Science
What Math Looks Like in the Mind
In a surprise to scientists, it appears blind people process numbers by tapping into a part of their brains that’s reserved for images in sighted individuals.
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Robert Galbraith / Reuters Pit Bulls Are Chiller Than Chihuahuas
New evidence suggests that in many situations, America’s most feared dog is as docile as other breeds.
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Joel Garlich-Miller / USFWS American Whalers Killed Way More Than Just Whales
Entries from old ship logs suggest that every 19th-century whaling expedition was an ecological rampage.
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Renee Rominger/ Moonrise Whims / Quanta Magazine The Strange Second Life of String Theory
The theory failed to unite gravity and quantum mechanics. But it still has become one of the most useful tools in science.
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Digital Vision / Getty The Best Headspace for Making Decisions
Anger is not the best way to approach a big choice—but neither is happiness.
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Jacquelyn Martin / AP Not Doomed Yet: Climate Change Will Make 'Clear-Air Turbulence' More Common
Protesters win a brief victory in the Dakota Access pipeline battle, and August sets a new heat record.
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Alex Wong / Getty The Irrational Idea That Humans Are Mostly Irrational
People are smarter than some psychologists would have us think.
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Jae C. Hong / AP Virtual Reality May Help You Control Your Dreams
Research suggests people dream more lucidly after they’ve immersed themselves in virtual worlds.
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China Stringer Network / Reuters The Brain Damage That Hides Half the World
A rare condition called hemispatial neglect reveals the invisible seams in human consciousness.
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Youssef Boudlal / Reuters Musicians Are Wired to Steal Each Other's Work
The rules of Western music limit originality in songs—and the human brain doesn’t want it, anyway.
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Ken Bohn / San Diego Zoo Global Scientists Have Found Another Crow That Uses Tools
And they’re extinct in the wild.
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Courtesy of Lauren Oakes The Sound of Climate Change
A musician translated the changing ecology of a forest into song.
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Seth Perlman / AP Bayer and Monsanto's Mega Merger
The two giants will become one company in a $66 billion deal, which includes debt.
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You Just Survived the Hottest Month Ever, Again
The record: August 2016 was the hottest month measured since contemporary records began in 1880, according to a NASA analysis…
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Lou Dematteis / Reuters Why the EPA Doesn't Regulate Ocean Acidification
In part, it’s because no one knows how best to do it yet.
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Larry Crowe / AP Kelp Is the New Kale
The global seaweed harvest is worth more than all the world's lemons and limes.
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James Walton Do People Need Small Talk to Be Happy?
In one study, college students who had substantive conversations were more content than their peers who exchanged mere pleasantries. But don’t write off chitchat just yet.
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Daniel Munoz / Reuters More Evidence That the Moon Contributes to Earthquakes
Some of the largest quakes in recent memory happened when the Earth’s crust was under the highest tidal stress.
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Donna Blankinship / AP Jeff Bezos's New Rocket, Built to Carry Payloads and People
The founder of spaceflight company Blue Origin announced Monday the design of an orbital rocket called New Glenn.
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Ricardo Bessa / Quanta Magazine When Evolution Fights Back Against Genetic Engineering
“Gene drives,” a technology for controlling genetic traits, could revolutionize disease prevention. But nature has a way of thwarting scientific meddling.
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Andrew Cullen / Reuters The Obama Administration Temporarily Blocks the Dakota Access Pipeline
The surprise move came after a federal judge declined to stop the 1,100-mile fossil fuel project’s construction.
