People with standard vision can see millions of distinct colors. But human language categorizes these into a small set of words. In an industrialized culture, most people get by with 11 color words: black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown,...

The U.S. has seen substantial improvements in life expectancy over the past century, particularly for those who are better-educated and more affluent.

Our study, out September 18, looks at the health of older Americans in recent years, using data collected by the U.S. Department of Health and...

For people who don’t get sleepy until 2 a.m., the buzz of an alarm clock can feel mighty oppressive.

Relief may be on the horizon, thanks to the discovery this spring of a genetic mutation that causes night-owl behavior.

Whether you’re a night owl or a morning lark...

It’s not easy to hold the nation’s attention for long, but three solid weeks of record-smashinghurricanes directly affecting multiple states and at least 20 million people will do it.

Clustered disasters hold our attention in ways that singular events cannot...

Editor’s note: Should someone wearing a badge have the power to relieve a suspected drug dealer of his Maserati on the spot without giving him an opportunity to flee or liquidate and...

Editor’s note: In February, U.S. Republican senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, with President Donald Trump, unveiled an immigration bill called the RAISE Act. It would create a “merit-based” points system for evaluating foreigners applying to come to the U.S. through...

The Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, built nearly a millennium ago and one of Iraq’s most revered religious sites, was destroyed when the Islamic State detonated explosives inside it in June of this year....

In August 1965, Morley Safer, a reporter for “CBS News,” accompanied a unit of U.S. marines on a search-and-destroy mission to the Vietnamese village of Cam Ne. Using cigarette lighters and a flamethrower, the troops proceeded to burn...

In the wake of an explosion in London on September 15, President Trump called forcutting off extremists’ access to the internet.

Racists and terrorists, and many other extremists, have used the internet for decades and adapted as technology evolved, shifting from...

Editor’s note: the following is roundup of previously published articles.

Passwords are everywhere – and they present an impossible puzzle. Social media profiles, financial records, personal correspondence and vital work documents are all protected...