Artificial scientists’ can use machine-learning algorithms to design experiments that are beyond the intuition of humans ...

Photo by Robert Capa/Magnum Scroll through the comments section of any popular YouTube video about Vietnamese history, and ...

Today a bitter dispute about the nature of biology is underway. A simple bag of beans may be what tips the balance ...

The heroic days of deciphering hieroglyphics and cuneiform make for great stories, but will we ever see that happen again?

In probing whether there are basic sex differences in humans, a psychologist and a biologist agree to seriously disagree ...

Sometimes wicked but always powerful. Why did witches transform from figures of fear to figures of entertainment and aspiration?

With electron microscopes that magnify butterfly wings 50,000 times their original size, a hidden ‘topography’ emerges ...

The World Bank’s poverty line is inaccurate and out of date – an error that obscures the feebleness of market solutions ...

What is the highest goal our lives can achieve? Paul Tillich and Mark Van Doren’s insights from the 1950s are illuminating ...

Raina the Rhodesian ridgeback and Ruuxa the cheetah at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in California, 2015. Photo by Sandy Huffaker/The New York Times/Headpress ...

In Taiga, the Finland-based media artist Leena Lehti crafts a visceral ‘elegy’ to the boreal forests of her region. Created by Lehti without the use of a camera, the piece pairs animations of regional ...

is professor of political science at the University of Chicago. His latest book is Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies (2025). As I cycle from downtown ...