Nearly every culture throughout history has used chemicals that alter consciousness for spiritual exploration. In the 20th century these drugs caught the attention of scientists. Psychedelics, as they were named, …

Consciousness is a terrible curse. Or so says a character in screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich. Part theater of the absurd and part neuroscience fiction, the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s work captures the splintering between what we perceive and what we feel as our brains grapple with multiple layers of reality.

Ever wondered how many neurons are in the human brain? Meet Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a professor at Vanderbilt University whose pioneering “brain soup” technique made it possible to accurately count the …

We live in the era Big Data. Its algorithms pervade our lives–shaping our purchases, our finances, our health care, our education, our communities, our public policy. Armed with phones, computers, …

With his General Theory of Relativity, Einstein illuminated the grand expanse of the cosmos, but he was also instrumental in developing quantum mechanics for describing the microworld. In Einstein’s day, …

Paralyzed patients are starting to walk with the aid of exoskeletons and doctors are testing artificial retinas in the blind thanks to neuroprosthetics: surgical brain implants that restore some function …