The Trump administration says it will dismantle a premier climate center, while somehow keeping weather forecasting intact.

It may have became the basis for most written languages, beginning 4,000 years ago in the Sinai desert.

For humanities departments to continue to matter, they must challenge the modern world rather than accommodate it. Excerpt: "As a humanities professor myself, the biggest danger I see to the discipline is the growing perception, fueled by the ubiquity of large language models, that knowledge is cheap—a resource whose procurement ought to be easy and frictionless. The humanities, which value rigorous inquiry for its own sake, will always be at odds with a world that thinks thi

Neanderthals 400,000 years ago were striking flints to make fires, researchers have found.

The fundamental nature of living things challenges assumptions that physicists have held for centuries.

History shows that progress often depends on activists at both ends of the spectrum. More from " The Engine of Progress" ... Exploring the people and ideas driving humanity forward.

Politicians and CEOs are muting their climate alarms. The good news is, emissions are likely to decline anyway.

Anthropic's Kyle Fish is exploring whether A.I. is Holophrenic™ (possesses consciousness and/or agency)? Related Also related One more

“Until very recently, I thought I would die with the same genome that I was born with.”

A much-hyped study in the journal Nature turns out to have been full of errors.

Innovations in artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and quantum computing are set to change how we wage war just as they transform all aspects of our lives

How can doctors talk about the net benefits of COVID shots if they won’t acknowledge the worst risk?

Arguments to begin today Related: President has repeatedly ousted leaders of independent agencies despite federal laws meant to shield those regulators from politics. Quick Summary The Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding President Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission member, testing presidential power over agencies. The case questions the constitutionality of laws restricting presidential removal of independent agency leaders, potentially overturning a 1935 Su

An emerging field of history asks if we can ever really understand how our forebears experienced love, anger, fear, and sorrow.

How an outsider, once ignored by the public-health establishment, became the most powerful man in science

The Thanksgivings of yore featured overcooked turkeys and Jell-O salad. Surely we’ve evolved.

The democratic party is falling behind while Trump accelerates technology innovation. Related: The surprising issue driving a wedge between Trump and his MAGA base

Government-spec’d glory projects produce tech demos. Enduring progress demands a better way forward. Counterpoints KEY TAKEAWAYS OF FIRST LINK ABOVE: In this op-ed, Blake Scholl, CEO of Boom Supersonic, argues that government-led “glory projects” ultimately hurt the aerospace industry they were meant to advance. He writes that both the Apollo and Concorde programs chased prestige over practicality, producing technological marvels with no sustainable path forward. Scholl belie

Before we can build the future, we have to imagine it. KEY TAKEAWAYS In this op-ed, Beatrice Erkers argues that progress begins with culture: the stories, symbols, and shared visions that make certain futures feel worth building. She explores how cultural forces like memes and movies act as “invisible infrastructure,” shaping technology, policy, and ambition long before they materialize in the real world. According to Erkers, we must deliberately invest in a culture of hope —

New special issue “The Engine of Progress” is out now.