Darwin

In Chapter 1, “The Indelible Stamp,” author Melanie Challenger addresses the idea of human exceptionalism.

An unsung group of South American falcons yields clues to the prehistory of a continent, and hints at secrets of the avian brain.

Theodosius Dobzhansky’s work in population genetics influenced how genetics and natural selection were combined in evolutionary biology.

Researchers are trying to recreate an extinct species of the lumbering reptiles by breeding closely related species that contain traces of the lost lineage’s DNA.

A synthetic interview with the father of evolutionary theory, now available as a smartphone app, teaches students and the public about the famed biologist.

See a preview of the app that lets you ask questions of a virtual Charles Darwin.

Full genomes of Darwin’s Galápagos finches reveal a critical gene for beak shape and three overlooked species.

September 2014's selection of notable quotes

An online reconstruction makes the library from Darwin’s famed ship more accessible. 

Darwin’s finches use pesticide-treated cotton to line their nests and unwittingly protect themselves against parasitic fly larvae.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute this week released three short films to teach students about evolution and speciation.

Biologists have struggled for centuries to properly define what constitutes a “species.” They may have been asking the wrong question—many smaller organisms might not form species at all.

May 2013's selection of notable quotes

American naturalist Louis Agassiz had a zeal for collecting that encouraged a nation to engage with nature.

Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s unheralded codiscoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection, found inspiration in the specimens he collected on his travels.

In Chapter 4, “Darwin’s Barnacles, Agassiz’s Jellyfish,” author Christoph Irmscher describes his subject’s obsession with marine organisms.

Nominated as a write-in candidate as a protest against the anti-science incumbent, famed naturalist Charles Darwin won 4,000 congressional votes in a Georgia county.

Epigenetic changes accrued over an organism’s lifetime may leave a permanent heritable mark on the genome, through the help of long noncoding RNAs.

Revisiting a classic study could overturn the idea that male competition rules reproductive choice.