Tiffany Taylor, professor of microbial ecology and evolution at the University of Bath in the U.K., recommends the books that shaped her career and her outlook on life. When you purchase through links ...

"Consciousness," although challenging to define, can be thought of as a first-person awareness of one's surroundings and oneself. You sense the world through your eyes, nose, ears and hands, and track ...

Imagine a photograph of your great-grandparents, grandparents and parents side by side. You’d see a resemblance, but each generation would look distinct from its predecessors. This is the process of ...

A fish thought to be evolution’s time capsule just surprised scientists. A detailed dissection of the coelacanth — a 400-million-year-old species often called a “living fossil” — revealed that key ...

Giant DNA viruses that infect eukaryotic cells are thought to have played a role in the evolution of life, according to the ...

Researchers found that ancient hominids—including early humans—were exposed to lead throughout childhood, leaving chemical traces in fossil teeth. Experiments suggest this exposure may have driven ...

The origins of consciousness date back about 540 million years ago, when animal bodies became more complex. Feelings like pleasure and pain act as a "common currency" for decision-making, as we see in ...

How did humans become human? Understanding when, where and in what environmental conditions our early ancestors lived is central to solving the puzzle of human evolution. Unfortunately, pinning down a ...

One hundred years ago a young teacher, John T. Scopes, went on trial in Dayton, Tenn., for violating a recently enacted state law that forbade the state’s educators “to teach any theory that denies ...