies capture a classic human flaw: getting the future mostly wrong.
a close up of a bacteria with very long stems.
Some scientists think we should allow our bodies to more harmlessly live with pathogens until they’re cleared from our systems.
a man's head with a bird flying out of it.
Meditation can put you in a wiser relationship with life.
an old man flexing
It’s safe to use your face cream, as long as you aren’t eating it.
a futuristic living room with a large round window.
Does humanity have a moral imperative to seed life on lifeless worlds? And should we avoid colonizing a planet if life already exists there?
a large group of pigs in a pen.
Within a month of that initial conversation, Peter Singer became a vegetarian.