Many snakes and other legless critters have an extraordinary facility for self-knotting, and can tie and untie themselves with a dexterity that would leave a sailor or Boy Scout in awe.

At the beginning of the epidemic, there wasn’t a way to test for HIV in donated blood, and many infections were transmitted by transfusions—1,220 cases in the U.S. by the end of 1987.

The first order of business is to identify what family or tribe you belong to— in ancient times, and to a considerable extent now, these were the people who’d have your back.

Hawking says black holes “should be redefined as metastable bound states of the gravitational field,” which I take to mean they may not necessarily be the one-way ticket to oblivion previously assumed.

Okay, Cecil. Sixteen years ago, at the end of a column about whether zinc lozenges cure the common cold, you wrote: “Today you don’t hear much about vitamin C as […]

Police used handguns to kill nonthreatening blacks far out of proportion to other races.

Freezing your jeans is an idea that’s been floating around the Internet for a while.

The hymen is far from infallible as an indicator of sexual activity.

Early in my mother’s pregnancy, she became aware her father had a terminal illness. He died two months before I was born. I’m almost 70 years old but have always […]

A related question is whether in a gay or lesbian relationship one of the partners habitually assumes the masculine role while the other plays the female.