Evolution
71 articles-
E.O. Wilson Saw the World in a Wholly New Way
“Did you like the grenade I tossed in their midst?” the biologist asked me. -
The Human Family Tree, It Turns Out, Is Complicated
How the story of human evolution continues to branch out. -
Life Beyond Human Has to Play by the Rules
A zoologist explains why complex life anywhere depends on natural selection. -
How Intelligent Could Life Be Without Natural Selection?
Don’t be surprised if alien life forms are a lot like us. -
Playing Go with Darwin
New research elevates evolution from a tactical process to one of strategic possibility.
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Just Because It’s Natural Doesn’t Mean It’s Good
We are well advised to not lose track of evolution’s dark side.
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The Price of Life Is Death, but Sex Improves the Exchange Rate
Calculating the evolutionary success of Homo sapiens.
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Why Birds Can Fly Over Mount Everest
A story for my grandchildren about oxygen, evolution, and our planet’s fate.
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Do Butterflies Challenge the Meaning of Species?
Hybridization, it turns out, plays a pivotal role in how life forms evolve. The tree of life may never look the same.Photograph by sezer66 / Shutterstock What is a species? It’s a question that has agonized scientists since well before Darwin. With some exceptions, the thinking has landed on an evidently firm reproductive barrier: Members […]
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Evolution Is Really Not That Into Sex
Plants and animals have reproduced without sex for eons. So why did nature bother? -
Why We Stink at Tackling Climate Change
Global threats result from human culture outrunning human biology. -
Evolution’s Gravity: A Paean to Natural Selection
Physicists speak of four fundamental forces that govern the interactions among the bits of matter that make up our universe. The strongest of these four forces, aptly known as the Strong Force, is so powerful that it can keep an atom’s positively charged protons from ripping the atom’s nucleus apart as their mutually repellent positive […] -
How Alan Turing Deciphered Shark Skin
The universal math behind hair and feathers. -
Why Social Science Needs Evolutionary Theory
Evolutionary theory has the potential to transform education and, through it, society.
