We've all experienced a sleepless night or two, and for some people that's actually the norm. But why do we experience insomnia at all? What is going on in our minds and bodies, to cause this awful condition? Here's what scientists know so far.

As food science and our understanding plant proteins expands by leafs and stems, some food-thinking entrepreneurs are looking for ways to make our agricultural products safer, more environmentally sustainable, more humane, and yes, cheaper. Recently, I paid a visit to food science startup Hampton Creek Foods to learn…

Whether you're already three sheets to the wind or abstaining from booze this St. Patrick's Day, get to know a little bit more about the wet and intoxicating stuff. We've collected some of our favorite posts about the science, social science, and history of alcohol, so you'll have more to say about your beer aside from …

Last month, researchers created an electronic link between the brains of two rats separated by thousands of miles. This was just another reminder that technology will one day make us telepaths. But how far will this transformation go? And how long will it take before humans evolve into a fully-fledged hive mind? We…

Forget Paris — after Melvin and Maria Mininson tied the knot on on July 12, 1959, they slipped into a cozy, 12-foot deep, 6-by-14-foot wide fallout shelter. There they spent a two-week honeymoon fielding calls from the media and trying to figure out how to open all those cans.

Earlier this week we reported on the remarkable news that a Mississippi-born baby was cured of HIV. Now, as if to show the disease that its days are truly numbered, researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that nanoparticles infused with a toxic bee venom can kill HIV. The…

One of the more extraordinary things about the universe is that it has produced beings who can observe it — namely, us. Its laws and constants are so precise that, if they were even slightly modified, no human would be here to see it. Many cosmologists and philosophers have wondered if we should read anything into all …

It's not quite Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but it may not be too far off, either. By grafting human glial cells into the brains of mice, neuroscientists were able to "sharply enhance" their cognitive capacities. These improvements included augmentations to memory, learning, and adaptive conditioning. It's a…

When the human body becomes infected with particularly severe forms of diseases like tuberculosis and leprosy, its immune response is to produce lots of interferon-beta, a virus-destroying protein. There's just one problem. Those diseases are bacteria, not viruses.

Nearly 1.4 million babies are born surgically in the United States each year. That's a third of all births, and the numbers are only getting bigger. The trend is due in part to an increase in elective cesarean sections, or surgical births that aren't medically necessary. Why are women in the United States being…