Evolution

videoBiology
For 3 billion years, life was unicellular. Why did it start to collaborate?
4 minutes

essayEvolution
Should we edit nature?
Countless species are dying from human-induced environmental change. Should we use genetic technology to alter and save them?
David Farrier

essayThe future
Homo crustaceous
‘Everything becomes crab’ is more than an absurd meme. The crab is a deep symbol of our devil’s bargain with technology
Michael Garfield

essayEvolution
Empire of flight
They have big brains, long childhoods and sociable, curious minds. So why haven’t birds developed complex culture?
Antone Martinho-Truswell

essayGenetics
Beanbag genetics
Today a bitter dispute about the nature of biology is underway. A simple bag of beans may be what tips the balance
Zachary B Hancock

essayBioethics
Why the cat wags her tail
Here’s a puzzle: how could evolution favour such a costly, frivolous and fun activity as animal play?
Mathilde Tahar-Malaussena

videoEvolution
The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo
6 minutes

videoBiology
Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short
3 minutes

essayBiology
In praise of subspecies
To lump or to split? Deciding whether an animal is a species or subspecies profoundly influences our conservation priorities
Richard Smyth

essayBiology
Could humans hibernate?
Hibernation allows many animals to time-travel from difficult times to plenty. Could humans learn how to do it too?
Vladyslav Vyazovskiy

essayBeauty and aesthetics
Is beauty natural?
Charles Darwin was as fascinated by extravagant ornament in nature as Jane Austen was in culture. Did their explanations agree?
Abigail Tulenko

essayPhilosophy of science
Life makes mistakes
Hens try to hatch golf balls, whales get beached. Getting things wrong seems to play a fundamental role in life on Earth
David S Oderberg

essayHistory of science
Forwards, not back
Medicine aims to return bodies to the state they were in before illness. But there’s a better way of thinking about health
Kate MacCord & Jane Maienschein

videoBiology
Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings
3 minutes

essayComplexity
Problem-solving matter
Life is starting to look a lot less like an outcome of chemistry and physics, and more like a computational process
David C Krakauer & Chris Kempes

videoEvolution
How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution
60 minutes

videoEngineering
For one of nature’s great builders, finding a mate means weaving the perfect nest
4 minutes

essayEvolution
What is intelligent life?
Our human minds hold us back from truly understanding the many brilliant ways that other creatures solve their problems
Abigail Desmond & Michael Haslam

videoCognition and intelligence
What’s this buzz about bees having culture? Inside a groundbreaking experiment
8 minutes

essayEvolution
Kinship
Science must become attuned to the subtle conversations that pervade all life, from the primordial to the present
David Waltner-Toews

essayAnimals and humans
Ant geopolitics
Over the past four centuries quadrillions of ants have created a strange and turbulent global society that shadows our own
John Whitfield

essayPalaeontology
The dinosaurs didn’t rule
When we think of changes in Earth’s history as changes of dynasty we miss out on understanding how life really works
Riley Black

videoBiology
To understand how an animal sees the world, start with the shape of its pupils
5 minutes

essayGenetics
Evolution without accidents
Despite advances in molecular genetics, too many biologists think that natural selection is driven by random mutations
James A Shapiro