Nautilus

How to Make the Bread That Fueled the Pyramids

And the beer that gave rise to civilizations, too.

How Japanese Floating Illusions Reverse-Engineer What We See

The Arais do not merely dissect illusions, but can generate them, taking an image that looks boringly normal and making subtle changes, to color and contrast, to fool our brains. If you don’t know how something works, break it. Science is built on creative destruction: Much of what neuroscientists know of the brain, they know…

If Not Darwin, Who?

An alternative history of the great ideas of science.

The Day the Mesozoic Died

How the story of the dinosaurs’ demise was uncovered.

Authenticity in the Age of the Fake

As science blurs the real and unreal, we are learning to distinguish them in new ways.

Sex Is a Coping Mechanism

Did sexual reproduction evolve to keep up with mitochondrial mutation?

The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

Good solutions to biology’s problems are astonishingly plentiful.