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Primates Also Become Germophobes After Living Through a Viral Outbreak

And it could shed light on the evolutionary origins of disgust

Are Our Hearts Strong Enough to Get to Mars?

Prolonged space travel can wreak havoc on the circulatory system

The Most Unsettling Books We Know

Scientists and artists tell us about the book that scared them to the core

Latest Stories

What Makes Life Beautiful?

The magic of rhyme and the search for a creator

Longevity Research Has a Bullshit Problem

How impossible ages, lost paperwork, and invented biographies become scientific fact


Read Stories from Our Newest Print Issue: The Stupid Issue

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The Elegance of a Stupid Question

Are computers in mathematics rewriting the definitions of stupid and smart?

The Resistance Is Here

They didn’t plan to be activists. But scientists have united to overturn Trump’s drastic cuts to science.

The Return of a Discredited Pseudoscience

Eugenics is rearing its ugly head again in today’s crucible of politics and culture

Why Forgive and Forget is Bad Advice

A conversation with MacArthur fellow Felipe de Brigard about how forgiveness reshapes the memory of atrocity

Envy at the Ballot Box

Majority voting may make us less willing to tolerate advantages for others

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Could AI Have Consciousness That Isn’t Human-Like?

Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith on AI consciousness and existential risk

What a Picture of a Dog Has to Do with Reason and Logic

People who can’t see images in their minds challenge an old philosophical standby

What Makes Humans Stupid

It takes intelligence to get things spectacularly wrong. An essay on our undoing.

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How Our Brains Read Emotions in Other People

This multisensory process engages many brain networks at once

Early Humans in America Endured Climate Chaos

Footprints found at White Sands, New Mexico, were dated to the height of the last ice age

Replacing Just 10 Percent of Ultra‑processed Foods with Whole Foods Linked to Drop in Bowel Cancer Rate

Examples of ultra processed foods include many supermarket breads, cured meats and some breakfast cereals

First Case of Teeth Growing Out of an Eye Socket

What you need to know about “ectopic teeth”

This Fish Is the Kobayashi of the Sea

It can swallow prey up to 10 times its weight