Evolution

How evolution made us laugh.

How parasites manipulate the behavior of their hosts.

Octopus brains are nothing like ours—yet we have much in common.

New studies reinforce the hypothesis that grandmothers fostered our evolutionary success.

Discovery of a previously unknown ancient giraffe species offers a new look into sexual selection and evolution.

“Did you like the grenade I tossed in their midst?” the biologist asked me.

We can defeat superbugs by staying one step ahead of them.

If you look at every ape protein, they have every bone we have, every muscle we have, the same type of hair, and on and on. They’re just better adapted to their tropical rainforest environment.Illustration by BRO.vector / Shutterstock Recent fossilized bone discoveries in China and Israel support the exciting possibility of new, previously unknown […]

How the story of human evolution continues to branch out.

Decades of basic science research have helped us to understand this evolutionary arms race and stay one step ahead of the pathogens in our midst.

A zoologist explains why complex life anywhere depends on natural selection.

Don’t be surprised if alien life forms are a lot like us.

This piece was produced in cooperation with the Nib. Maki Naro is an award-winning feral cartoonist and science communicator. You can reliably find him online, where he tweets from the handle @sciencecomic Diana Kwon is a freelance science journalist based in Berlin, Germany. She primarily covers the life sciences and health, and her work has appeared in Scientific American, The Scientist, Nature, Knowable […]