Not having to endure costs radically changes behavior, in humans and in plants.Photograph by Thomas Hawk / FlickrPlants have their own form of money: carbon dioxide. For decades, our…

The lack of willingness to view human cognition and behavior as within the purview of evolutionary processes has prevented evolution from being fully integrated into the social science…

This article is part of Nautilus’ month-long exploration of the science and art of time. Read the introduction here. Don’t look at the clock! Now tell me: How much time has passed…

The camera doesn’t often linger on all the severed heads in Game of Thrones. But if it did, might we see some sign of awareness—at least for a few seconds? A human head doesn’t…

Over the ages our teeth and our tongue have become ever more crowded by the shrinking of the human jaw. Not only is this an aesthetic disaster, but it compromises our breathing, which…

Human skin books are the rare artifacts that prove that the practice of making leather goods from human skin is more than just a ghoulish legend.Photograph by voodoo willyIn 1868,…

Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree,” John Basinger said aloud to himself, as he walked on a treadmill. “Of man’s first disobedience…” In…

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.Decades ago, the noted computational neuroscientist David Marr observed that “trying to understand perception…

An 86-year-old patient arrives with a grisly foot injury.1 It’s badly infected—not a surprise, given his chronic untreated Type 2 diabetes. What is surprising is that meropenem,…

Three of the rare Przewalski’s horses that now roam the area near the Chernobyl nuclear plant.Photograph by Sergey GaschakAfter a fatal series of errors and malfunctions in the early…