Biology | Neuroscience The Strange Brain of the World’s Greatest Solo Climber Alex Honnold doesn’t experience fear like the rest of us. By J.B. MacKinnon
Biology | Genetics We Are Nowhere Close to the Limits of Athletic Performance Genetic engineering will bring us new Bolts and Shaqs. By Stephen Hsu
Matter | Aerodynamics The Sound So Loud That It Circled the Earth Four Times The 1883 eruption on Krakatoa may be the loudest noise the Earth has ever made. By Aatish Bhatia
Culture | Sociology Retiring Retirement A growing portion of the elderly look and act anything but. By Linda Marsa
Biology | Health The Man Who Blamed Aging on His Intestines The productive, bizarre career of Nobel laureate and early aging researcher Elie Metchnikoff. By Luba Vikhanski
Culture | History The Father of Modern Metal The creation of stainless steel took equal parts metallurgy and perseverance. By Jonathan Waldman
Biology | Animals Can a Cat Have an Existential Crisis? Treating my cat for depression caused me to question the state of anxiety in animals and us. By Britt Peterson
Culture | Food Why Revolutionaries Love Spicy Food How the chili pepper got to China. By Andrew Leonard
Biology | Psychology Parents Shouldn’t Spy on Their Kids Apps that make it easy to invade kids’ privacy are a recipe for arrested development. By Kirsten Weir
Culture | Psychology How to Avoid Empathy Burnout Caregivers can benefit by understanding a patient’s pain without feeling it themselves. By Jamil Zaki
Culture | Sociology She’ll Text Me, She’ll Text Me Not The science of waiting in modern courtship. By Aziz Ansari & Eric Klinenberg
Biology | Neuroscience Love Is Like Cocaine From ecstasy to withdrawal, the lover resembles an addict. By Helen Fisher
Culture | Psychology How to Survive Solitary Confinement An ex-convict on how to set your mind free. By Susie Neilson
Numbers | Technology These Tricks Make Virtual Reality Feel Real Realistic digital spaces need delusions as much as they need detail. By Tom Vanderbilt
Ideas | Climate The Volcano That Shrouded the Earth and Gave Birth to a Monster Three years of darkness and cold spawned crime, poverty, and a literary masterpiece. By Gillen D'Arcy Wood
Numbers | Economics What I Learned from Losing $200 Million The 2008 financial crisis taught me about the illusion of control, and how to give it up. By Bob Henderson
Ideas | Philosophy Why Scientists Need To Fail Better The rush for success is driving science into a corner, apart from wider culture. By Stuart Firestein
Culture | History The Science Hidden In Your Town Name How place names encode ecological change. By Eli Kintisch
Culture | Astronomy Why the Russians Decapitated Major Tom The story of the genetically engineered mouse cosmonaut. By Roberto Kaz
Matter | Physics The Trouble with Theories of Everything There is no known physics theory that is true at every scale—there may never be. By Lawrence M. Krauss
Ideas | Philosophy Parenthood, the Great Moral Gamble The decision to have a child is more ethically uncertain than you might realize. By Claire Creffield
Biology | Archaeology The Curious Case of the Bog Bodies Why do so many corpses found in Europe’s peat bogs show signs of violent death? By Kristen C. French
Ideas | Psychology Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes The high speed of society has jammed your internal clock. By Chelsea Wald
Numbers | Artificial Intelligence The Man Who Tried to Redeem the World with Logic Walter Pitts rose from the streets to MIT, but couldn’t escape himself. By Amanda Gefter
Biology | Evolution Turning Back the Clock on Human Evolution Digging through the world’s oldest graveyard with African paleontologists. By Amy Maxmen
Ideas | History The Common Genius of Lincoln and Einstein The president and the physicist teach us a lesson about moral genius. By Andrew O'Hehir
Culture | Psychology The Original Natural Born Killers In the 1920s, two murderers were defended by science. The infamous case still echoes. By Edward Tenner
Culture | Psychology How To Waste Time Properly The right distractions boost creativity. By Greg Beato
Biology | Neuroscience This Is Your Brain on Silence Contrary to popular belief, peace and quiet is all about the noise in your head. By Daniel A. Gross
Biology | Psychology Postcards From the Edge of Consciousness Sensory deprivation goes from CIA torture manuals to a yoga studio near you. By Meehan Crist
Biology | Neuroscience Ants Swarm Like Brains Think A neuroscientist studies ant colonies to understand feedback in the brain. By Carrie Arnold
Culture | Archaeology The Curse of the Unlucky Mummy When science and fear collide, a supernatural story thrives. By Rose Eveleth
Biology | Archaeology Early Humans Made Animated Art How Paleolithic artists used fire to set the world’s oldest art in motion. By Zach Zorich
Matter | History The Glassmaker Who Sparked Astrophysics His curious discovery, 200 years ago, foresaw our expanding universe. By Kitty Ferguson
Biology | Technology Animals Bow to Their Mechanical Overlords Robots are infiltrating insect, fish, and bird communities—and seizing control. By Emily Anthes
Culture | Psychology How To Waste Time Properly The right distractions can boost creativity. By Greg Beato
Biology | Insects Ants Go Marching More than an expert traveler, the fire ant is the ultimate invader. By Justin Nobel