The best way to draw the line sounds less biological than poetic: What separates us is the “difference between staying and going,” as Hope Jahren, the geochemist and geobiologist,…

On the morning of Friday Aug. 6, 1852, Alfred Russel Wallace was summoned to the deck of the brig Helen. The boat was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and Wallace had already been…

CRISPR’s not on the cusp of anything.WikicommonsHow many diseases could humans treat if the DNA in troublesome cells could be edited within the body? Half? Most? How about “absolutely…

It’s possible that sensing the presence of a female may effectively activate processes involved in reproduction, which might facilitate a male’s reproductive success if…

A dividing neural stem cell asymmetrically segregates some cargoes between the two resulting daughter cells—blue shows DNA, red shows cellular cargo.Darcie MooreDarcie Moore is an…

Researchers recorded the activity of every neuron in a hydroid and correlated it with its behavior—a major conceptual and experimental breakthrough that might allow scientists to…

The evolution of sexual beauty is an ongoing experiment in every species, including our own. Variation in courtship traits arise and are judged by choosers who quickly relegate most…

Michael J. Ryan, a professor of zoology, didn’t call his forthcoming book, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Frog Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), but he sure could have.…

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of finding an original Darwin specimen, collected during the Beagle’s first voyage. But finding it, and realizing it was a lost specimen…

Outside of gothic works of fiction set in Transylvania, we rarely read of enduring friendships that have been initiated by a bite. But that is exactly how nature writers Sy Montgomery…