The horsepox virus could be the basis of an improved smallpox vaccine, more effective and with fewer side effects than the currently available vaccines.Colored etching, “Edward Jenner…

1 In the beginning it was known as TMM 41450-3. Then things got more personal. Yes, life had already taken to the heavens, long ago in the Carboniferous, eons before TMM 41450-3’s…

The discovery that certain neurons have “music selectivity” stirs questions about the role of music in human life. Illustration by Len SmallBefore Josh McDermott was a neuroscientist,…

The connection between inner thought and neuroticism feeds the myth of the suffering creative genius.Woman with wax tablets and stylus (so-called “Sappho”) / WikicommonsI…

By the seventh month of my pregnancy, I sometimes felt a stroking motion on the inside of my abdomen, a repeated arc of movement traced by a tiny limb.My daughter Lucy weighed 6 pounds…

Smarter artificial intelligence is certainly being developed, but how far along are we on producing a neural lace?Photograph by Ars Electronica / FlickrSolar-powered self-driving cars,…

In humans, the profound biological differences that exist between the sexes mean that a single male is physically capable of having far more children than is a single female. Women…

The first pieces of the brain’s “inner GPS” started coming to light in 1970. In the laboratories of University College London, John O’Keefe and his student Jonathan Dostrovsky…

The teenage brain doesn’t just have a tendency to break the law; it’s also got a tendency to admit to crimes it didn’t commit.Photograph by Thomas Hawk / FlickrIn 1978, 18-year-old…

The systematic study of sexual feedback is woefully thin. This blind spot is unwarranted considering how common sexual problems are, and those problems can often be traced back to…