Imagine that someone asked you to come up with a sequence of five words. In any other year, some idiosyncratic combination would likely come to mind. This year, though, one five-word…

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.New research finds that the subjective experience of time is linked to learning, thwarted expectations, and neural…

The election of Joe Biden is good news for conservation. It won’t be easy to undo the damage done to environmental laws by the Trump administration, but at least the rectification…

Hiking the Franconia Ridge Loop is an intimidating proposition. The trail, in the heart of New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest, is close to 9 miles long, and peaks at…

Joe Pettit is a person of contradictions. A lover of solitude who manages teams, an engineer who writes poetry and paints, a family man who spends several months a year on remote Antarctic…

While Jimmy Carter was president of the United States, his younger brother, Billy, a brewer, endorsed Billy Beer, which featured his signature. Despite this, in private, Billy enjoyed…

When you bite into an ear of fresh corn, you are eating something profoundly unnatural. A modern ear is a big, flavorful thing packed with 18 rows of plump kernels. Its sad-looking…

The ways in which this creature’s creators have successfully modeled him on human attributes can offer insights into how and why people deem certain beings and certain behaviors…

“Uitwaaien” is a popular activity around Amsterdam—one believed to have important psychological benefits.Photograph by John Loo / FlickrLast year I was in San Francisco, a city…

If a headless worm can regrow a memory, then where is the memory stored? And, if a memory can regenerate, could you transfer it?Photograph by Rattiya Thongdumhyu / ShutterstockThe…