When pterosaurs first took flight, you could say that it marked the beginning of the end for the winged reptiles. Because, strangely enough, the power of flight -- and the changes that it led to -- may have ultimately led to their downfall.

Dinosaur mating behavior has been the subject of a lot of speculation, but what can we actually say about it from the fossil record?

In 2003, microbiologists made a huge discovery. One that would force us to reconsider a lot of what we thought we knew about the evolution of microbial life: giant viruses.

420 million years ago, the forest floor of what's now New York was covered with a plant that didn’t look like a tree at all, except its roots were made of wood. Instead of looking up to learn about the evolution of trees, it turns out...

It arose from rhino ancestors that were a lot smaller, but Paraceratherium would take a different evolutionary path. Believe it or not, it actually became so big that it probably got close to what scientists think might be the actual...

Despite the name, we don’t know where the so-called “hell pigs” belong in the mammalian family tree. They walked on hooves, like pigs do, but had longer legs, almost like deer. They had hunched backs, a bit like rhinos or bison. But as...

How does a bear -- which is a member of the order Carnivora -- evolve into an herbivore? Despite how it looks, nothing about the history of the giant panda is black and white.

Toxodon was one of the last members of a lineage that vanished 11,000 years ago after thriving in isolation for millions of years. And its fossils would inspire a revolutionary thinker to tackle a bigger mystery than Toxodon itself:...

The rise and fall of ancient walruses, and how modern ones got their tusks, is a story that spans almost 20 million years. And while there are parts of the story that we’re still trying to figure out, it looks like tusks didn’t have...

How did seahorses — one of the ocean’s worst swimmers — spread around the globe? And where did they come from in the first place?

Geckos can grip and climb almost anything. Walking up walls, hanging upside down… even from glass. It’s almost like they can defy gravity. How do they do it? The secret lies in nanotechnology. I’ll tell you how that works and how...

The monarch butterfly migration is one of nature’s greatest events. This orange-winged wonder travels up to 4,500 km from all over North America to spend the winter hanging from oyamel fir trees in central Mexico’s mountain forests. I...

You have questions, I have answers.

Glass is made of sand, which is a kind of rock. But glass is transparent, and rocks aren’t transparent. What’s up with that? Why is glass clear? And why can I sit on a chair? And why can we touch anything? Today we zoom down to the weird...

The city of Port Talbot in South Wales is known for a few things: a steel mill, a proudly working class population and a passionate commitment to the arts that produced Hollywood superstars Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins. In this...

Experiential artist Lucas Rizzotto was going through a tough breakup, so he did what anyone would do: he built a personal time machine. In a playful talk, he shares how his free-ranging experimentation led to various delightful,...

Unexpected change like an accident, an illness or a relationship that suddenly ends is inevitable -- and disorienting. With a heartfelt and optimistic take on life's curveballs, cognitive scientist Maya Shankar shares how these...

You've probably heard of CRISPR, the revolutionary technology that allows us to edit the DNA in living organisms. Biochemist and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Jennifer Doudna earned the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking work in this...

Over the past few years, astronomers have discovered their own kind of UFO called Odd Radio Circles, aka ORCs. They're a little too round, and a little too invisible at non-radio wavelengths, to immediately know what they are and...

Teeth are so well preserved in the fossil record that they make the best, most informative fossils we can find, from phylogenetic studies to learning about the evolution of the human brain.

It may be possible to create a needle so small it can inject a vaccine into a single cell. But it's not the product of a medical device company. It's part of something we often think of as making us sick.

Parasites give most of us the heebie-jeebies. But new research shows they're pretty dang important for ecosystems, and climate change is putting them in danger. So here's some of the reasons you should care about those guys!

The Sun is green, actually. We'll go into why the blackbody effect means the Sun emits more green visible light than any other color, and why evolution and color perception mean it's ok to see it as yellow, anyway.

HPV isn't the only virus that causes cancer, but it's one of the best at it. Here's what we've learned about this supervillain of a pathogen, and how to stop it.