This is the first installment of a new column by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò. It appears in print in our Fall 2025 issue; subscribe to get a copy. In 1962, eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell received a series ...

Humans like to believe that what they don't know can't hurt them. Now, a new study out of the University of Chicago suggests that tendency develops before we even hit our teenage years. Known as the ...

Since Madeline Lancaster first created brain organoids back in 2013, they have become widely used for brain research around the world. But what exactly are they? Are they effectively miniature brains ...

America is aging rapidly. By 2034, there will be more seniors than children for the first time in our country’s history. Meanwhile, the federal debt has exploded and will be the equivalent of a second ...

As temperatures fall in the colder months, concerns about heating bills rise. Smart thermostat brands often claim their high-tech models can save money through advanced algorithms, but is it true?

There’s no such thing as a complete vacuum. Even in the cosmic void between galaxies, there’s an estimated density of about one hydrogen or helium atom per cubic meter. But these estimates are largely ...

They’re harnessing it to help directors prepare, debate, and decide. by Stanislav Shekshnia and Valery Yakubovich In 2014 Hong Kong–based Deep Knowledge Ventures formally appointed an algorithm to its ...

Tingrei Tan receives funding from Australian Research Council, US Office of Naval Research, US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Wellcome Leap. Christophe Valahu receives funding from ...

The novelist, who wrote about World War II in “Atonement” and has turned repeatedly to his own times, imagines the 22nd century in his new book, “What We Can Know.” The novelist, who wrote about World ...

A roughly 1-million-year-old Chinese hominid skull has long vexed efforts to nail down its evolutionary identity. Fossil comparisons using a new digital reconstruction of this specimen, dubbed the ...

For almost a century, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle has stood as one of the defining ideas of quantum physics: a particle's position and momentum cannot be known at the same time with absolute ...

As education savings account (ESA) laws have been adopted by a number of states in the past few years, many observers have wondered how these work in practice. One huge area of interest is their ...