If you saw the iconic film Alien, you may remember the alien parasite bursting out of the human host’s chest. That type of thing actually happens in nature with parasitoid wasps and their insect hosts. While they’re vital to our environment, the insect world is often a nearly incomprehensible realm…
Socially Assistive Robotics have massive potential to empower people and improve human quality of life. Maja Matarić wants to endow these machines with special qualities so that they can help us in new ways that go far beyond practical use. Ranging in potential applications from childhood development to elder care,…
De-extinction, or resurrecting an extinct species, is an intriguing notion. But the science is challenging and the ethics are complicated. On the one hand, it’s exciting to think about bringing back the woolly mammoth or the carrier pigeon or the saber-toothed cat and we can see the way in which…
It’s not news that fatty foods, sugary drinks, salty snacks and a sedentary lifestyle are bad for us. But recent trends in life expectancy in the United States are making it pretty clear just how bad all this is. For the first time since the 1800s, things aren’t going in…
Have you ever seen an adorable baby or sweet-as-pie puppy and been flooded by the overwhelming urge to squeeze or pinch them—not because you mean any harm, but just because your feelings are so intense? Then you have experienced what scientists call cute aggression. Indeed, this business of expressing positive…
What has allowed microbes to thrive in such extreme environments as ice sheets in Antarctica and thermal vents in the deep ocean or on the surfaces we touch, in the air we breathe, and even inside us? Join Nkrumah Grant, a microbial and evolutionary biologist, to better understand the living…
There’s growing evidence that we experience other people’s behavior in deeper ways than we thought. When speaking or listening to someone, your brain activity synchronizes with theirs. When you’re stressed, your changing heart rate synchronizes with those around you, and then they feel the stress too. When someone hurts your…
Can the soft flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil set off a catastrophic tornado in Texas? The notion that very small things can have outsize impacts—the so-called butterfly effect—is the basis for explaining why chaotic systems like the weather (not to be confused with climate) cannot be predicted more…
Science diplomacy: these two words do not commonly pair up in conversations at cocktail parties. Through the stories of how scientific collaboration with countries such as Russia, Iran, and Cuba, and on global challenges like climate change, have in the past advanced diplomacy, we can see why they can go…
Movies and television shows often transport us to new and surprising landscapes that exist within a carefully constructed framework of rules that ensure that things make sense and hang together. The creative process of world building is informed by what is, while being inspired by what can be. This same…
