How humans became upright: key changes to our pelvis found

Genetic and anatomical data reveal how the human pelvis acquired its unique shape, enabling our ancestors to walk on two legs.

The Weight of a Cell

A single E. coli bacterium weighs about one picogram, 60 million times less than a grain of sand. But how do we know?

What Does It Mean To Be Thirsty? | Quanta Magazine

The effects of insufficient water are felt by every cell in the body, but it’s the brain that manifests our experience of thirst.

Record-breaking divers are pushing human limits and reshaping scientists' view of our species

Humans have a long history of diving to forage from the seabed and today elite freedivers are reaching greater depths than ever. Some researchers argue humans belong in the sea.

Axolotls Can Regenerate Limbs, and Scientists Are Finally Learning How

A new study looked into the axolotl’s freakish regenerative talents, hoping to uncover secrets that could revolutionize human medicine.

Brain Freeze—Asterisk

The idea of cryonics — freezing the bodies of the dead in the hopes that they can one day be revived — has existed since the 1960s. We’ve since learned that perfect preservation is much, much harder than any of its founders anticipated.

The Ecosystem Dynamics That Can Make or Break an Invasion | Quanta Magazine

By speedrunning ecosystems with microbes, researchers revealed intrinsic properties that may make a community susceptible to invasion.

How To Build A Thousand-Year-Old Tree

"A set of experimental techniques and technologies that might seem harmful to trees is actually helping ancient forests survive."

Recipe for a Cell

While we know how to break organisms down to their constituent parts, even at the atomic level, building them from scratch remains difficult.

What Limits a Cell’s Size?

Two physical constraints help explain why cells are so tiny: surface area-to-volume ratios and diffusion. The first article in our new Data Series.

The Long Quest for Artificial Blood

One of the most valuable substances in the world has never been replicated. Are we close?

The Dangers of Mirrored Life

Creating mirrored organisms using synthetic biology could seriously harm extant life, a 300-page report claims. While the risks from mirrored life are uncertain, it is best not to find out.

Sleeping beauties: the evolutionary innovations that wait millions of years

Some organisms truck along slowly for aeons before suddenly surging into dominance – and something similar often happens with human inventions, too. But why?

Why don't humans have fur?

Most mammals, including our closest living relatives, have fur. So why did we lose ours?

aBiogenesis on Behance

Hiding in Plain Sight? The Argument for Invisible Aliens

Are invisible aliens living among us in shadow biospheres? Is extraterrestrial life hiding in plain sight?

Something Strange Happens When You Tear These Creatures Apart

Behold choanoflagellates, tiny creatures that can be one body and many bodies all at once.

jsomers.net | I should have loved biology

In biology class, biology wasn't presented as a quest for the secrets of life. The textbooks wrung out the questing.

PyMOL | pymol.org

deepmind/alphafold: Open source code for AlphaFold.

Open source code for AlphaFold.

When the Next Animal Plague Hits, Can This Lab Stop It?

A new federal facility in Kansas will house the deadliest agricultural pathogens in the world—and researchers working tirelessly to contain them.

The Evolution of Throwing

Homo sapiens has a throwing arm that sets it apart. Athletes are helping anthropologists understand this prowess.

Persuading the Body to Regenerate Its Limbs

Deer can regrow their antlers, and humans can replace their liver. What else might be possible?

Harriet Cole’s Mysterious Identity Still Stumps Historians

Whose body was harvested to create a spectacular anatomical specimen, and did that person know they would be on display more than a century later?

Why Extraterrestrial Life May Not Seem Entirely Alien

The zoologist Arik Kershenbaum argues that because some evolutionary challenges are truly universal, life throughout the cosmos may share certain features.

A family with no fingerprints

A family in Bangladesh struggles with an extremely rare genetic condition, "immigration delay disease".

Louisiana’s Disappearing Coast | The New Yorker

The state loses a football field’s worth of land every hour and a half. Now engineers are in a race to prevent it from sinking into oblivion.

The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Orchids

Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and sometimes it's a powerful vehicle for giving free rein to our worst colonialist and misogynist impulses.

How Do You Save an Endangered Tree from Extinction When You Can't Save Its

“Recalcitrant” seeds hold the secret to saving a critically endangered Indian tree—thanks to a bit of human help

In Search of Life’s Smoking Gun

A journey to the underwater volcanoes where life may have erupted.

The transhumanists who want to live forever

For a core of longevity true believers, the time to intervene is now.

I Now Suspect the Vagus Nerve Is the Key to Well-being

“Stimulating” it leads to calmness, but how and why?

Solving Wildlife's Strangest Mysteries

When a creature mysteriously turns up dead in Alaska—be it a sea otter, polar bear, or humpback whale—veterinary pathologist Kathy Burek gets the call. Her necropsies reveal cause of death and causes for concern as climate change frees up new pathogens and other dangers in a…

The Golden Bough | The New Yorker

Grant Hadwin got a chainsaw and did something terrible.

Has this scientist finally found the fountain of youth? - MIT Technology Re

Editing the epigenome, which turns our genes on and off, could be the “elixir of life.”

This Is Why It's Nearly Impossible to Study Pain

A fundamental understanding of what pain is continues to evade scientists.

The Most Controversial Tree in the World

Is the genetically engineered chestnut tree an act of ecological restoration or a threat to wild forests?

Why plants don’t die from cancer

Humans and other mammals and birds would have been killed many times over by Chernobyl's radiation that plants in the most contaminated areas received. So why is plant life so resilient to radiation and nuclear disaster?

Why I Traveled the World Hunting for Mutant Bugs - Issue 73: Play

A researcher who works through painting tells her story.

World's Oldest Terrarium / Sealed Bottle Ecosystem by David Latimer

Checkout one of the oldest terrarium gardens in the world! Read the story of David Latimer's sealed bottle ecosystem from the 1960's.

How to identify a body: the Marchioness disaster and my life in forensic pa

The long read: In my career, I have investigated many of the UK’s worst disasters. Few cases were as harrowing as the sinking of the Marchioness in 1989, which left scores dead and almost impossible to identify

The Brain That Remade Itself

Doctors removed one-sixth of this boy’s brain — and what was left did something incredible

Proof of life: how would we recognise an alien if we saw one?

Proof of life: what evidence would it take to convince you that alien intelligence had been found?

The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories

Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer searches museum jars for genetic traces of flu, measles and other viruses. Their evolutionary stories can help treat modern outbreaks and prepare for future ones.

How Apple Watch sleep apnea detection works and why it matters | Empirical Health

80% of sleep apnea cases are undiagnosed, and undiagnosed sleep apnea causes $150B of wasted medical spend every year.

The pathogens that could spark the next pandemic

Nature - The World Health Organization has updated its list of most dangerous viruses and bacteria.