In one way, Jackson Pollock’s mathematics was ahead of its time. When the reclusive artist poured paint from cans onto vast canvases laid out across the floor of his barn in the…

Consciousness is a thriving industry. It’s not just the meditation retreats and ayahuasca shamans. Or the conferences with a heady mix of philosophers, quantum physicists, and Buddhist…

Imagine that a loved one, let’s say your brother, has suffered a serious brain injury. After languishing in a coma, he finally “emerges”—that is, he cycles between sleep and…

Do you think you can read emotions like joy or anger in another person’s face and actions? Read them because joy and anger are universal emotions and we all know what they look and…

On a recent Saturday morning, my wife, Susan, and I slipped into the city to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a place we hadn’t gone together since before our sons were born.…

When Leonid Moroz, a gregarious Russian-born neuroscientist and geneticist at the University of Florida, began studying ctenophores nearly a decade ago, he had a fairly simple goal…

This article originally appeared on our blog, Facts So Romantic, in December 2014.In July of 2014, Chris Perry went on an Alaskan cruise with her family to celebrate her parents’…

We start with the case of a woman who experienced unbearable tragedy. In 1899, this Parisian bride, Madame M., had her first child. Shockingly, the child was abducted and substituted…

The animals of neuroscience research are an eclectic bunch, and for good reason. Different model organisms—like zebra fish larvae, C. elegans worms, fruit flies, and mice—give…

Catherine Townsend-Lyon, 53, started gambling excessively when she was 30. As a result, her 40th birthday wasn’t much of a celebration: She was hospitalized, shortly after a suicide…