Evolution

Nature does not have to play fair with our puny human brains

Originally published in July 1948

To entice female ring-tailed lemurs, males rub wrist secretions, which include compounds we use in perfumes, onto their tail and then wave it near the gals.

They don’t stand on one leg around just anybody but often prefer certain members of the flock.

New bones suggest Spinosaurus is the only known aquatic dinosaur.

Tamu Massif and dozens of other seafloor volcanoes formed like sheet cakes, not layer cakes 

Bees infected with a virus cut back on interactions within their hive but find it easier to get past sentries at neighboring hives.

Guest host W. Wayt Gibbs talks with Jason Wright, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, about what’s known as the Fermi paradox: In a universe of trillions of planets, where is everybody?

These are startling times, but there’s a way out

Oxpeckers riding on rhinoceroses feast on ticks, and their calls warn the nearsighted herbivores about approaching humans.

New discoveries have raised the possibility of exploring dino genetics, but controversy surrounds the results

Painted images of intriguing human-animal hybrids are signs of modern thought