What is the first thing you do when you get a new pair of headphones? Some of us might unbox it and put up an Instagram story. Others might immediately put on their favourite playlist and crank up the bass. However, if you ask any audiophile what they do with a new pair of headphones, their answer will most likely be: burning them in. Audiophiles are discerning music listeners who are motivated to get the very best sound quality out of their headphones, speakers, and audio equipment in general.

Show me a museum of important historical inventors and I will show you a gallery of deluded mass murderers. I’m not talking about machine gun manufacturers or nuclear scientists—those people, at least, have some sense of what they’re up to. I’m talking about the folks behind the printing press, the automobile, various kinds of boat technology. These people tried to improve the world, and succeeded, but also indirectly killed millions of people.

A crude understanding of physics sees determinism at work in the Universe. Luckily, molecular uncertainty ensures this isn’t so

What if you saw the Internet's most-read stories all at once. This infographic shows what the internet thinks about based on the most popular media.

Grippy sneakers can mean the difference between a swift pivot shot and a sloppy turnover. Thanks to a team of material scientists from the U.S., Canada and Switzerland, nailing that shot could be easier than ever.

In appearing with Bible in hand at the time of crisis, Trump is signaling his position as defender of traditional, while 'othering' detractors. Russia's Putin and India's Modi have done similar.

Many people are clearly hooked on their smartphones, laptops, and tablets. By contrast, I’ve never felt the need for a smartphone. I was born with synesthesia, a neurological condition where the senses are intertwined with each other. That little screen in your pocket probably dominates all others in your life, but instead of checking my phone 100 times a day, I visualize music in my head 100 times a day.

A global currency is one that is accepted for trade throughout the world. Some of the world's currencies are accepted for most international transactions. The most popular are the U.S. dollar, the euro, and the yen. Another name for a global currency is the reserve currency. According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. dollar is the most popular. As of the fourth quarter of 2019, it makes up over 60% of all known central bank foreign exchange reserves. That makes it the de facto global currency, even though it doesn't hold an official title.

The Universe is so huge it seems unlikely we are the only intelligent species. There must be intelligent extraterrestrial life living on alien worlds we have not yet discovered. A recent study has examined the likelihood of life and intelligence beyond our solar system. We know from the geological record that life started relatively quickly, as soon our planet’s environment was stable enough to support it.

Thieves, amateurs, and patriots have spent enough time planning the perfect art heist. Some remain unsolved; read on about the strangest cases. Stealing art looks like a lucrative business model in TV shows and movies. It seems like you’d nick an expensive painting, sell it in the black market, and make a whole lot of money – tax free. Easy peasy, right? Wrong! Stolen art is much harder to sell than you’d think.

Constructor theory is a relatively nascent idea in fundamental physics that proposes to underlie all other currently known theories, not to mention those yet to be known, and to solve problems across a host of fields in science and beyond. Logan Chipkin joins Oxford physicist and constructor theorist Chiara Marletto to discuss what constructor theory is, how it might point the way to a successor to quantum theory, and how it might allow physics to tackle some of philosophy’s most perplexing puzzles.

In 2010, Dung Nguyen, a 39-year-old Vietnamese fisherman living in Dickinson, Texas, decided to take his boat out early in the season. Peak shrimping in Texas’s Galveston Bay wouldn’t begin until mid-August, but Nguyen was saving to send his three children to college, so in April, he began heading out for four or five days at a time. Nguyen was accustomed to long days; he had come to America as a refugee in 1992 and had saved for years to buy his first boat.

In the early 1950s, a young lieutenant realized the fatal flaw in the cockpit design of U.S. air force jets.

If there is hope in our present situation, it lies in the fact that the current occupant of the White House is opening our eyes to the reality that individuals with dangerous personalities can plunge entire societies into division and moral confusion.

Leading psychotherapist and author on Trump's worsening sadistic "addiction" to causing harm, pain and death

Ever wondered where the last year of your life went? Neuroscientist David Eagleman sheds some light on the time-bending power of your brain.

A rising international force of rebel botanists armed with chalk has taken up street graffiti to highlight the names and importance of the diverse but downtrodden flora growing in the cracks of paths and walls in towns and cities across Europe.

On April 23, I started work at 8:49 a.m., reading and responding to emails, browsing the news and scrolling Twitter. At 9:14 a.m., I made changes to an upcoming story and read through interview notes. By 10:09 a.m., work momentum lost, I read about the Irish village where Matt Damon was living out the quarantine. All of these details — from the websites I visited to my GPS coordinates — were available for my boss to review.

Thanks to coronavirus shutdowns, many TV shows will soon reach a point where they simply run out of new material to air. That means unavoidable delays, but some showrunners are coming up with more creative solutions. Case in point, NBC’s crime thriller The Blacklist. This show isn’t usually at the forefront of groundbreaking innovation, but it’s definitely popular enough to be renewed for an eighth season next year. The problem is, they didn’t quite have time to finish season 7.

There is a nice variety to choose from here.