Through the first half of the twentieth century, emotions were a legitimate object of scientific study across a variety of disciplines. After 1945, however, in the wake of Nazi irrationalism, emotions became increasingly marginalized and postwar rati...

Before Doppler radar and broadcast weather reports, Spanish-born Benito Vines (1837-1893) spent decades observing the skies at Belen Observatory in colonial Cuba, routinely issuing weather reports and forecasts to local newspapers. And before storm t...

Distant relatives of modern lobsters, horseshoe crabs, and spiders, trilobites swam the planet's prehistoric seas for 300 million years, from the Lower Cambrian to the end of the Permian eras – and they did so very capably. Trilobite fossils have bee...

For decades, conservation and research initiatives in tropical forests have focused almost exclusively on old-growth forests because scientists believed that these "pristine" ecosystems housed superior levels of biodiversity. With "Second Growth", Ro...

"What is a weed", opined Emerson, "but a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered?" While that may be a worthy notion in theory, these plants of undiscovered virtue cause endless hours of toil for backyard gardeners. Wherever they take root,...

In NanoScience:Giants of the Infinitesimal, award-winning science writer Peter Forbes and sculptor Tom Grimsey explore the amazing possibilities that nanotechnology offers us, from clean harvesting solar energy and finding cost-effective methods to d...

From the moment when we first open our homes – and our hearts – to a new pet, we know that one day we will have to watch this beloved animal age and die. The pain of that eventual separation is the cruel corollary to the love we share with them, and...

"The Oldest Living Things in the World" is an epic journey through time and space. Over the past decade, artist Rachel Sussman has researched, worked with biologists, and traveled the world from Antarctica to the Mojave Desert in order to photograph...

"Victorian Scientific Naturalism" examines the secular creeds of the generation of intellectuals who, in the wake of "The Origin of Species", wrested cultural authority from the old Anglican establishment while installing themselves as a new professi...

From the time of our earliest childhood encounters with animals, we casually ascribe familiar emotions to them. But scientists have long cautioned against such anthropomorphizing, arguing that it limits our ability to truly comprehend the lives of ot...