Surprising Science

What is the significance of Wal-Mart’s initiative to sell healthier and cheaper produce? What do we know about what works and what doesn’t in changing people’s eating habits?

Just a few weeks’ worth of light meditation can change the structure of your brain, seemingly for the better. Thirty minutes a day can actually increase people’s capacity for learning.

In the sports that best measure athleticism—track and field, mostly—athletic performance has peaked. Athletes’ best sprints, best jumps, best throws—many of them happened years ago.

The violence of football has always been a concern and the sport has seen periodic attempts at reform. But recent neurological findings have uncovered risks that are more insidious.

Assassination researcher Manfred Schneider says that Congresswoman Gifford’s would-be killer acted not out of irrationality but rather from a hyper-rationality.

Next time you need a boost, think about the story of your ancestors. In a new study, researchers found that thinking about one’s ancestors motivates people.

New research finds that lifting weights can augment brain functions. Imagine what someone like Einstein might have accomplished if he had occasionally gone to the gym.

From Viagra and saccharine to penicillin and x-rays, science and serendipity often go hand in hand. Here are seven accidental discoveries that changed the world.

The act of writing helps you clarify your thoughts, remember things better, and reach your goals more surely than typing on a computer. Is the pen truly mightier than the keyboard?

Many kids are vaccinated at age two; some kids start displaying autistic behavior at the same age. “Evidence” that there’s a connection has turned out to be bogus.

The miraculous recovery of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has focused attention on the advances in treatment for brain injuries previously thought to be non-survivable. Tack one up for military medicine.

We all know people who have remarkable self-control. How do they do it? What’s the secret? It’s partly genetic, but to control yourself you must also control your environment.

Taking a test is not just a passive way to assess how much people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn, and works better than various other techniques.

A study has found that blindfolded dolphins can pick up on the actions of other dolphins, even imitating their actions.

There is more than a literal truth to the saying that “you never get a second chance to make a first impression,” suggests emerging international research.

Researchers have found that people whose last names come later in the alphabet are more impulsive shoppers than those earlier in the alphabet.

You can be sure that the next set you buy will almost certainly have an option to connect to the internet. The challenge manufacturers face is persuading you that it’s worth the effort.

Why does music make us feel? On the one hand, music is a purely abstract art form, devoid of language or explicit ideas. The stories it tells are all subtlety and subtext.

Lately, mainstream scientists have been inching toward similar conclusions about the positive therapeutic potential of hallucinogenic drugs, says Annie Murphy.

Your friends might seem based on shared interests and emotional compatibility. But there might be something genetic going on—and it’s related to how much you drink.

What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? This question, posed by psychologist Steven Pinker, has garnered over 150 responses at Edge.org.

There is not a single gene that triggers autism, but more likely dozens of genes that enhance the risk of autism. On the other hand, researchers have found that certain environmental variables, like air pollution, may also play a small role. 

A study has found an unexpected sex difference in the effects of caffeine consumption on performance under stress. Men fared worse and women better.

A border collie in South Carolina has the largest vocabulary of any known dog. She knows 1,022 nouns, a record that may help explain how children acquire language.

Every Wednesday, Michio Kaku will be answering reader questions about physics and futuristic science. Today, Dr. Kaku addresses a question posed by Tomas Aftalion: Will it be possible to transfer one’s memory into a synthetic medium in our lifetime?  

MIT ethnographer Sherry Turkle warns of the dangers of social technology after herself experiencing what was like a schoolgirl crush on a human-looking machine.

Scientists have come a step closer to gaining complete control over a mind, even if that mind belongs to a creature the size of a grain of sand.

Prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs have more than doubled in the U.S. over the past 15 years, often given for conditions for which there is scant evidence they work.

When future astronomers look to the sky, they will no longer witness the past. Observations will reveal nothing but an endless stretch of inky black stillness.

What no one knew until now is that most cars would not work without the intervention of one of Einstein’s most famous discoveries: the special theory of relativity.