The world’s largest eyeball belongs to the giant squid. It was measured for the first time in 2012, at roughly a foot across. The pupil alone is almost four inches in diameter, about the size of a big orange. That may not be huge in absolute terms, but, compared to…

Do you remember the last time you got goose bumps? Not the kind you get when you’re cold — those aren’t particularly memorable. I mean the other kind — the ones that start from within, that come with a surge of feeling, the ones sometimes called “psychogenic.” I last got…

It began with a bang — an eruption, to be exact. Around 3.6 million years ago, in a region now known as Laetoli, in Tanzania, a volcano belched out a fearsome cloud. It was a violent upheaval no doubt. But soon, as the cloud settled, creatures of all kinds resumed…

Many thinkers start to think loftier thoughts as they get older. They zoom out; they try to take in the bigger picture, the 32,000-foot perspective. Charles Darwin went in the other direction: after giving the world far-reaching theories about the nature of life and mind, he spent the last stretch…

Ten years ago, an acronym was born. There was nothing particularly unusual about the circumstances surrounding its birth. It first appeared in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, in an article by three psychologists — Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine, and Ara Norenzayan. Now, acronyms abound in academic writing. Most are…

At one point or another, we’ve all pondered some version of the “what is it like” question. What is it like to be bird, gliding over the world with the proverbial bird’s eye view. What is like to be a dog, navigating a lush landscape of smells. …

A sense of self — we all have one. We know where we end and where others begin. We know what it’s like to have thoughts, to see with our eyes. We know that the hand in our lap belongs to us, not to someone else; and we know that…