DNA barcoding, as the name suggests, was designed to make identifying a species as simple as scanning a supermarket barcode.

Future of Conservation

The Key to Protecting Life on Earth May Be Barcoding It

An easier way to read DNA is helping scientists tease apart species and ecosystems in nuanced ways

How Mastiffs Became the World’s Top Dogs

The large, furry dogs of Tibet took an evolutionary shortcut millenia ago

Aubrey de Grey says, “There’s no such thing as aging gracefully.”

Can Human Mortality Really Be Hacked?

Backed by the digital fortunes of Silicon Valley, biotech companies are brazenly setting out to “cure” aging

From the Batpod to the Batcomputer, the Caped Crusader's gadgets use up a whole lot of energy and spew a whole lot of carbon. But when it comes to carbon footprints, Gotham's techiest hero has nothing on some of pop culture's other saviors.

Age of Humans

Which of Your Favorite Superheroes Is Destroying the Earth?

Measuring the carbon footprints of your favorite comic book heroes, from Batman to Jessica Jones

The soil microbe Bacillus subtilis is ubiquitous, but one rare strain yielded scientific pay dirt.

One Girl’s Mishap Led to the Creation of the Antibiotic Bacitracin

Margaret Treacy was the namesake for a breakthrough medication

Taste receptors for salty, sweet, bitter and sour are found all over the tongue.

The Taste Map of the Tongue You Learned in School Is All Wrong

Modern biology shows that taste receptors aren’t nearly as simple as that cordoned-off model would lead you to believe

Thousands of clay caterpillars, like this one glued to a leaf in Hong Kong, were used to measure how often predators are eating insects around the world.

New Research

Sacrificing Fake Caterpillars in the Name of Science

Ersatz insects are helping ecologists figure out why bugs are more likely to become meals near the equator

These Trees Uncover What Plunged Egypt’s Climate Into Chaos

Examining tree rings inside the world’s oldest trees reveal a seismic event that took place around 3,500 years ago

Amanda Lawrence, lead technician, collections program. With a green sea turtle Chelonia mydas

Why These Humans Are Museum Treasures, Too

A portrait photographer captured 24 staffers from the National Museum of Natural History posing with their favorite artifacts from the collections

Some studies have shown that humans can learn to track scents like canines.

New Research

In Some Ways, Your Sense of Smell Is Actually Better Than a Dog’s

Human noses are especially attuned to picking up odors in bananas, urine and human blood

Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee illustrates the immensity of the missing Carmanah cedar in 2012.

Future of Conservation

How Thousand-Year-Old Trees Became the New Ivory

Ancient trees are disappearing from protected national forests around the world. A look inside $100 billion market for stolen wood

A giraffe skin disease was first described in the mid-1990s in Uganda and evidence of the disease has been spotted in numerous other countries, including Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Future of Conservation

How a Tiny Worm is Irritating the Most Majestic of Giraffes

They sound horrifying and look worse. A Smithsonian researcher is investigating the cause of these grotesque skin lesions

Ornithologist John Gould's illustrations of finches collected by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands show the physical differences that the men relied on in dividing them into different species.

Future of Conservation

What Does It Mean to Be a Species? Genetics Is Changing the Answer

As DNA techniques let us see animals in finer and finer gradients, the old definition is falling apart

World War I: 100 Years Later

How World War I Changed Weather Forecasting for Good

Prior to the Great War, weather forecasters had never considered using mathematical modeling

A little protection over here, please?

Future of Conservation

How America Can Help Save a Non-American Species: The Mighty Giraffe

Giraffes aren’t native to the U.S. But listing them as an endangered species could offer them much-needed protection

Scimitar-horned oryx calf

Spring Brings a Wave of Baby Animals to the Zoo

Seven different endangered species born so far at the National Zoo and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

Chocolate, coffee and tea all played a role in overturning a medical theory that had dominated the Western world for more than a millennium.

How Coffee, Chocolate and Tea Overturned a 1,500-Year-Old Medical Mindset

The humoral system dominated medicine since the Ancient Greeks—but it was no match for these New World beverages

Today the desert tortoise faces a variety of new human-associated threats: off-road vehicle use, the illegal pet trade, and now, an influx of deadly ravens.

Future of Conservation

To Save Desert Tortoises, Make Conservation a Real-Life Video Game

Traditional techniques weren’t working for the raven-ravaged reptile. So researchers got creative

The Mona Lisa's sparse setting may help visitors better appreciate its beauty, according to a new psychology study.

New Research

Distraction May Make Us Less Able to Appreciate Beauty

Truly experiencing the beauty of an object could require conscious thought, vindicating the ideas of Immanuel Kant

Fossils provide potential evidence that ancient life thrived Australia's Dresser Formation, a region composed of 3.5-billion-year-old hot springs.

New Research

Fossils From Ancient Hot Springs Suggest Life May Have Evolved on Land

These 3.5-billion-year-old rocks could vindicate Darwin’s claim that life evolved in “some warm little pond,” and not in the ocean

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