Life Science

The real story about the roots of infidelity and monogamy is far more complicated than whether you have the "cheating gene."

By Dave Roos

Dust traveling over the Atlantic from North Africa feeds both phytoplankton that makes the oxygen we breath and the bacteria that could kill us.

By Jesslyn Shields

Hundreds of crops in developing countries are relatively unknown in the developed world because they're often hard to grow or export. But scientists have found that CRISPR editing can speed up traditional plant breeding techniques.

By Dave Roos

Machines can translate some of the biological functions of plants into synthesizer sounds. But are these synthesized translations the same thing as music?

By Jesslyn Shields

Countless superhero movies have been released in the past decade, playing to our fascination with people with higher than usual abilities. But what if people really could have superpowers like those portrayed in the movies, thanks to the inheritance of so-called super genes?

By Diana Brown & Sascha Bos

A new study shows that mothers prefer daughters and fathers prefer sons, regardless of economic background, contradicting an earlier well-known hypothesis.

By Alia Hoyt

You could call dopamine the most misunderstood neurochemical in the brain. It's allegedly the cause of people getting addicted to drugs, chocolate or video games. But what does really dopamine do?

By Patrick J. Kiger

At least not in nature. Scientists have discovered the two gene families that play key roles in making fruits and vegetables either round or long. Could a square fruit be on the horizon?

By Dave Roos

The more we research our closest extinct human ancestor, the more we realize how similar we were. But could we have shared a joke?

By Jesslyn Shields

Researchers are calling for a new "Noah's Ark" to store microbes that might one day be valuable.

By Chris Opfer

Tetragametic chimerism occurs when a single organism has two genetically distinct types of DNA.

By Laurie L. Dove

The Scandinavian countries tend to come out on top in the World Happiness Report. But the report doesn't actually ask participants if they're happy. When that question is included, the country rankings are quite different.

By Dave Roos

What do Donald Trump, Bob Dole and LeBron James have in common? A tendency to talk about themselves in the third person. But is it just egotism or is there a hidden benefit to saying your name rather than "I"?

By Dave Roos

Some kids have a lot of talent in music, art or math. Then there are those who are gifted beyond belief.

By Dave Roos

Scientists have found that ancient fossilized chlorophyll was dark red and purple in its concentrated form, which means that when diluted by water or soil, it would have lent a pink cast to earth and sea.

By Laurie L. Dove

Is your first memory of lying in a crib? You may want to revisit that. A new large study found that nearly 40 percent of participants had a first memory that was improbably early.

By Alia Hoyt

What happens when twins are reunited decades later? And how in the world can you explain separated twins giving their firstborn son or their family dog the same exact name?

By John Donovan

Roller coaster junkies rejoice: Riding these coasters could be a safe way to deal with your addiction to endorphins.

By Alia Hoyt

A strange, but surprisingly accurate, ancient Egyptian pregnancy test survived for millennia and was spread around Africa and Europe because it was just that effective.

By Jesslyn Shields

The noises that others make - be it walking, chewing or breathing heavily - are very noticeable to us. Yet we seldom hear it in ourselves. Why is that?

By Alia Hoyt

A new study shows that IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a 20th-century trend.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus

Ever walked from your kitchen to the living room to find your phone and then forgotten what you were looking for once you got there? Researchers think your brain is hard-wired to undergo precisely that process of forgetting.

By Nathan Chandler

Researchers say that Otzi, the ancient man found in the Alps in 1991, lived on a diet loaded with fat to maintain warmth and energy in his cold, high-altitude environment.

By Patrick J. Kiger

Were hobbits and giants real? And are they distant relatives of humans?

By Diana Brown

An interesting defense mechanism recently observed in tomato plants has caterpillars turning on themselves rather than remaining vegetarian.

By Laurie L. Dove