Few creatures can boast of devotions so deep as greylag geese. Most are monogamous; many spend their decade-long adult lives with the same goose, side-by-side in constant communication, taking another partner only if the first should die. It’s a remarkable degree of fidelity, and it includes relationships of a sort that some humans consider unnatural. […]

In 2005, the taxonomist Quentin Wheeler named a trio of newly discovered slime-mold beetles after George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney. He believed the names could increase public interest in the discovery and classification of new species, and help combat the quickening pace of extinction. (Species go extinct three times faster than […]

On February 3, Cliff Burgess, a physicist at McMaster University, emailed some of his colleagues about an exciting rumor—a possible discovery—that, if verified at a press conference later today, would mean a “Nobel prize is coming someone’s way.” According to “spies,” Burgess said, an instrument called LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) had apparently observed […]

In 1944, John Wheeler received a haunting postcard. It was from his younger brother, Joe, who had written only two words: “Hurry up.” Wheeler was involved with the United States’ atomic weapons effort, and Joe wanted him to finish the bomb so he could come home from fighting in Italy. But by the time Hiroshima […]

Kirk Johnson’s mom gave him 5 minutes at a rest stop. It was enough to find an arrowhead.

The next generation of dating algorithms will use real-life interactions.