Stereotypes die hard. If we’re asked to picture a scientist at work, it’s tempting to reach for an old stand-by: the astronomer at the eyepiece of an enormous telescope, or the chemist surrounded by ...

On a rare, clear day, one can look due west from the Mount Wilson Observatory, perched at nearly 6,000 feet on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and see the wide basin of the San Fernando Valley. A ...

For decades, a global transition has been underway: The slow, sometimes clumsy shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Changing just one industry requires a significant infrastructural makeover.

Peter Godfrey-Smith’s “Living on Earth” is a natural history “of organisms as causes, rather than evolutionary products.” His subject is the intricate connection between humans and nature, and the ...

Yale psychiatrist Albert Powers didn’t know what to expect as he strolled among the tarot card readers, astrologers, and crystal vendors at the psychic fair held at the Best Western outside North ...

In 2006, a new study on antidepressants was making headlines with its promising results: Two-thirds of participants who tried various antidepressants recovered from their depression symptoms within ...

Tensions over food stamp restrictions are bubbling between the soda industry and the Trump administration, splitting Republicans and driving a lobbying bonanza. Health advocates and some states have ...

In many Western societies, parents eagerly await their children’s first words, then celebrate their arrival. There’s also a vast scientific and popular attention to early child language. Yet there is ...

The view from Plains Road, a sandy two-track running through the pine barrens in Montague, Massachusetts, often looks parched, rust-colored, and, occasionally, blackened by fire. In recent decades, ...

In the summer of 2022, Abdel Abdellaoui was set to give a keynote at the annual conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research. But when he learned he’d be sharing a speaker roster ...

In June 2021, 63-year-old Lisa Daurio was making the two-hour drive from her hometown of Pueblo, Colorado, to a doctor’s appointment in Denver when she settled on a life-changing decision: She would ...

This story was co-reported by Teresa Carr for Undark and Margaret Manto for NOTUS. When he realized that Senate Republicans were characterizing his federally funded research project as one of many ...