After sepsis forced the amputation of Sheila Advento’s hands, an intricate transplant technique made her whole again. Then came the side effects.

An essay on why fear may be the only thing that saves humanity from climate change.

What climate change means for kids in New York.

What science can tell us about how other creatures experience the world.

The inside story of an improbable team of divers, a near-impossible plan and the rescue of 12 boys from a Thai cave.

Geneticists have begun using old bones to make sweeping claims about the distant past. But their revisions to the human story are making some scholars of prehistory uneasy.

The story of Dr. Sherman Hershfield, who became Dr. Rapp.

When Sonia Vallabh lost her mother to a rare disease, then was diagnosed with it herself, she and her husband set out to find a cure.

For decades, Jeffrey Lendrum went to extreme lengths to snatch falcon eggs from their nests and sell them to the highest bidder. Then he got caught.

On the plight of the baobab tree.

How an undercover oil industry mercenary tricked pipeline opponents into believing he was one of them.

African Elephants have been killing people, raping rhinos, and exhibiting uncharacteristically aggressive behavior. An investigation reveals deep similarities between elephants’ and humans’ reaction to childhood trauma.

Karl Friston’s free energy principle might be the most all-encompassing idea since Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?

With wildfires, heat waves, and rising sea levels, large tracts of the earth are at risk of becoming uninhabitable.

It’s dangerous to blame the decline of one species on a single predator. We humans like to do it anyway.

New research is zeroing in on a biochemical basis for the placebo effect — possibly opening a Pandora’s box for Western medicine.

A report from Antartica, where the ecosystem is changing so fast scientists have no idea what will come next.

Chad Walde believed in his work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Then he got a rare brain cancer linked to radiation, and the government denied it had any responsibility.

The military wants future super-soldiers to control robots with their thoughts.

What if everything we know about dark matter is totally wrong?

How a professional football player became a top-flight mathematician.

An obsessive marine biologist gambles his savings, family, and sanity on a quest to be the first to capture a live giant squid.

On plagues, parasitic mind control, and magical thinking.