Play isn’t frivolous — and by denying playful impulses, you could be holding yourself back.

From snowboarding crows to salmon-hat orcas, scientists are uncovering the deeper evolutionary purposes of play.

The cartoon owl wants to have a word.

From early arcades to AI-generated worlds, video games have continually expanded the “magic circle” of play.

Wargames are helping answer one of the biggest questions of the AI era: how machines might reshape human decision-making in war.

Older cultures made room for mourning. Today, we often rush it, and it comes with a cost. Three experts explain.

Many people, now with LLM assistance, regularly claim to discover game-changing revolutions. Scientists don't buy it. You shouldn't either.

Directives rarely inspire change. The most effective leaders use stories to make transformation memorable, resonant, and actionable.

Despite all that we've discovered, Earth remains the only planet definitively known to possess life. Here's how to find a second example.

You can't explain a third dimension to someone living in a two-dimensional world. According to Yale philosopher L.A. Paul, the same is true of life's biggest decisions — you simply can't know what it's like until you're already there.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider superseded Fermilab's TeVatron in 2008, but now nears the end of its run. The ambitious FCC project comes next.

Anxiety feels like a malfunction. Evolutionarily speaking, it's one of your most sophisticated features.

A white rabbit appears up ahead. What do you do?

At and beyond the current frontiers of knowledge, many physicists have strongly held opinions. Can surveys point the way to breakthroughs?

David Epstein walks through decades of research exploring why constraints, not freedom, are the engine behind creativity, focus, and breakthrough.

Who do you want to be today?

Feedback only feels high-stakes when you've been saving it up.

America’s first Gilded Age reveals how concentrated economic power erodes democracy and offers a warning as similar forces reemerge today.

In goal setting, Chris Bailey argues the problem isn't discipline; it's the system itself.

When we see loneliness as a kind of failure, it becomes damaging. When we see it as information, it becomes actionable. A psychologist, a social health scientist, and a psychiatrist explain.