Our understanding of fame is critical to how we see each other and our society. But it is also badly wrong. Let me tell you why. We humans are storytelling and story-finding machines:…

If two statisticians were to lose each other in an infinite forest, the first thing they would do is get drunk. That way, they would walk more or less randomly, which would give them…

Genetic material is the smoking gun of the modern crime scene. Juries in criminal trials are often encouraged to think of DNA profiling as an exact science, in which telltale traces…

In 2009, researchers working in Thailand made headlines with a small success in a trial of an HIV vaccine. It reduced the rate of infection by 31 percent, the scientists calculated.…

In 2002, when the Oakland A’s replaced their MVP first baseman Jason Giambi with 32-year-old Scott Hatteberg, a washed-up catcher with a bum arm, longtime baseball scouts figured…

It’s an odd quirk of the human mind that we tend to think we’re less likely to be affected a particular threat—be it the flu, a car accident, or a flood—than anyone else. Like…

Whenever I fly, I like to talk to the person sitting next to me. Once in a while, I find that we know at least one person in common. If you are like me, perhaps coincidences such as…

Investment companies are fond of warning that past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Don’t rely on the past, they say, to make decisions about what may lie ahead. And…

If you’ve ridden in a car piloted by a young or inexperienced driver lately, chances are you’ve had an unwelcome epiphany. When driving your own car every day, navigating familiar…

Should extraterrestrials be looking down at Earth from space, they would know a few things about us humans. They would know our routines are dictated by the sun. They would see that…