Daniel Rourke /stream

Bookmark

Try​ to imagine what it is like to be a fungus. Not a mushroom, pushing up through damp soil overnight or delicately forcing itself out through the bark of a rotting…

Bookmark

Could future humans evolve to have venom glands? In new research, scientists close a long-open door by causally linking early salivary glands with what eventually became venom glands in many animals.

Bookmark

Humans are shaping the evolutionary future of life on Earth.

Bookmark

Animal immune systems depend on white blood cells called macrophages that devour and engulf invaders.

Bookmark

A small shark spots its prey—a meaty, seemingly defenseless octopus. The shark ambushes, and then, in one of the most astonishing sequences in the series Blue Planet II, the octopus escapes.…

Bookmark

There are tens of thousands of genes in the human genome: minuscule twists of DNA and RNA that combine to express all of the traits and characteristics that make each of…

Bookmark

If the 20th century promised better living through chemistry, the 21st century has promised better living through digital technology.

Bookmark

In 1981, a remarkable book was published: After Man: A Zoology of the Future, by Dougal Dixon.

Bookmark

The biophysicist Jeremy England made waves in 2013 with a new theory that cast the origin of life as an inevitable outcome of thermodynamics.

Bookmark

In early 2015, a Fedex package arrived at the studio of artist/scientist Heather Dewey-Hagborg. It contained only a sample of hair and cheek swabs.

Bookmark

Authors: R. Guevara Erra, D. M. Mateos, R. Wennberg, J.L. Perez Velazquez Abstract: It has been said that complexity lies between order and disorder. In the case of brain activity, and…

Bookmark

Fig. 1: Illustration for Lautréamont’s Les Chants de Maldoror (1868-1869). Marco Saccaperni, 2011. I am filthy [Je suis sale]—writes Lautréamont—I am riddled with lice. Hogs, when they look at me, vomit.

Bookmark

Slime mold—a living network of tendrils found on rotting wood and other plant debris—is easily one of the strangest things alive. Neither plant, nor fungus, it’s a collection of individual cells…

Bookmark

Genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter has created a synthetic cell that contains the smallest genome of any known, independent organism.

Bookmark

To the computer scientist Leslie Valiant, “machine learning” is redundant. In his opinion, a toddler fumbling with a rubber ball and a deep-learning network classifying cat photos are both learning; calling…

Bookmark

In the May 15, 2014, edition of the journal Nature, Floyd Romesberg’s chemistry lab at San Diego’s Scripps Research Institute published a paper titled “A Semi-Synthetic Organism with an Expanded Genetic…

Bookmark

Evolution’s retirement plan has been 3.6 billion years in the making. With the appearance of the modern human being, we now have an organism that can take over from natural processes…

Bookmark

Genomes are so regularly represented as strings of letters—As, Gs, Cs, and Ts—that it’s easy to forget that they aren’t just abstract collections of data. They exist in three dimensions. They…

Bookmark

Australian bioethicist Julian Savulescu has a knack for provocation. Take human cloning. He says most of us would readily accept it if it benefited us.

Bookmark

Soft-bodied cephalopods such as the octopus (Fig.

Bookmark

Let’s say someone successfully cloned human ancestors. Then what? Are they like chimps, to be put in a zoo or a nature reserve? Do they need carers? Should we enroll them…

Bookmark

The way the public hears about conservation issues is nearly always in the mode of ‘[Beloved Animal] Threatened With Extinction’. That makes for electrifying headlines, but it misdirects concern. The loss…

Bookmark

Researchers have changed the size of a handful of Florida ants by chemically modifying their DNA, rather than by changing its encoded information.

Bookmark

A collection of essays on the work of Jamaican theorist Sylvia Wynter attempts to move toward a future beyond white supremacist narratives of human universality.  The past year’s high profile murders…

Bookmark

Try​ to imagine what it is like to be a fungus. Not a mushroom, pushing up through damp soil overnight or delicately forcing itself out through the bark of a rotting…

Bookmark

Could future humans evolve to have venom glands? In new research, scientists close a long-open door by causally linking early salivary glands with what eventually became venom glands in many animals.

Bookmark

Wisdom is the ability to discern inner qualities and subtle relationships, then translate them into what others recognise as good judgment. If it comes to us at all, wisdom is the…

Bookmark

Animal immune systems depend on white blood cells called macrophages that devour and engulf invaders.

Bookmark

There are tens of thousands of genes in the human genome: minuscule twists of DNA and RNA that combine to express all of the traits and characteristics that make each of…

Bookmark

In mid-January, a group of computer scientists and biologists from the University of Vermont, Tufts, and Harvard announced that they had created an entirely new life form — xenobots, the world’s…

Bookmark

In 1981, a remarkable book was published: After Man: A Zoology of the Future, by Dougal Dixon.

Bookmark

The biophysicist Jeremy England made waves in 2013 with a new theory that cast the origin of life as an inevitable outcome of thermodynamics.

Bookmark

In early 2015, a Fedex package arrived at the studio of artist/scientist Heather Dewey-Hagborg. It contained only a sample of hair and cheek swabs.

Bookmark

Authors: R. Guevara Erra, D. M. Mateos, R. Wennberg, J.L. Perez Velazquez Abstract: It has been said that complexity lies between order and disorder. In the case of brain activity, and…

Bookmark

Slime mold—a living network of tendrils found on rotting wood and other plant debris—is easily one of the strangest things alive. Neither plant, nor fungus, it’s a collection of individual cells…

Bookmark

To the computer scientist Leslie Valiant, “machine learning” is redundant. In his opinion, a toddler fumbling with a rubber ball and a deep-learning network classifying cat photos are both learning; calling…

Bookmark

It astonishes me how much we seem to know about aliens. They build technology-driven civilisations and pilot spaceships across the galaxy. They create energy-harvesting structures around their stars. They beam interstellar…

Bookmark

Evolution’s retirement plan has been 3.6 billion years in the making. With the appearance of the modern human being, we now have an organism that can take over from natural processes…

Bookmark

Genomes are so regularly represented as strings of letters—As, Gs, Cs, and Ts—that it’s easy to forget that they aren’t just abstract collections of data. They exist in three dimensions. They…

Bookmark

Australian bioethicist Julian Savulescu has a knack for provocation. Take human cloning. He says most of us would readily accept it if it benefited us.

Bookmark

Soft-bodied cephalopods such as the octopus (Fig.

Bookmark

Male bodies are seen as the default in biology. One artist is working towards helping us see the alternatives. In psychology, the homunculus is a visual representation of the sensory and…

Bookmark

The way the public hears about conservation issues is nearly always in the mode of ‘[Beloved Animal] Threatened With Extinction’. That makes for electrifying headlines, but it misdirects concern. The loss…

Bookmark

A collection of essays on the work of Jamaican theorist Sylvia Wynter attempts to move toward a future beyond white supremacist narratives of human universality.  The past year’s high profile murders…

Bookmark

Even though it’s looking increasingly likely that humanity will find a way to wipe itself off the face of the Earth, there’s a chance that our creative output may live on.