Why Romantic Illusions Are a Good Thing
Scientists believe that idealizing one's partner can work as a self-fulfilling prophecy, where illusion eventually becomes reality. That is to say, people can help to create the partners they wish they had, by exaggerating their virtues and minimizing their faults in their own minds.
Critically Endangered Tarantula Links India and Sri Lanka
For thousands of years a thin bridge of sand and rock connected mainland India with the island of Sri Lanka. The 30-kilometer stretch known as Rama's (or Adam's) Bridge disappeared centuries ago—probably after a cyclone in the year A.D.
Lowly Sponges Conceal Astounding Architecture
To look at a rock sponge, which usually has all the visual appeal of a potato, you would never guess that inside lies the Notre Dame of animal skeletons.
Brian J. Ford's Aquatic Dinosaurs, 2014 Edition
Via bizarre and unexpected circumstances I recently* found myself secretly and furtively attending a lecture by Brian J. Ford. Ford is a British author and researcher who dabbles widely in matters of science and science communication.
Crows Understand Analogies
What birds can teach us about animal intelligence
For These Plants, No Victim is Too Small
The tropical plant Genlisea is a tiny, homely rosette of simple green leaves. If you dig up its roots, you will find what look like an unremarkable bunch long, pale underground roots.
There Is No 'Perfect Human' In Puerto Rico or Anywhere Else
Disappointed by James Watson's decision to sell his Nobel Prize medal, Lior Pachter, a computational biologist who works on genomics at the University of California Berkeley, wrote an entry on his private blog in early December protesting the decision.
Our Taste for Alcohol Goes Back Millions of Years
Genetics research sheds light on a long human relationship
The Neandertal Mystique
Our heavy-browed cousin remains the most fascinating member of the human family
Were Cellular Powerhouses Once Parasites?
Mitochondria may have started out stealing energy rather than producing it
A Recipe for Photographing Angry Fire Ants
This 2007 photograph of a fire ant brandishing her stinger is among the most heavily circulated images from my collection. Since several people have asked how I managed to coax the animal into such a dramatic pose, I bring you the following recipe.
Two-Billion-Year-Old Fossils Reveal Strange and Puzzling Forms
To a human, two billion years is an unfathomable interval. But that, a team of European, Gabonese, and American scientists now say, is how long ago a recently discovered hoard of fossils suggests Earth’s first big life evolved — large enough to see with the naked eye, and in a spectrum of forms that tease [...]