Biology

A guide to life, on Earth and beyond, including the top news about plants, animals, and physiology.

Latest in Biology

A newly hatched California condor.
Animals

Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species

By Laura Baisas

An older couple shares a kiss against a backdrop of fall trees.
Archaeology

Ancient Mesopotamian texts show when and why humans first kissed

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Siler collingwoodi is a colorful, ant-mimicking spider found in China and Japan.
Animals

This spider pretends to be an ant, but not well enough to avoid being eaten

By Laura Baisas

A blue butterfly on a pink flowering plant.
Animals

A ‘butterfly tree of life’ reveals the origins of these beautiful insects

By Laura Baisas

Extinct ‘thunder beasts’ went from mini to massive in the blink of an evolutionary eye
Animals

Extinct ‘thunder beasts’ went from mini to massive in the blink of an evolutionary eye

By Laura Baisas

A clownfish swimming in an anemone.
Animals

Baby anemonefish can rapidly change their genes to survive in the sea

By Laura Baisas

A mosquito hanging upside down on a leaf.
Animals

Can scented soap make you less of a mosquito buffet?

By Laura Baisas

A diverse crowd of people.
Biology

What is a pangenome? Scientists just released their first draft.

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Soft brie cheeses on a plate with their rind on top.
Biology

A hunk of cheese is a perfect playground for fungal antibiotics

By Laura Baisas

A new butterfly species with orange wings and black spots next to the eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings films.
Animals

Lord of the Rings villain Sauron inspires the name of new butterfly genus

By Laura Baisas

A bat sea star on a dark background.
Animals

The blueprints for early organs may be hiding in sea stars

By Laura Baisas

The cast of a Neanderthal skull on display at the Chemnitz State Museum of Archaeology in Germany on January 24, 2023.
Biology

How Neanderthal genetic material could influence nose shapes to this day

By Laura Baisas

A honeybee pollenating a yellow flower.
Animals

What busy bees’ brains can teach us about human evolution

By Laura Baisas

Amazonian dark earth (ADE) is a nutrient rich dark soil that could play a role in reforestation.
Biology

How 2,000-year-old soil could be a lifeline for the Amazon rainforest

By Laura Baisas

Robot plants could be used to grow infrastructure in space from scratch
Biology

Robot plants could be used to grow infrastructure in space from scratch

By Dario Floreano and Nicola Nosengo/MIT Press Reader

Roses blooming in a garden.
Biology

Chemists finally unlock the secret to a rose’s iconic aroma

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Woolly mammoth tusks in dawn light on Wrangel Island, northeast Siberia, where the female mammoth tusk used in the testosterone study had been found several years earlier.
Animals

Male woolly mammoths had hormone-fueled bouts of aggression

By Laura Baisas

Man prepping person for fMRI scan.
AI

This AI-powered brain scanner can paraphrase your thoughts

By Andrew Paul

An illustration of the organisms that lived in the Castle Bank community.
Animals

Fossil trove in Wales is a 462-million-year-old world of wee sea creatures

By Laura Baisas

Red cherry shaped as butt on orange and purple ombre background
Animals

A scientific exploration of big juicy butts

By Rachel Feltman

The oldest chili pepper specimen may be from present-day Colorado
Agriculture

The oldest chili pepper specimen may be from present-day Colorado

By Sara Kiley Watson

How deadly amphibians survive their own poisons
Animals

How deadly amphibians survive their own poisons

By Geoffrey Giller/Knowable Magazine

A bartender pours a light beer into a large glass.
Biology

Inventing lager was a huge mistake

By Laura Baisas

An adult male and adult female California sea lion sit on a beach surrounded by pups.
Animals

Male California sea lions have gotten bigger and better at fighting

By Laura Baisas

Balto's taxidermy on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Animals

How different is Balto, the heroic sled dog, from today’s Siberian huskies?

By Laura Baisas

Evolution of human brain size shown with brass sculptures at a kids science museum in China
Animals

We probably have big brains because we got lucky

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

A mushroom called coprophilous grows in woods.
Animals

What prehistoric poop reveals about extinct giant animals

By Laura Baisas

Two mudskippers fighting in the mud, with eyes and pectoral fins exposed.
Animals

Mudskippers blink—and that’s a huge evolutionary clue

By Laura Baisas

A male chimpanzee named Frodo frowns.
Animals

Nice chimps finish last—so why aren’t all of them mean?

By Laura Baisas

A carnivorous Sarracenia plant growing in the wild.
Animals

Carnivorous pitcher plants may use tempting aromas to lure prey to their death

By Laura Baisas

Giving drones inflatable suits could help them survive crash landings
Animals

Giving drones inflatable suits could help them survive crash landings

By Sara Kiley Watson

A forest elephant with a raised trunk surrounded by greenery. Forest elephants are much smaller in size compared to savanna elephants, and their ears are an oval shape.
Animals

Elephants and humans share surprising similarities. A new docuseries dives deep into that relationship.

By Laura Baisas

Gray hair growing on a male's head.
Biology

What’s at the root of gray hairs?

By Laura Baisas

African penguins standing on a sandy beach.
Animals

How African penguins continue to survive changes in climate

By Laura Baisas

Cannabis plant under purple weed grow light
Agriculture

On 420, learn more about weed with these carefully cultivated science stories

By Jamie Dickman

Brown garden snail eating a strawberry on a white table
Animals

Experience the uncomfortable weirdness of a snail eating fruit

By Laura Baisas

A polar bear standing on ice.
Animals

Why the biggest animals move so slowly

By Laura Baisas

An orb weaver spider spins a web in a forest.
Animals

Spider glue might evolve faster than the spiders themselves

By Laura Baisas

Examples of floating plastics collected in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre during The Ocean Cleanup’s 2018 expedition.
Animals

Some coastal critters are thriving in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

By Laura Baisas

Person in a dark room watering a houseplant with a beam of light. Illustrated.
Agriculture

How to grow plants in the dark

By Ellen Airhart

The mysterious ‘Tully monster’ didn’t have a spine after all
Animals

The mysterious ‘Tully monster’ didn’t have a spine after all

By Jamie Dickman

People walk in a field with blooming poppy flowers near the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve following an unusually wet winter on April 14, 2023 near Lancaster, California. Historic levels of rainfall fell in some parts of California, amid a barrage of atmospheric river winter storms, which has led to a 'super bloom' of wildflowers in certain parts of the state this spring.
Biology

California’s eye-popping super bloom is one for the books

By Laura Baisas

A xenobot, or a living robot, in culture, under a microscope.
Biology

Meet xenobots, tiny machines made out of living parts

By Charlotte Hu

What happens when a tree dies?
Biology

What happens when a tree dies?

By Camille Stevens-Rumann/The Conversation

An artistic rendering of the open woodland habitat reconstruction at Moroto II with Morotopithecus bishopi vertically climbing with infant on back and Mount Moroto, an active, in background.
Animals

A plant-based diet full of leaves may have helped apes stand upright

By Laura Baisas

An adult Pygmy Zebra Octopus
Animals

Pygmy zebra octopus stripe patterns are as unique as human fingerprints

By Jamie Dickman

Skeleton of paratype of Icaronycteris gunnelli, the oldest bat skeletons ever found.
Animals

Oldest bat skeleton ever found by paleontologists finally has a name

By Laura Baisas

Luna moth resting on a tree.
Animals

The alluring tail of the Luna moth is surprisingly useless for finding a mate

By Jamie Dickman

A black sea cucumber on the floor of the Indian Ocean.
Animals

Sea cucumbers have a Spiderman-esque superpower—and it involves their butts

By Laura Baisas

A bird called an American Redstart sits on the branch of a tree.
Animals

Delaying departure may help birds migrate around climate change

By Laura Baisas

A juvenile elephant named Ko Raya (left) with Pang Pha (right) at the Berlin Zoo. Scientists believe that Pang Pha taught herself how to peel bananas.
Animals

Pang Pha the elephant learned to peel bananas by mimicking humans

By Laura Baisas

Woolly mammoths evolved tiny ears over 700,000 years in Siberia
Animals

Woolly mammoths evolved tiny ears over 700,000 years in Siberia

By Laura Baisas

A close-up of extended polyps of an apparently healthy great star coral colony on a reef near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The tentacles surrounding the mouth of each polyp help trap food particles for the coral to eat.
Animals

Caribbean coral is getting sick and dying. A probiotic could help.

By Laura Baisas

A purple hand reaching to touch a green tongue of an orange person with their mouth open frowning because they're tasting something digsuting
Biology

Why food tastes wildly different to different people

By Julia Craven

A snailfish that lives over 20,000 feet deep in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench in the northern Pacific Ocean.
Animals

Say hello to the deepest-dwelling fish ever caught on camera

By Laura Baisas

An adult elephant walks with two juvenile elephants.
Animals

Scientists may have figured out why elephants exhibit complex emotions

By Laura Baisas

A capuchin monkey in a tree looking at the camera.
Animals

Do magic tricks work on monkeys? Only if they have opposable thumbs like us.

By Laura Baisas

A woman holds an ultrasound photo of a baby.
Biology

Nearly 18 percent of the global population struggles with infertility

By Laura Baisas

An ostrich inspects eggs in a nest.
Animals

Troodons laid eggs in communal nests just like modern ostriches

By Laura Baisas

Scientists are finally getting into the rhythm of sea creatures’ lunar cycle
Animals

Scientists are finally getting into the rhythm of sea creatures’ lunar cycle

By Virat Markandeya/Knowable Magazine

Otters are back, but that doesn’t mean our rivers are safe
Animals

Otters are back, but that doesn’t mean our rivers are safe

By Carin Leong/Hakai Magazine

A juvenile Edmontosaurus disappears into the enormous, lipped mouth of Tyrannosaurus.
Biology

Scaly lips may have hidden the T-rex’s fearsome teeth

By Laura Baisas

Pincushion cactus with pink flowers on a sunny windowsill
Biology

Dying plants are ‘screaming’ at you

By Rahul Rao

Lab mouse on table in front of lab flasks and beakers in blue lighting
Animals

What video game-playing mice taught neuroscientists about memory-making

By Andrew Paul

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