Asking a biologist to define 'life' is a bit like looking-up the word 'definition' in a dictionary — it's as if you're questioning their very existence. Biologists like myself don't agree on what life ...

People often feel that they can intuitively recognize whether something is alive, but nature is filled with entities that flout easy categorization as life or non-life — and the challenge may ...

The name for a family of commercial chemicals usually provides a fairly clear idea of the related compounds within it. An example is organophosphate pesticides. Another is brominated flame retardants.

Activists, university officials and political leaders are deeply divided over what, precisely, constitutes antisemitism. By Vimal Patel Many donors, politicians and Jewish students have pressured ...

When you visit a museum, chances are you think more about the items you’re there to see than about the museum itself — much less about the meaning of museums in general. But while art and antiquities ...

How many people must die in a shooting before it’s termed a ‘mass shooting’? Four people? Two? None at all? One strict definition used in the past by the federal government says at least four victims ...

Debates rage over what to do about genetically modified organisms, but we rarely stop to ask a more basic question: Do GMOs really exist? It’s an important question, because no one in this debate can ...