Why do you have five fingers? Why not ten, or twenty, or one? Why do so many animals have five fingers? Five seems to be the perfect number for most hands. Oddly, the first vertebrates to come onto ...

The human body is a machine whose many parts—from the microscopic details of our cells to our limbs, eyes, liver and brain—have been assembled in fits and starts over the 4 billion years of our ...

An international team of researchers led by Dr. Ulrike Bauer from the University of Bristol investigated two tropical pitcher plant species separated by 4,000 km of open ocean: The Slender Pitcher ...

Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work covers anything from archaeology and the environment to technology and culture. Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work ...

(THE CONVERSATION) Most people know only two things about the appendix: You don’t need it – and if it bursts, you need surgery fast. That basic story traces back at least to Charles Darwin, the ...

For most of our evolutionary history, human activity has been linked to daylight. Technology has liberated us from these ancient sleep-wake cycles, but there is evidence sunlight has left and ...

Explaining how anxiety helped our species to survive and thrive—essentially, a naturally evolved defensive response that can get triggered too easily—provides vital context and a more positive outlook ...

The human body is a machine whose many parts – from the microscopic details of our cells to our limbs, eyes, liver and brain – have been assembled in fits and starts over the four billion years of our ...