Do Pain and Joy Have a Universal Language?

As artificial intelligence becomes woven into daily life, the race to build increasingly powerful systems is only accelerating. In this episode of Science Quickly, tech journalist Kevin Roose discusses the rise of artificial general intelligence and explains why some of the peopl ...  Show more

Addiction hijacks the brain’s reward circuitry, and current treatments often struggle to break its grip. In this episode, neuroscientist and neurosurgeon Ali Rezai of the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute explains how an experimental, noninvasive focused-ultrasound treatment ...  Show more

Ouch! Ah! Aïe! The words we use when we stub our toe or receive a pinch may point to a common way to express pain across languages. Associate news editor Allison Parshall explores what linguistic commonalities in expressions of pain and joy might mean for our shared biology. Plus ...  Show more

How do we feel pain? What parts of the brain control our reaction to painful sensations? And how is stem cell technology revolutionising the search for better treatments for chronic pain? In this episode of How We’re Wired, join evolutionary anthropologist Dr Anna Machin as she u ...  Show more

Leigh Cowart, science reporter and author of Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose, joins Weirdest Thing for the season finale! The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our Faceboo ...  Show more