Search Results

The event brought scholars and comedians together to take a look at what’s funny and why.   

Some people think that poetry is just rhymes. But those people don’t know that poetry helps your brain heal during bad times. (Hey, we tried) 

“We are at least as dream-deprived as we are sleep-deprived.” Dr. Naiman said.

Evolution has trained your mind to create in-groups and out-groups in a flash—but the lines are more flexible than you think.

Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Oxford historian Peter Frankopan on two millennia of the flow of germs, ideas, commerce, and more from East to West and vice versa.

What’s really involved in snuffing out a country’s nuclear capabilities—and is that the right war to be waging?

Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Comic Ari Shaffir talks about outrageousness in comedy, bipartisan e-rage on social media, and growing up and growing out of bad habits.

In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, leading to a revolution in astronomy. But for many purposes, Earth is still the best place to be. When you think about what’s […]

We may use superlatives all the time, but that’s no substitute for quantifying just how bad, big, or important something is. This article was written by Kimberly Arcand and Megan […]

And you don’t even need a Delorean at 88 MPH. It’s one of the greatest tropes in movies, literature, and television shows: the idea that we could travel back in time […]

Imagine charging your phone using the power of your heart.   

It would be disappointing and surprising if Earth were the only template for habitability in the Universe. 

What does it really mean when something is “Dickensian”? Or “Kafkaesque”? Sometimes these words are overused to the point where they lose their meaning. Here’s how these and 6 other words got their origin. 

Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Biologist Richard Dawkins on speaking plainly, animal cruelty, Christopher Hitchens and so much more. 

If you don’t learn this one lesson, you’ll not only never be good at science, you’ll never learn anything new. “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong […]

The study of science, without planned application, can lead to fascinating things in its own right. 

If the gravity isn’t where the matter is, things get into trouble very, very quickly. The above image, a composite of optical data, X-ray data, and a reconstructed mass map, is […]

The newest viral video is from… 1947?

Most stars obey very similar rules, making them almost entirely predictable. But then, there are the weirdos. Catch this live-blog event to learn more. When we look out at the Universe […]

Holes, lines, or even walls in space aren’t just fiction; they could actually exist! “Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.” –Francois de La Rochefoucauld The biggest lesson […]

Researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have developed a tattoo ink that could potentially be used to monitor medical conditions, with ink that changes in response to physical conditions.     

  In one of our wildest episodes ever, comedian Jeff Garlin cuts the surprise clip short to call B.S. on neuroscience and complexity.   

Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Actor and author Alan Alda on the art of communication (for good and evil), social anxiety, the mind of a billionaire, and more. 

Researchers develop a working, battery-free cellphone.

If you thought all we could see is all that’s out there, prepare to rethink everything you knew. “It’s hard to build models of inflation that don’t lead to a multiverse. […]

From what it’s expanding into to whether things are moving faster-than-light, this clears up some of our greatest misconceptions. “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders […]

The first stars formed almost half a billion years before we could see their light. Here’s why. At the moment of the Big Bang, the Universe was full of matter and […]

New research at USC shows universal brain activity in the comprehension of stories for the first time. 

Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Authors Neal Stephenson & Nicole Galland on blurring the lines between science and magic. 

In The Road to Character, David Brooks argues that our moral vocabulary is severely lacking.