What self-driving cars want, and what people want from them, varies widely. And often these desires are at odds with each other. For instance, carmakers – and the designers of the software that will run autonomous vehicles – know that it’s safest if...

The recent mass shooting in Las Vegas that left dozens of people dead and hundreds injured raises two important questions: How do dangerous people get their guns? And what should the police and courts be doing to make those transactions more difficult?

The fact is that, even leaving aside the assault in Las Vegas and terrorist attacks like the...

Circadian rhythms control when we’re at our peak performance physically and mentally each day, keeping our lives ticking in time with Earth’s day/night cycle. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three American...

Editor’s note: This is a roundup of gun control articles published by scholars from the U.S. and two other countries where deadly mass shootings are far less common.

An underresearched epidemic

Guns are a leading cause of death of Americans of all ages, including children. Yet “while gun violence is a public health problem, it is not...

By now, most people are aware of the enormity of the opioid epidemic. In 2015, over 33,000 Americans died from an opioid overdose – more from opioid pain relievers than heroin.

Just because someone experiments with opioids doesn’t mean that he or he will become addicted. However,...

How can we combat the opioid epidemic?

One of the government’s most recent suggestions is to take Opana ER, an opioid indicated for very severe pain, off the market. The request, filed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June, was linked to concerns...

Elon Musk has a plan, and it’s about as audacious as they come. Not content with living on our pale blue dot, Musk and his company SpaceX want to colonize Mars, fast. They say they’ll send a duo of supply ships to the red planet within five years. By 2024,...

The public debate over how best to keep the internet open and free – and what exactly that means – has dragged on for more than a decade. The principle that internet service providers should deliver all online content without favoritism carries with it complex economic, technological and legal...

Now that the Cassidy-Graham bill has been pulled, it’s a good time to think about concrete ways to improve health and health care in our country. Despite advances in medicine, U.S. health care spending grew to US$3.2 trillion in 2015, or...

Visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., it’s easy to overlook the names of eight women inscribed on the wall’s haunting slabs of black granite.

These eight are hidden figures,...