What We're Reading

Everyone knows your pupils dilate when you see something interesting, right? Not so fast: A modern day do-over of a mid-20th century pupillometry experiment raises the question, what should we make of a failed replication?

Techniques that render tissues as clear as glass and swell them to several times their original size are giving unprecedented access to the inner workings of biological systems.

Success, it seems, has a more tenuous link to skill and effort than one might think, according to an analysis by a physicist and network scientist in this book review.

An odd device known as an optical Ising machine could route airplanes, schedule football games and tackle other traveling-salesman type problems.

The controversial claim of CRISPR-made babies is lose-lose-lose for China's scientific institutions: they cannot control rogue scientists, or they ignore ethics, or they are unable to stamp out fraud.

Does your windshield have less bug splatter now than when you were a kid? Some areas of Europe have seen dramatic declines in insect populations, raising questions about global biodiversity.

After enduring a high-tension descent from orbit, the spacecraft will now begin its quest to peel back the profound mysteries of the Red Planet’s interior.

In this essay on careers, Fernando T. Maestre says that a productive lab need not be a negative environment.

The way memories are anchored in the brain plays a role, neuropsychologist Boris Suchan explains. In the bike-riding part, neurogenesis occurs less frequently, suggesting that perhaps encoded memories there are less likely to get erased.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Science Times section, the New York Times looks at big topics that curiosity demands answers to, such as climate change, artificial intelligence, space travel and human longevity.