A White-crowned Sparrow

A Noisy City Affects Birdsong

As anthropogenic ambient noise increases in urban areas, birds adapt their songs to make themselves heard.
Salmo trutta (Brown trout)

To Study Today’s Ecosystems, Look to History

An unlikely source of data about the decline of trout in modern Spain: a book from the 1850s.
Copepod

The Little Plankton That Could

Arguably the world's most abundant animal, calanoid copepods can leap like whoa Nelly. And check out their enigmatic embryos!
Statue of Benkos Biohó in San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia

Black Conquistadors and Black Maroons

Some formerly enslaved Blacks and freedmen accompanied the Spanish invaders; others formed their own communities.
Emma and Charles Darwin

Darwin in Love

Charles Darwin, who of all people should have known better, married his first cousin. Did his love for Emma color his later works?
A cartoon of a T Rex holding a boom box

Take These Teenage Dinosaurs Seriously!

Paleontologists recently solved the riddle of whether two fossil specimens were young T. rexes or a whole different species.
A group of babies with various emotions

The Science of Baby-Name Trends

What makes a name suddenly pop—and then die? Social scientists and historians have been puzzling over this for decades.
A shark being cleaned by smaller fish

Where the Small Fish Clean the Bigger Ones

A "cleaner station" is a sort of undersea business, a place where large, often predatory, fish go to have parasites removed.
Source: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Richard Prum: How Does Beauty Evolve?

Prum speaks on Darwin’s idea of sexual selection, the importance of arbitrary traits, and why he could never choose a favorite species of bird.