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Etienne Fabre / SSAC A Shocking Find In a Neanderthal Cave In France
A rock structure, built deep underground, is one of the earliest hominin constructions ever found.
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Romano Dallai This Fly's Sperm Is One Thousand Times Longer Than Human Sperm
“If a man produced sperm that big, it would stretch diagonally across a basketball court.”
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Scott Portelli Release the Kraken
While fish are disappearing from the oceans, squid, octopus, and cuttlefish populations have been rising since the 1960s. Why?
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Life On White / Getty The Gene That Paints Birds Red
In the 1920s, breeders turned yellow canaries red. Now, scientists have finally found the gene responsible.
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Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters The Plan to Avert Our Post-Antibiotic Apocalypse
A new report estimates that by 2050, drug-resistant infections will kill one person every three seconds, unless the world’s governments take drastic steps now.
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Jim Young / Reuters The White House Launches the National Microbiome Initiative
Half a billion dollars are being pledged to study the microbes in humans, crops, soils, oceans, and more.
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region Climate Change Is Shrinking Earth’s Far-Flying Birds
In which the red knot is the canary, and the planet is the coalmine.
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Sheng Li / Reuters The Genetics of Staying in School
A huge study found 74 gene variants that are associated with years of formal schooling—but that doesn’t mean there are “education genes.”
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Sir David Attenbingo
While watching every episode of David Attenborough’s classic wildlife series for this mammoth tribute post, I also compiled a list…
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BBC / Anton_Ivanov / Rich Carey / Neirfy / Resul Muslu / Starcea Gheorghe Silviu / Georgia Evans / Tanawat Ariya / Shutterstock / Paul Spella / The Atlantic Every Episode of David Attenborough’s Life Series, Ranked
A long love letter to the creator of the world’s greatest nature documentaries, on the eve of his 90th birthday.
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Lefteris Pitarakis / AP Humans Paid for Bigger Brains With Gas-Guzzling Bodies
A new study shows that we burn many more daily calories than other apes.
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The Sketch That Revolutionized DNA Sequencing
Last week, I wrote a piece about nanopore sequencing, a revolutionary technique that could one day allow anyone to sequence…
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Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters Why Are Your Gut Microbes Different From Mine?
To find out, scientists collected poop from thousands of people—but they ended up with more questions than answers.
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Zachary Bickel A DNA Sequencer in Every Pocket
A biotech company is building devices that will allow people to decipher genes in remote jungles, at sea, or even in space—and they say they’re just getting started.
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Reuters Future Smartphones Will Tell You What’s Killing Your Plants
By amassing a huge library of leaf images, scientists are training computers to diagnose the diseases that threaten our food supply.
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Nicky Loh / Reuters Why We Sleep Badly on Our First Night in a New Place
Is it because half our brain is staying up to keep watch?
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Bernard Dupont / Flickr Florida’s Dragon Problem
Huge monitor lizards have invaded the state, and the rest of the U.S. is one unlucky boatload away.
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Darren Staples / Reuters The Long Decline of the Dinosaurs
For at least 40 million years before that pesky asteroid, the dinosaurs were losing species faster than they could replace them.
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Gorchakov Artem / Flickr The Wood Wide Web
A new study shows that trees of different species can exchange large amounts of carbon via the fungal internet that connects their roots.
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Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center / Batelle Brain Prosthetic Allows Paralyzed Man to Move His Hand Again
The system decodes his brain activity and uses it to control his arm muscles, bypassing his injured spine.