Packalen is an associate professor of economics at the University of Waterloo. This essay is part of a First Opinion series on the future of the National Institutes of Health and American science.

T he last two decades have not been kind to science studies. Already bruised and battered by the “science wars” of the 1990s, by the 2000s sociologists of science — who had long argued that science ...

From “experimental archaeology” to the mysterious appeal of exploration, the wide-ranging subjects detailed in these titles captivated Smithsonian magazine’s science contributors this year Joe Spring, ...

Kid lit experts weigh in on some of the year’s best science titles. Plus, what to look for when choosing a book for the child in your life. Are you hoping to inspire a young reader in your life with ...

When the United States faced the looming threat of World War II in the 1930s, it bet big on science — and won. The nation invested billions of dollars in research at universities and in industry. That ...

The UNC School of Data Science and Society and the School of Information and Library Science will be consolidating into a new school focused on artificial intelligence. According to a Q and A webpage ...

CORRECTION: A transcription error misidentified author Dr. Peter Hotez in William Brangham's introduction. The transcript has been updated. We regret the error. From ...

Roald Sagdeev has already watched one scientific empire rot from the inside. When Sagdeev began his career, in 1955, science in the Soviet Union was nearing its apex. At the Kurchatov Institute in ...

AI isn’t just writing poems or suggesting meal plans anymore — it’s bringing new possibilities for science and what we know about the world. Scientists can now decode electrons, create new materials ...

Bryan Johnson is an unusual fellow by anyone’s standards. A millionaire venture capitalist and anti-ageing evangelist, he wants to push his lifespan and “healthspan” to the very limits by taking a ...

“He retains a sharp memory of the trap, last summer, his forefoot clamped and the utter terror, and of later waking, woozy, and the awful, human scent all over him, and the thing awkward around his ...

Scientists searching for a cure for cancer have no trouble finding public support. But for those studying potato disease, it’s a tougher sell. The Trump administration seems to have banked on the idea ...