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Science

Essays and videos exploring physics, evolution, cosmology and other frontiers in science
An early morning view across an old bridge towards the spires of a historic medieval city partially obscured by fog
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Return of the descendants

I migrated to my ancestral homeland in a search for identity. It proved to be a humbling experience in (un)belonging

Jessica Buchleitner

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Evolution

Kinship

Science must become attuned to the subtle conversations that pervade all life, from the primordial to the present

David Waltner-Toews

A double-exposure image of a dancer on stage against a black backdrop, his body is lit and partly shot in motion blur
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Genetics

Artists of our own lives

The genome is the starting point for a performance we enact over a lifetime, not a blueprint we’ve got to follow

Richard O Prum

Peach Twig (Prunus Persica) (1918) by Royal Charles Steadman
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Biology

In 1886, a US agency set out to record new fruit varieties. The results are wondrous

5 minutes

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Genetics

Evolution without accidents

Despite advances in molecular genetics, too many biologists think that natural selection is driven by random mutations

James A Shapiro

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Personality

The myth of mirrored twins

What do the lives of twins tell us about heritability, selfhood and the age-old debate between nature and nurture?

Gavin Evans

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Bioethics

Selected before birth

Embryo risk screening could lower the odds of illnesses ranging from depression to diabetes. Can it be ethically done?

Todd Lencz & Shai Carmi

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Evolution

What on earth is a xenobot?

The more we understand how cells produce shape and form, the more inadequate the idea of a genomic blueprint looks

Philip Ball

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Evolution

The web of life

Classic evolutionary theory holds that species separate over time. But it’s fuzzier than that – now we know they also merge

Juli Berwald

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Genetics

An idea with bite

The ‘selfish gene’ persists for the reason all good scientific metaphors do: it remains a sharp tool for clear thinking

J Arvid Ågren

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Human evolution

Brains in a dish

What pea-sized brain organoids reveal about consciousness, the self and our future as a species

Alysson Muotri

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Genetics

The science of terrible men

The pioneers of social genetics were racists and eugenicists: should we give up on the science they founded altogether?

Kathryn Paige Harden

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video

Genetics

If trauma can be passed down, could new therapies blunt the transgenerational impact?

9 minutes

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Genetics

The genes we’re dealt

The new field of social genomics can be used by progressives to combat racial inequality or by conservatives to excuse it

Erik Parens

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Gender

Testosterone is widely, and sometimes wildly, misunderstood

Matthew Gutmann

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Human evolution

Choose your own birth

Every human is both an animal with a deep evolutionary history and an individual who must bring their existence into being

Ada Jaarsma

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Human evolution

In the tug-of-war between mother and baby, the placenta is a life-giving referee

4 minutes

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Biology

Consider the axolotl: our great hope of regeneration?

Scott Sayare

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video

Mood and emotion

Till genetics do us part – why the success of your marriage is encoded at birth

5 minutes

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Genetics

Like the emperor’s new clothes, DNA kits are a tailored illusion

George Estreich

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Animals and humans

Dog breeds are mere Victorian confections, neither pure nor ancient

Michael Worboys

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Medicine

The right to know, or not know, the data from medical research

Emily Willingham

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Genetics

Hormones united

The hormone system works like a democracy: every tissue in the body is an endocrine organ asserting its needs and demands

Liam Drew

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idea

Genetics

Wired that way: genes do shape behaviours but it’s complicated

Kevin Mitchell