Albert Einstein shattered previous ideas about time, but left many pivotal questions unanswered: Does time have a beginning? An end? Why does it move in only one direction? Is it real, or something our minds impose on reality?

From a bee’s hexagonal honeycomb to the elliptical paths of planets, symmetry has long been recognized as a vital quality of nature. Today’s theorists are pursuing an even more exotic symmetry that, mathematically speaking, could be nature’s final fundamental symmetry: supersymmetry.

Proposed a century ago to better explain the mind-bending behavior of the smallest constituents of the universe, quantum theory has implications far beyond the atom. This rich set of laws has applications both practical and extraordinary.

The first detection of colliding black holes rocked the scientific world, establishing that gravitational waves are real and that we are able to measure them. More recently, scientists have achieved …

Professor Lee Berger is an award-winning researcher, explorer, author, palaeoanthropologist, and speaker. His explorations into human origins on the African continent, Asia, and Micronesia for the past two and a …

The prestigious biennial Kavli Prizes recognize scientists for major advances in three research areas: astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience—the big, the small and the complex. The 2014 winners, sharing a $1 million award in each field, will be announced live via satellite from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo.