Brandon Keim
The Salamander That Has Photosynthesis Happening Inside It
Spotted salamander young come pre-equipped with photosynthetic algae, which are visible in their eggs.Courtesy of Roger Hangarter / University of Indiana Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Amidst life’s profligate swapping and sharing and collaborating, one union stands out: the symbiosis of spotted salamanders and the algae living inside […]
The Lightning Beneath Our Feet
The strange lights that occur before earthquakes may originate underground.
The Great Bioterror Threat Is Modern Society
E. coli that tested positive for NMD-1 growing in a petri dish. The sample came from a 67-year-old man in India. Nathan Reading via Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . After the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax mailings, the United States government started taking […]
Did Cars Save Our Cities From Horses?
Debating a modern parable about waste and technology.
The Secret Life of Everything: Where Your Stuff Comes From
Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . At this stage of the early 21st century, when transparency has evolved from buzzword to business principle, when it’s possible to track anything just about anywhere, you might think it would be a simple matter to choose some everyday product—a cup of […]
An Eel Swims in the Bronx
George Jackman scales the Bronx River’s 182nd Street dam while working with the eel ladder (at top-right).John Waldman Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . In the annals of natural history, there is perhaps no fish so singularly unusual, even mysterious, as Anguilla, the eels. Unlike every other migratory fish […]
A Weather Man Who Reaches for Months, Not Days
If you want to know the weather tomorrow, meteorologists can tell you. If you’d like to know what it’ll be like in 50 years, climatologists can tell you that reasonably accurately, too. But if you want to know the weather six months from now? Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now […]
Organized Chaos Makes the Beauty of a Butterfly
Take a look at a butterfly’s wing, and you can learn a lesson about life. Not that it’s beautiful, or fragile, or too easily appreciated only when it’s fading—though all that is true, and evident in a wing. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Look very close, at the […]