This is the last of three blog posts associated with this week’s episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which addresses life in the universe. Read the first and second here. Someday, in the not too ...

"The kid starts cackling, and I realise he invented his own question in order to trick me into saying it," the teacher wrote.

The science is unsettled, but researchers say there is cause for concern. Tiny plastic particles like these—called microplastics—are added to some exfoliating skincare gels and can get into the ...

A simple looking math problem has stumped people online. Can you remember the golden rule from grade school to get the right ...

In "Mapmatics," a mathematician tells the stories of how math helps us track epidemics, map the seafloor, and plot a complex delivery route.

The researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky argues that we should be very afraid of artificial intelligence’s existential risks.

The first image of the Keyhole structure was acquired by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) HiRISE spacecraft in November with its smaller context camera (CTX). The image P14_006672_1836_XN_03N267W ...

New studies of the “platypus of materials” help explain how their atoms arrange themselves into orderly, but nonrepeating, ...

Illinois is one of 32 states that provides funding for its national public media affiliates, but the $1.7 million state appropriation ranks among the smallest nationally. Overall, the state’s NPR and ...

Last week this space was used to push a respectful scepticism towards the most basic received wisdoms in punting. It's an idea similar to 'Chesterton's fence', a parable by the writer and philosopher ...

Angles of elevation and depression are angles that are given from above or below a horizontal perspective. For example the angle that is made when you look up at something is an angle of elevation.