Nature

How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution

The extravagant splendor of the animal kingdom can’t be explained by natural selection alone — so how did it come to be?

The New York Times Magazine

Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?

Our species possesses inherent value, but we are devastating the earth and causing unimaginable animal suffering.

The New York Times

Scientists Identify Vast Underground Ecosystem Containing Billions of Micro-Organisms

Global team of scientists find ecosystem below earth that is twice the size of world’s oceans.

The Guardian

What Is This Feeling We Call ‘Sublime’?

It is an aesthetic experience that modern, Western philosophers often theorize about, as well as, more recently, experimental psychologists and neuroscientists in the field of neuroaesthetics.

Aeon

Why Forests Inspire Awe

“I think it’s the perception of collectivity in forests,” Dacher Keltner said, “where the eye doesn’t focus on one object but on interconnections amongst many.”

Nautilus

Special Package: Resilience

A series of articles examines ways of coping with natural disasters, war and displacement, and climate change — not to mention resilience tactics in nature.

Science

Simpler Math Tames the Complexity of Microbe Networks

The dizzying network of interactions within microbe communities can defy analysis. But a new approach that simplifies the math might make progress possible.

Quanta Magazine

Today, Cataloguing The Human Microbiome. Tomorrow, The World’s

What can the microbiome of Komodo dragons and coral reefs tell us about microbial life on Earth?

Science Friday

The Crazy-Ambitious Effort to Catalogue Every Microbe on Earth

It's the most macro study of the microscopic world ever published.

WIRED

Insects Are in Serious Trouble

In western Germany, populations of flying insects have fallen by around 80 percent in the last three decades.

The Atlantic

Why Nature Prefers Hexagons

The geometric rules behind fly eyes, honeycombs, and soap bubbles.

Nautilus