Temperature and pressure. Two sensations of vital importance in one’s daily life. Yet science has been lacking a deeper understanding of how these sensations are detected and encoded on a …

Why are we drawn to symmetry? Because it provides order in a seemingly chaotic world? Because our brains are the product of the very same laws that yield the flower, the snowflake and the solar system?

For decades, biologists have read and edited DNA, the code of life. Revolutionary developments are giving scientists the power to write it. Instead of tinkering with existing life forms, synthetic biologists may be on the verge of writing the DNA of a living organism from scratch.

Language ranks among the most powerful influences on human existence. Even so, language presents many mysteries that are the subject of heated debate. Was there a rewiring of the human …

Microbiologist Hazel Barton goes spelunking in sticky mud, camping underground, and rope climbing in a atrium—all to research cures for antibiotic-resistant diseases. Episode filmed live at the 2009 World Science …

This statement is false. Think about it, and it makes your head hurt. If it’s true, it’s false. If it’s false, it’s true. In 1931, Austrian logician Kurt Gödel shocked the worlds of mathematics and philosophy by establishing that such statements are far more than a quirky turn of language: he showed that there are mathematical truths which simply can’t be proven.