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For some reason, the charges on the electron and proton are equal and opposite, and their numbers are equal, too. But why?

Earth is not a benign mother. We have begun to witness what happens when it unleashes its fury.

More than any other of Einstein’s equations, E = mc² is the most recognizable to people. But what does it all mean?

There was a lot of hype and a lot of nonsense, but also some profoundly major advances. Here are the biggest ones you may have missed.

If our goal is to effect the greatest possible progress, what would it look like to approach this holistically? What might need to dispositionaly in how we approach solving our most important problems—at an individual level, a community level, or at a civilizational or global one? We asked our experts to think big picture about how what new thinking would be required to create a larger pro-progress framework.

Rock art in northern Australia depicts marsupial lions, giant kangaroos, and other megafauna that populated the Land Down Under long ago.  

Societal breakdown, whether real or imagined, can lead to dramatic responses — like blood-sucking vampires.

A recent study offers new insights into the so-called marriage wage premium.

If you think everyone around you is terrible, the joke may be on you.

Mammals have a history stretching back 325 million years. To study that ancient history is to know our own origins.

Expressing gratitude encourages others to continue being generous, promoting a cycle of goodness.

Why do people own so many unused possessions, treating them as though they are too special to use?

In 1966, Disney announced his intention to build Epcot, an acronym for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.”

William Shatner is going to space because Jeff Bezos loves Star Trek.

The laws of physics obey certain symmetries and defy others. It’s theoretically tempting to add new ones, but reality doesn’t agree.

Humanity is poised to pass the 8 billion milestone mid-November, but population growth is actually slowing down.

Black holes aren’t just the densest masses in the Universe, but they also spin the fastest of all massive objects. Here’s why it must be so.

Since its observation discovery in the 1990s, dark energy has been one of science’s biggest mysteries. Could black holes be the cause?

If you want to understand the Universe, cosmologically, you just can’t do it without the Friedmann equation. With it, the cosmos is yours.

The puzzle of play The purpose of play — for children, monkeys, rats or meerkats — has proved surprisingly hard to pin down. Scientists continue to toss around ideas.

Smashing things together at unprecedented energies sounds dangerous. But it’s nothing the Universe hasn’t already seen, and survived.

“She understood me and I understood her. I loved that pigeon.”

Known as primordial black holes, they could thoroughly change our Universe’s history. But the evidence is strongly against them.

If we were born trillions of years in the future, could we even figure out our cosmic history?

Is there any good reason for assigning North and South the way we do, or could we have just as easily done the reverse?

Probably not. Even though we’re still investigating the origin of life, the evidence suggests that cells came much later.

There are a few clues that the Universe isn’t completely adding up. Even so, the standard model of cosmology holds up stronger than ever.

Many people out there, including scientists, claim to have discovered a series of game-changing revolutions. Here’s why we don’t buy it.

Dark matter has never been directly detected, but the astronomical evidence for its existence is overwhelming. Here’s what to know.

Even the most brilliant mind in history couldn’t have achieved all he did without significant help from the minds of others.