TLDR
You and a frog might have the same taste in music
Citizen science revealed a shared "taste for the beautiful" across species
TLDR
Stingers and spikes across nature have the same shape. Here's why.
Not everything in biology evolved for a purpose.
TLDR
A tiny scrap of the genetic molecule RNA can *almost* copy itself.
Here's what it means for the origin of life
Q&A
The origin of life wasn't fat-free
James Sáenz studies how fatty molecules might have helped life get started
Brain
More than words: prosody in the brain
The brain's dedicated hardware for handling the melody of speech overlaps with regions involved in language processing and recognizing facial expressions.
Q&A
There's no gene for being human
Barbara Molz found supposedly extinct ancient gene variants in hundreds of modern humans. They don't seem to do much.
Astrobiology
What do space sugars tell us about the origin of life?
The mystery of life's origin is not a missing magic ingredient, it's a missing process.
From the Archives
Tessellation revelation
From my archives: the story of how mathematicians discovered "soft cells" that fill space without corners
Q&A
The individual isn't what it used to be
Tim Waring thinks human evolution is shifting from genetic and individual to cultural and collective
Biology
Women have no genetic blueprint
Neither do men, but women *really* don't
Biology
Does biology play dice?
Some thoughts on nature, nurture, and chance in development
Q&A
Hydra are a cosmos in a cuvette
To see order emerge from chaos, Anaïs Bailles shreds up immortal animals and watches them re-grow