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 log: that would be like imagining the grape rather than the vine.

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.

Humans are shaping the evolutionary future of life on Earth.

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 product of reflection, time and experience.

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

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. First, it shoves one of its arms into the predator’s vulnerable gills.

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 us unique. Each gene is given a name and alphanumeric code, known as a symbol, which scientists use to coordinate research.

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 first living robots.

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

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

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

For transdisciplinary artist Ani Liu, working in science and technology has provided a way for her to explore the intersection between research, culture, and implications of emerging technologies.

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.

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 physiology in general, complexity issues are being considered with increased emphasis.

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.

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 glomming together in a web-like mush that stalks the forest floor.

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

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 the latter system a “machine” is a distinction without a difference.

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 greetings to us.