Kristen French

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    When a Chimp Screams, What Do You Hear?

    The calls of our closest living evolutionary cousins still hit an ancient target in the human brain

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    What Makes a Word Beautiful?

    It’s not what we thought

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    ChatGPT’s Biggest Foe: Poetry

    How the machines miss threats smuggled inside lines of verse

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    Tiny Volcano-Dwelling Creature Breaks Heat Record

    The fire amoeba challenges assumptions about what complex life needs to survive on Earth

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    A set of three trees shaped like brains, fading from green to yellow to red, losing leaves along the way.

    The Five Eras of the Human Brain

    Our neural command centers evolve through predictable major turning points from birth to death

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    The Math Shows Jackson Pollock Painted Like a Child Would

    And that might be what made the artist so famous

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    This Ancient Sea Monster Had a Killer Bite and No Teeth

    The Dunkleosteus was even weirder than we thought

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    The Rise of the Ancient Bogs

    It was driven by the wind, and could tell us about the future of the climate

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    The Science of Your Weed’s Stank

    Researchers classified 25 scents that make your weed smell, including skunk, candy, toasted bread, and vomit

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    The Medieval Friar Who Foretold Carl Sagan’s “Star-Stuff”

    Before science could prove it, this philosopher saw our place in the stars