If you’ve played Rollercoaster Tycoon, Cities: Skylines, the Civilization series—even Animal Crossing—you’re probably familiar with this gameplay pattern: extract some kind of resourc...

The widespread infection of roughly four million virtual characters all started with a giant snake demon. In 2005, the massively multiplayer online video game World Of Warcraft introd...

In the new Adult Swim show “Common Side Effects,” an eccentric scientist has a secret: He’s discovered a strange mushroom that can cure any illness or injury, and he wants to get it t...

From down here on Earth, life on the International Space Station seems magnificent: floating through the day, enjoying stunning views out your window, having an experience only a hand...

The science fiction film “Interstellar” turns 10 years old this month. For many of us, it was our first encounter with some pretty advanced astrophysics, taking sci-fi concepts like w...

People are finding all sorts of uses for mushrooms these days, but we’re going to focus on two of them: how scientists are using them in robots and how playwrights are using them in t...

It’s that time of the  year when you’re making your list, checking it twice, for gifts that spark a love of science for the kids in your life. Ira talks with Mahnaz Dar, young readers...

Here at Science Friday, we’re big fans of metaphors. They can make complicated scientific concepts easier to understand, for both non-experts and scientists themselves. For example, “...

Did you know that there are ten quintillion—or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000—individual insects on the planet? That means that for each and every one of us humans, there are 1.25 billion...