Big Brains

The race to cure cancer has been running a long time, but two University of Chicago scientists are working to bring it closer to the finish line. Thinking like engineers rather than doctors, Profs. Je...

There’s something strange happening with violent crime in America. Incidents are reaching levels they haven’t hit in decades, and nobody seems to know why. But, to go even deeper, what causes violent ...

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Most people say they’d want to read minds. But Prof. Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business says you already have that...

If you know anything about black holes, it may come as a surprise to learn that there’s actually one lurking at the center of our galaxy. It was uncovered by UCLA astrophysicist Andrea Ghez, and in 20...

Experts say we’re living through a renaissance in genetics research. The Human Genome project has explained our most fundamental genetics, CRISPR gene editing can be used to shape genetic code, and co...

It feels like our world has never faced so many crisis all at the same time, and trying to solve them at once seems impossible. But, in 2015, the United Nations came together to develop a list of 17 S...

There are a lot of problems in our world today, but if our water systems aren’t working, everything else takes a backseat. From a lack of freshwater to droughts on the West Coast to contaminants like ...

Sometimes, the biggest discoveries have to do with the smallest things. In this case, we’re talking nano. Specifically, nanocrystals. World-renowned chemist Paul Alivisatos has changed the field of na...

Why is it so hard for us to form good habits—and so easy to form bad ones? Most people turn to the self-help section to find answers, but this is really a question for behavior science. Katy Milkman ...

Most people think they know humanity’s history of space exploration, from Sputnik to NASA to our recent shift toward privatized space travel. But what if there was a lost history of our origins with s...