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The galactic center is home to the most powerful engine in the Milky Way: a supermassive black hole. How does its energy ultimately escape?

We need a “theory that explains the evolution of evolution,” argues theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker.

Differences in certain avian and mammalian proteins explain why avian influenza doesn’t (typically) infect humans.

Perhaps it’s not just an oddly shaped hill, after all.

Scientists agree that eons ago, a bacterium took up residence inside another cell and became its powerhouse, the mitochondrion. But there are competing theories about the birth of other organelles such as the nucleus and endoplasmic reticulum.

Archaeologists have identified what may be Europe’s oldest human-made megastructure.

The mutual distance between well-separated galaxies increases with time as the Universe expands. What else expands, and what doesn’t?

Cats twist and snakes slide, exploiting and negotiating physical laws. Scientists are figuring out how.

Over time, different structures in the brain come to play unique roles in the storage and retrieval of long-term memories.

For billions of years on Earth, life was limited to simple unicellular, non-differentiated organisms. In a mere flash, that changed forever.

Millennia ago, philosophers like Anaximander grasped that nature is the ultimate recycler.

Since the mid-1960s, the CMB has been identified with the Big Bang’s leftover glow. Could any alternative explanations still work?

Statistician Talithia Williams on how math is the clearest path to understanding our existence.

New research from Big Think+ on what scares your future leaders.

“By 2040, we hope to see a number of new drugs that have been designed with AI reaching patients.”

A high-fat diet might trigger inflammation of the hypothalamus.

If light can’t be bent by electric or magnetic fields (and it can’t), then how do the Zeeman and Stark effects split atomic energy levels?

Humans are among the most altruistic species that we’ve studied, due to our alloparental instincts – a trait we evolved into that allows us to care for offspring who are […]

The pattern 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc., is the Fibonacci sequence. It shows up all over nature. But what’s the full explanation behind it?

Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower is poised to become the world’s tallest building. What’s behind the century-plus drive to build ever taller skyscrapers?

Clear communication is good for business and life — but compelling communication can take you to another level.

Skilled hunters adapted to the changing landscape and left tantalizing clues to who they were.

With the discovery of Porphyrion, we’ve now seen black hole jets spanning 24 million light-years: the scale of the cosmic web.

High-frequency oscillations that ripple through our brains may generate memory and conscious experience.

Back during the hot Big Bang, it wasn’t just charged particles and photons that were created, but also neutrinos. Where are they now?

On the largest of cosmic scales, the Universe is expanding. But it isn’t all-or-nothing everywhere, as “collapse” is also part of the story.

Your organization won’t become a “data democracy” organically — shared knowledge is key.

AI looks like a natural and inevitable fit for business coaching — but some humans are wary. Here are the pros and cons.

The arsons were no accident, archaeological evidence suggests.