Physicists speak of four fundamental forces that govern the interactions among the bits of matter that make up our universe. The strongest of these four forces, aptly known as the…

If we, as a society, were serious about our children, then children’s education—especially for those beginning “the age of reason”—would be our highest priority.Photograph…

Just a few years ago Yuval Noah Harari was an obscure Israeli historian with a knack for playing with big ideas. Then he wrote Sapiens, a sweeping, cross-disciplinary account of human…

What Einstein said was nearly as scathing as any contemporary critique of religion you might hear from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens.Photograph by spatuletail…

Ecologist Robert Michael Pyle’s imaginative treatment of the nonhuman world—he includes a butterfly and a mountain among his cast of characters—is both a surprise and perhaps…

When did you realize you were a machine? A fancy machine, for sure. But one whose parts and operations can be described like the components of a computer. I remember a day in 2012…

You’ve heard the argument before: Genes are the permanent aristocracy of evolution, looking after themselves as fleshy hosts come and go. That’s the thesis of a book that, last…

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.So-called “analogue experiments” are becoming increasingly common in physics, but do they teach or mislead?Image…

One part of the Hippocratic Oath, the vow taken by many physicians, requires us to “remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding…

Mattel’s AI nanny, called Aristotle, recently gained the notorious distinction of being subject to a bipartisan protest in the US Congress. Plus, there was a petition against it…