Reviews
- Life
Find your inner fish with PBS series on human evolution
A new documentary explores how the human body came together over 3.5 billion years of animal evolution.
- Health & Medicine
Surgery museum holds wonders for the brave
Anatomical displays sit alongside art depicting medical history at the International Museum of Surgical Science.
By Sid Perkins - Animals
The Thing With Feathers
In the new book, "The Thing With Feathers," Noah Strycker brings people nose to beak with the plumed creatures he knows so well.
- Tech
Mindless: Why Smarter Machines are Making Dumber Humans
Simon Head argues that computer business systems leave middle managers and workers with little creative latitude. They acquire fewer skills and their wages stagnate, hurting their job quality and buying power.
By Nathan Seppa - Neuroscience
Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why
Scott Weems, a neuroscientist, takes readers on a wide-ranging tour that explains what humor is and why readers should care.
By Sid Perkins - Astronomy
Zoom in on amazing detail in NASA moon map
An interactive mosaic of images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter lets you fly over the Moon’s north pole with unprecedented detail.
- Life
To do: Exhibits to explore in the U.S. and London
Highlights include the impending arrival of a T. rex skeleton in Washington, D.C., a pterosaur exhibit coming to New York City, and the history of longevity at the Royal Society in London.
- Math
Our Mathematical Universe
Math is everywhere: medicine, sports, banking, gambling, National Security Agency espionage.
- Ecosystems
Do your bit for bumblebees
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and its partners have launched the Bumble Bee Watch website to track sightings. When you see a bee bumbling around, snap a photo.
- Life
The Monkey’s Voyage
By 26 million years ago, the ancestors of today’s New World monkeys had arrived in South America. How those primates reached the continent is something of a conundrum.
By Erin Wayman - Neuroscience
Me, Myself, and Why
Me, Myself, and Why is an ambitious effort to dissect the hodgepodge of genetic and environmental factors that sculpt people’s identities.
By Meghan Rosen - Genetics
Neanderthal Man
The hottest thing in human evolution studies right now is DNA extracted from hominid fossils. Svante Pääbo, the dean of ancient-gene research, explains in Neandertal Man how it all began when he bought a piece of calf liver at a supermarket in 1981.
By Bruce Bower