Since there is one death for every million cigarettes sold (or smoked), a tobacco manufacturer will make about $10,000 for every death caused by their products.Illustration by Raxon…

Scientists look around the universe and see amazing structure. There are objects and processes of fantastic complexity. Every action in our universe follows exact laws of nature that…

Using stiff paper and transparent tape, Craig Kaplan assembles a beautiful roundish shape that looks like a Buckminster Fuller creation or a fancy new kind of soccer ball. It consists…

In 2014, Google fired a shot heard all the way to Detroit. Google’s newest driverless car prototype had no steering wheel and no brakes. The message was clear: Cars of the future…

People often ask me whether human-level artificial intelligence will eventually become conscious. My response is: Do you want it to be conscious? I think it is largely up to us whether…

One nice thing about favorite numbers is that there are so many to choose from.Image by Ecelop / ShutterstockGo ahead, admit it. Like a lot of people, you have a favorite number. Maybe…

How did we humans manage to build a global civilization on the cusp of colonizing other planets? It seems like such an unlikely outcome. After all, we were prone to cycles of war and…

On most days, we do not wake up anticipating that we may be suddenly thrust into the sky while popcorn shrimp rains down like confetti, as some guy roars from above: “Hey, there,…

 Just a human: Libratus’s success in poker is yet another triumph for artificial intelligence over the species that created it. Photograph by arsenik/GettyOver the span of 20…

Quantum Lab: Scientists are fabricating quantum photonic circuits—consisting of waveguides and other elements—to manipulate single photons for future quantum communications and…