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1932

Comics

The creative way to pay for wildlife recovery

OPINION: ‘Pragmatic rewilding’ restores damaged ecosystems and harnesses private money, with benefits for all

The puzzle of play

The purpose of play — for children, monkeys, rats or meerkats — has proved surprisingly hard to pin down. Scientists continue to toss around ideas.

Five mysteries about breast milk

The little that we know about breastfeeding tells us a lot — imagine if we knew more

Why scientists need to be better at data visualization

The scientific literature is riddled with bad charts and graphs, leading to misunderstanding and worse. Avoiding design missteps can improve understanding of research.

Genetics extends the long arm of the law

In an evolving branch of forensic science, genealogists help solve crimes, sometimes identifying suspects with the DNA of distant relatives they’ve never met. As cold cases yield, concerns about privacy issues persist.

Sex strategies of the evolutionary kind

For women, a short-term fling may involve a quest for good genes or just a good time. It’s a puzzle for the researchers looking at how people choose mates.

Profiling the perpetrators of past plagues

The ancient pathogens in old graves are as dead as the people they once infected. Still, they tell a vivid tale.

Centuries of pondering — and squabbling about — trees

COMIC: Do forests warm or cool the Earth? What’s their effect on global climate change? A comic narrated by polymath Benjamin Franklin describes the evolution of thought on this issue and what we still don’t know.

Evolution of the dad

Most male mammals have little or nothing to do with their kids. Why is our own species different?

Zoos need to change

OPINION: To justify their existence, they must make conservation their top priority

The alien beauty and creepy fascination of insect art

Through history and across cultures, insects have inspired artists and challenged viewers to shift their perspective

Reviving a famously polluted California lake

Clear Lake, the state’s largest freshwater body of water, is fouled each year by algal blooms, one of many assaults endured by the battered ecosystem. Can a multipronged plan help it recover?

The fight against an invasive fish in California’s Clear Lake

VIDEO: Can removing carp help the lake’s native fish and keep toxic algal blooms in check?  

How researchers are making do in the time of Covid

The coronavirus pandemic has shuttered labs and sidelined scientists all over the world. Here’s a look at how some of them have coped.

It’s not just us: Other animals change their social habits in old age

In patterns that may sound familiar, long-term studies reveal what elderly deer, sheep and macaques are up to in their twilight years

A lifetime of love for the charismatic narwhal

An independent scientist working with the Inuit has unraveled many mysteries of the one-tusked ‘unicorn of the sea’

What a bioluminescent petunia had to teach me

I bought a glowing plant. It led me down a rabbit hole of radiant mushrooms, 19th century experiments and a modern rivalry between scientists in Russia and the Americas.

The awake ape: Why people sleep less than their primate relatives

Ancient humans may have evolved to slumber efficiently — and in a crowd

What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

Hedgerows were historically planted as barriers between fields, but in a human-dominated world, they are critical havens, corridors and connectors for wildlife

Out for blood in the search to stall aging

A gaggle of biotech start-ups are trying vastly different approaches to spin animal studies into the next big anti-aging therapy. It’s too early to know which, if any, will succeed.

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