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Science / Mind & Body

Not always your friend.

A Neuroscientist Tells You What’s Wrong With Your Brain

Dean Burnett’s new book, Idiot Brain, explains why your mind evolved to thwart you

This 3D model of a microbial community within the human gut allows researchers to study how bacterial changes influence overall health.

How Miraculous Microbes Help Us Evolve Better, Faster, Stronger

Invisible yet crucial, our microbial partners add a gene-swapping plot twist to evolutionary theory

Participants in "The Leading Strand" project share their prototypes with each other.

Art Meets Science

Here’s What Happens When Neuroscientists and Designers Team Up to Explain Scientific Research

A new interdisciplinary project results in a moving sculpture, an animated piece, a song that evolves and more

Treating 5-year-old Barbara Bowles required doctors who were “on a mission, looking for something brand-new.”

Childhood Leukemia Was Practically Untreatable Until Dr. Don Pinkel and St. Jude Hospital Found a Cure

A half century ago, a young doctor took on a deadly form of cancer—and the scientific establishment

Hospital staff in West Darfur receive the yellow fever vaccine.

Why We’re Giving People 20 Percent Doses of the Yellow Fever Vaccine

Vaccine stores in Africa have repeatedly been depleted. The WHO’s decision to allow mini-doses reflects a precarious—and cyclical—shortage

In this watercolor painting, the Zika virus (in pink) infects a cell (cell membrane and receptors in green, interior in blue). Blood plasma surrounds the viral particles.

Art Meets Science

This Painting Shows What It Might Look Like When Zika Infects a Cell

David S. Goodsell’s watercolor-and-ink artworks use the latest research to illustrate viruses, proteins and more

In his book The Gene: An Intimate History, Siddhartha Mukherjee discusses family, cancer, and the meaning of genetic normalcy.

Siddhartha Mukherjee Follows Up Biography of Cancer With “An Intimate History” of Genetics

The Pulitzer Prize winner calls his latest not a sequel, but a prequel to his bestseller

Did Neanderthals Die Out Because of the Paleo Diet?

A new theory links their fate to a meat-heavy regimen

Is there a benefit to being overworked?

Being Super Busy May* Be Good for Your Brain

*Does busyness boost cognition, or do people with better cognition tend to keep busy?

If Grit Breeds Success, How Can I Get Grittier?

University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth talks about her new book and the importance of the personal quality

How sleepy you are may depend on a number of factors, including age and where in the world you live.

Smartphone Study Uncovers Why So Much of the World is Short on Sleep

Age, gender and nationality impact how much we sleep, and social pressures rob many of needed rest

10 Things Science Says About Being a Mom in 2016

For one, a nurturing mother can help her child’s brain grow

Washing your hands will make them clean, but it may not get rid of the microbes that live there.

Your Skin’s Microbial Inhabitants Might Stick Around, Even If You Wash

This tiny ecosystem is surprisingly stable from months to years, study reveals

How to Plug In Your Brain

If neuroscientists are right, you’ll soon be able to sharpen your focus and boost your memory by recharging your brain—with electricity

Anthony Fauci is America's point person in confronting epidemics.

Future Is Here Festival

Anthony Fauci Is Waging War Against Zika, and Preparing for Other Epidemics to Come

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases talks about developing a Zika vaccine

Is yogurt the elixir of longevity? Not exactly.

A Science Lecture Accidentally Sparked a Global Craze for Yogurt

More than a century ago, a biologist’s remarks set people searching for yogurt as a cure for old age

Flatline on a heart monitor

The Lazarus Phenomenon, Explained: Why Sometimes, the Deceased Are Not Dead, Yet

What does CPR have to do with the curious case of clinically dead patients coming “back to life”?

What a Tiny Fish Can Tell Us About How Humans Stood Upright

What is the root of why our ancestors gained the power to walk on two feet and chimpanzees didn’t?

Ask Smithsonian: Why Does My Nose Run When It’s Cold?

The nose knows that runny flows are necessary in the cold

U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly (right) and his twin brother Mark attend a press conference ahead of NASA's "Year in Space" mission at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in 2015.

A Brief History of Twin Studies

As NASA dives into the data from astronaut twins, take a look back at the famous, and infamous, results we’ve seen from this popular research tool

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