Biology

A guide to life, on Earth and beyond, including the top news about plants, animals, and physiology.

Latest in Biology

A male person with an artificial model of a human pelvis.

Male Neanderthal hips looked more like a human woman’s hips

a pod of six narwhals swimming in blue-green water

Narwhal tusks are twisty, magical mathematical marvels

By Laura Baisas

White woman, man, and child sitting on a tree branch in clothing made from scraps with a chimp.

In 1926, a Russian biologist tried to create a human-chimpanzee hybrid

By Nidhi Sharma

the backs of two eagles in a tree

Bald eagle Shadow and new female KD1 sing a morning song

By Laura Baisas

two brown bears nuzzling each other

Don’t worry, Katmai’s brown bears didn’t vanish from Brooks Falls

By Laura Baisas

a long thin transluscent eel with pink-ish coloring

TikTok helps scientists discover new underground, translucent eel in India

By Laura Baisas

a blue-colored crayfish. it has pincers like a lobster and long antennae

Scientists put tiny backpacks on crayfish

By Sara Hashemi

a whale sticks its head out of the water

Southern right whales have bumpy ‘fingerprints’ on their heads

By Margherita Bassi

boy wearing red sweater whistling playing ukulele

Can’t whistle? It’s not you, it’s mouth geometry.

By Jennifer Byrne

a woman holing a yellow potato

Eating potatoes reshaped the DNA of Indigenous Andeans

By Sara Hashemi

MUNICH, GERMANY - APRIL 02: The burial mask of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun is shown during the 'Tutanchamun - Sein Grab und die Schaetze' Exhibition Preview at Kleine Olympiahalle on April 2, 2015 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Hannes Magerstaedt/Getty Images)

Illegal mummy trafficking may curse buyers with mold, not magic

a diorama of a sperm whale eating a giant squid

How one of the American Museum of Natural History’s most terrifying dioramas get clean

By Laura Baisas

an eagle on a nest with its head down

Who is KD1, the bald eagle spotted in Jackie and Shadow’s nest?

By Laura Baisas

a butterfly with orange, black, and white coloring and wearing a long, thin radio transmitter sits on a green plant

Putting tiny backpacks on butterflies—for science

By Margherita Bassi

a bear cub sits by a tree with porcupine quills in its hand

Katmai bear cub spotted with a paw full of porcupine quills

By Laura Baisas

two frogs mating on a tree branch

‘Less desirable’ males confuse female treefrogs looking for a mate

By Laura Baisas

two men with orange life jackets on in a river holding a large gray fish

300-year-old sturgeon are swimming around the Great Lakes

By Laura Baisas

a hermit crab grabbing a plant that looks like a mushroom

Hermit crab poop spreads a parasitic plant’s seeds

By Laura Baisas

two eagles on a nest

Jackie the bald eagle dead at 14

By Laura Baisas

a small brown rodent standing on dirt

The cute, tiny Texas kangaroo rat needs help

By Sara Hashemi