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• Designer Genes

  Drew Endy uses DNA to make new and improved versions of life.
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  • 010: The China Issue
  • Date: Mar 20 2008
  • Contributors: Rebecca Cathcart

• Thar She Grows

  The Science Barge is a new urban farm, set afloat on the Hudson River.
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  • 010: The China Issue
  • Date: Mar 19 2008
  • Contributors: Meryl Rothstein

• Quantum Hippies

  Quantum mechanics and Ayahuasca-induced hallucination: together at last.
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  • 008: Big Ideas!
  • Date: Jan 15 2008
  • Contributors: GOOD magazine

• The Cost of Intelligence

  In Tuesday's Science Times, Carl Zimmer grants us access to scientists who are asking the question, "If it's so great to be smart, why have most animals remained dumb?" Researchers hypothesize that any animal with a nervous system can learn, but in the case of the test subjects—good old Drosophila melanogaster—the fast-learning fruit flies (the smarter ones) live on average 15 percent shorter lives than their unschooled counterparts. In his brief response to the story, author and New York Times editorial board member, Verlyn Klinkenborg, reframes the question behind the research by asking whether there is "an adaptive value to limited intelligence." Being smart, it turns out, is often high-priced: "It takes more upkeep, burns more fuel and is slow off the starting line because it depends on learning—a gradual process—instead of instinct. Plenty of other species are able to learn, and one of the things they’ve apparently learned is when to stop." At last, perhaps, evolutionary biology explains the age old adage, "Ignorance is bliss."
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  • Date: May 08 2008
  • Posted by danielriley

• Mushrooms Versus Mushroom Clouds

  We were already impressed with fungi. They gave us penicillin and vision quests, and can turn bland cheese into a delicious blue stilton. Now we hear that a common fungus may be able to clean up battlefields contaminated with radioactive uranium. Is there anything this kingdom of organisms can't do? (The 2002 article from Salon, "How mushrooms will save the world," answers the question in the negative.)
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  • Date: May 05 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• Good News For Penguins

  Between threatened habitats and cultural biases against tap dancing, it's hard out there for a penguin. But, as Monty Python's Terry Jones reports, life just got a lot sunnier for one penguin community. Via VSL.
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  • Date: Apr 28 2008
  • Posted by andrewprice

• Fit!

  The fact that "smart" flies had shorter lives than "dumb" ones isn't necessarily an indication that smartness is an evolutionary disadvantage. Maybe "smart" flies reproduce more. Maybe "smart" flies, while leading shorter lives *on average*, have more total individuals who live long enough to reproduce. Getting your genes into subsequent generations is a better yardstick of evolutionary fitness than living a long life.
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  • Date: May 08 2008
  • Posted by DirtyFiveThirty

• Shrooms

  Check out the April 27 article in the NY Times, "Saddled With Legacy of Dioxin, Town Considers an Odd Ally: The Mushroom". Mushrooms are being used to clean up the site of a former mill in Fort Bragg, CA.
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  • Date: May 05 2008
  • Posted by baughmanzuclazed

• Wow

  Remind me to send my child, if I ever have one, to that kid's school. I honestly don't think I know two people that know that. This kid seems like a pretty exceptional 11 year old.
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  • Date: Apr 03 2008
  • Posted by cmsquyres