Virtual-reality experiments on fruit flies offer insight into how the brains of mammals, like us, might build maps of their world.Photograph by Tanya WolffIt may seem absurd to compare…

On a chilly evening last fall, I stared into nothingness out of the floor-to-ceiling windows in my office on the outskirts of Harvard’s campus. As a purplish-red sun set, I sat brooding…

This tree has, in a sense, outlived the dinosaurs. Encountering it can be like seeing a dinosaur-era insect encased in ancient amber brought to life.Photograph by S. Rae / FlickrWhen…

The primary difficulty of interstellar communication is finding common ground between ourselves and other intelligent entities about which we can know nothing with absolute certainty.…

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.In evolution, context is everything: Bacteria with neighbors evolve to rebuff viruses in a different way.Biozentrum,…

As a paleoclimatologist, I often find myself wondering why more people aren’t listening to the warnings, the data, the messages of climate woes—it’s not just a storm on the horizon,…

In 1976, Francis Crick arrived at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, overlooking a Pacific Shangri-La with cotton candy skies and a beaming, blue-green sea. He had already…

If a headless worm can regrow a memory, then where is the memory stored? And, if a memory can regenerate, could you transfer it?Photograph by Rattiya Thongdumhyu / ShutterstockThe…

Hybridization, it turns out, plays a pivotal role in how life forms evolve. The tree of life may never look the same.Photograph by sezer66 / ShutterstockWhat is a species? It’s a…

Everyone knows forests are alive, but Suzanne Simard, who studies complex, symbiotic networks, helps us see that life anew. Even dying, for a tree, is not what it seems.Photograph…