People too often forget that IQ tests haven’t been around that long. Indeed, such psychological measures are only about a century old. Early versions appeared in France with the…

An Alphabet subsidiary is planning to build a futuristic neighborhood, not out of concrete and steel, but wood—and wood is looking good.Photograph by Daici Ano / FlickrEarlier this…

Man’s best friend was also man’s first buried pet.Photograph by Pavlina Trauskeova / ShutterstockAs a kid, when my pet turtle died we had a funeral—of course—and buried him…

In “Half-Wit,” an episode of House, Gregory House, a brilliant Sherlock Holmes-like doctor (and a decent musician) wheels a piano into a patient’s room. It’s a delightful moment:…

Right out of the gate, Osteen is using three of Antonakis’ identified tactics: an animated voice, facial expressions, and gestures.Photograph by Cooper Neill / Getty It’s hard…

Cosmology is the story of the fundamental particles, forces, and energies that shape and govern our universe. And that story is one of rhythm and motion.Screengrab via Paul M. Sutter…

As a geologist and professor I speak and write rather cavalierly about eras and eons. One of the courses I routinely teach is “History of Earth and Life,” a survey of the 4.5-billion-year…

The Summer Games events often have a dark humor to them—they play around with nuclear disaster scenarios in ways outsiders might find jarring.Photograph by Stephen P. Weaver / WikicommonsIn…

Our online personality is now as measurable as our carbon footprint. In addition to some rather obvious statistics, such as how often we tweet, how many others we follow, and how many…

At first, it was hard to attract women to China Lake. Maybe it was the slot machines at the officers’ club; or the taxi to the brothels at the nearby mining town of Red Mountain;…