The how and the when of dog domestication are fairly settled. As for the where: now DNA says Fido traces his roots back to wolves in Central Asia that lingered around people’s camps millennia ago.
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They’re the soil-builders that allow Africa’s arid savannas to be lush grasslands. What do they do inside their huge mounds – and how does a collective mind allow them to do it?
It’s time for neurons to share the glory. Gene activity isn’t just a background utility of the brain, but an integral part of its operation.
Nobel Prizes can go to at most three co-recipients. Journal articles, on the other hand, can have thousands of co-authors. Neither extreme is ideal, but how should we credit today’s science work?
Men are harsher critics of research that reports evidence of gender bias in STEM fields, while women find it more compelling. How can we deal with the reality when we’re biased about bias?
Typically, researchers pool a bunch of brain scans to figure out the average way brains handle certain tasks. Instead, could they pick out individual brain profiles from a stack of 126 people’s scans?
Nobel Prize-winning science is almost by definition arcane and complex. While these esoteric fields have their moment in the spotlight, does it matter if the rest of us understand?
They’re beyond tiny and super mysterious. Neutrinos are an elemental particle that might just help us understand the structure and evolution of the universe.
The 2015 Nobel Prize for Medicine went partly for research done during the Chinese Cultural Revolution based on traditional Chinese medicine. Here’s the story of Project 523.
The 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine went to research on remedies derived from natural compounds. Academia is continuing the fight against ‘neglected’ diseases by similarly hunting for new drugs in nature.
Being underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math means women can be made to feel they don’t belong, with long-term mental health consequences.
New technologies bring questions that have belonged to the abstract realm of philosophers into concrete focus. Why do medical interventions in the brain feel different than those elsewhere in the body?
Peeple is getting called the Yelp of rating people. The cofounders say it will be a positive place that turns character into currency. But does it make sense to rate people as we rate restaurants?
Mining waste rock from historic mines or even treated sewage to find useful metals and minerals could be a sustainable way to meet demand for these finite resources.
Regulations are catching up with toxic chemicals we’re exposed to as products’ end users. But workers in un- or underregulated places are still at risk, even from chemicals designed to be “green.”
As a Jesuit, Pope Francis is part of a long tradition of religious men of science. Will his leadership influence the Catholic Church’s stance on contemporary scientific issues?
Beyond the cool factor of figuring out hominin hearing capacities two million years ago, these findings could help answer the tantalizing question of when did human vocalized language first emerge.
What’s in a name? Many words are arbitrary – there’s no reason a dog must be called a dog or a table must be called a table. Why do we tend to assume there’s a reason any object has its specific name?
When you see a repeating pattern, your mind easily imagines it continuing to infinity. There are mathematical rules behind the intriguing visuals.
Geomagnetic storms can interact with particles near Earth, causing issues for satellites and other tech. Researchers send balloons 20 miles into the sky to figure out just what’s going on up there.
At long last, Facebook looks on the verge of releasing an alternative to the ubiquitous ‘Like’ button. After years of users clamoring for one, here’s why the time might be right.
Missing links make a good story, but not good science. Outdated metaphors don’t help us understand the rapid evolution of infectious diseases such as flu and malaria.
Stem cells hold great promise for treating heart disease. But it’s not so simple to get from stem cell to fully functioning adult heart cell, even in the lab.
The field of psychology is trying to absorb a recent big study that was able to replicate only 36 out of 100 major research papers. That finding is an issue, but maybe not for the reason you think.
It’s human nature to assume there must be a valid reason for inequalities in society. What’s the psychology behind why we believe there’s something fundamentally different between haves and have-nots?