Study: They’ve been stereotyped as a bunch of insecure, angst-ridden, underachievers. But most members of Generation X are leading active, balanced, and happy lives.

From even before the all-Wolverine crew of Apollo 15, the U-M College of Engineering has played a key role in American space flight.

Skewed skulls may have helped early whales discriminate the direction of sounds in water and are not solely, as previously thought, a later adaptation related to echolocation.

“On Earth, everywhere there’s liquid water, there is microbial life,” says U-M professor Nilton Renno. He’s the scientist who discovered liquid water droplets on Mars, and he’s now leading a project to explore pockets of very salty, liquid water on the red planet. It might be the best bet for finding microbial life beyond Earth.

A robot in a University of Michigan lab can run like a human—a feat that represents the height of agility and efficiency for a two-legged machine. “It’s stunning,” says professor Jessy Grizzle. “I have never seen a machine doing a motion like this.”

People who give, live longer, studies have shown. Now, a new study shows that why people volunteer—not whether they volunteer—is what really counts.

“In the African villages that I study in Mali, children fare as well in nuclear families as they do in extended families,” says U-M professor Beverly Strassmann.

Physicists and astronomers have long believed that the universe has mirror symmetry, like a basketball. But recent findings from the University of Michigan suggest that the shape of the Big Bang might be more complicated than previously thought, and that the early universe spun on an axis.

Wise folks say that wisdom can only be earned by experience, but new research indicates that there might be a way to develop your capacity to make wise decisions.