Stories by Rob Dunn

Genes Explain Even Rube Goldberg–Like Homes of Many Creatures

The homes that animals build are just as much a product of evolution as the creatures themselves

Genes Explain Even Rube Goldberg–Like Homes of Many Creatures

The homes that animals build are just as much a product of evolution as the creatures themselves

New Revelations about the Biodiversity of Belly Buttons

When it comes to science, I have the patience of a rabid fox, trapped in a cage, in front of which a wounded rabbit is standing. My family, the folks in my lab and the need for sleep balance this nascent madness...

New Revelations about the Biodiversity of Belly Buttons

When it comes to science, I have the patience of a rabid fox, trapped in a cage, in front of which a wounded rabbit is standing. My family, the folks in my lab and the need for sleep balance this nascent madness...

Science Reveals Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong

Digestion is far too messy a process to accurately convey in neat numbers. The counts on food labels can differ wildly from the calories you actually extract, for many reasons

Why Mosquitoes Like You and Not Me

The mosquito is so small it takes almost nothing to ruin it.–Mary Oliver Mosquitoes devour some people and ignore others. If they like you, swat a dozen and a dozen more appear in their place, inserting their mouthparts into your capillaries and imbibing as quickly as they can...

How a Tiny Wasp May Save Your Life

Nature knows no real balance, just moments of apparent equilibrium before some rise or fall. We are studying scale insects—a kind of immobile (scientists say “sessile”) animal that lives on plants and sucks at them until, in some cases, they die (and by we, I mostly mean one of my students, Emily Meineke, and her [...]..

What is Wrong With Dissections?

Hint... It is not what you think. Here is a story you might find a bit laughable. At the end of the dark ages in what is now Italy, when knowledge was being reborn, anatomists would read from an ancient Greek text while their assistants dissected a human body and pointed out its parts...

A Wild Bet: Can Inoculating Newborns with Innocuous Strains of Bacteria Save Them from Deadly Ones?

Recently, one of Paul Cezanne’s missing paintings was rediscovered. The painting shows Paulin Paulet, a gardener on Cezanne’s family estate, looking at his poker cards.

10 Predictions for the Future of Your (Microbial) Health

Every day it seems like some new discovery is revealed ab0ut the microbial life on our bodies, in our bodies and around our homes. The tendency in writing about such studies is to make sweeping conclusions about what is and is not and, of course, how we should live and what we should do...

The Sieve Hypothesis: Clever Study Suggests an Alternate Explanation for the Function of the Human Stomach

You have a stomach. I have a stomach. It is one of our few universals. Humans, mate, sing, talk, and raise their children in many different ways, but we’ve all got stomachs.

11 Ways to Avoid Answering a Question: A Year in Review

What If God Were a Maggot?

Giving Thanks: Scientists Seek World Record for Most Pieces of Used Toilet Paper Collected

“Once the diversity of the microbial world is catalogued… it will make astronomy look like a pitiful science.” Julian Davies  For Neil Armstrong, the giant step for mankind was taken on the moon...

Going Deep: Soliciting Explanations for the Mysteries of the Wild Life of Your Belly Button

Scientists give you all their data in the hopes that you will outsmart them So you want to be a scientist? Here is your chance. We are going to release one of the largest datasets on the microbes of our skin ever collected...

After 2 Years Scientists Still Can t Solve Belly Button Mystery, Continue Navel-Gazing

This is a confession. I started out as a respectable sort of ecologist studying rain forests and then at some point my road turned and I ended up where I am today, lost among the belly buttons.I know how it happened...

The Hidden Truths about Calories

Professor s Husband Discovered to Be Made of Nothing but Bacteria, Gas and Glue

How to Eat Like a Chimpanzee

In conversation we say someone is haunted by the past. Evolutionarily we are all haunted by many pasts, pasts buried in each of our cells, organs or actions.

Human Ancestors Were Nearly All Vegetarians

Paleolithic diets have become all the rage, but are they getting our ancestral diet all wrong? Right now, one half of all Americans are on a diet.