Seed: Science is Culture

Latest Articles

• Abstract Sculptures of Evolution
  Genes provide only the basic blueprints for our teeth. Shapes and sizes arise from the predictable interaction of molecules that live in the jaw itself.
• Suspending Life
  If almost every species on Earth was killed some 250 million years ago, how did our ancient ancestors survive and evolve into us?
• Eyeing the Evolutionary Past
  As we survey nature, the eyes of various creatures reveal the underlying means by which a single attribute can express itself over millions of years.
• Will Self + Spencer Wells
  The writer and the genetic anthropologist meet up to talk about place, identity, and what it means to be human.
• Redefining Genes
  Will new revelations about RNA force us to rethink how our past affects future evolution?

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• Algorithmic Inelegance
  Complexity in living things is a product of the lack of direction in evolutionary processes, of the accumulation of fortuitous accidents, rather than the product of design.
• Cribsheet #12: Genetics
  Seed's Downloadable Tool for Living in the 21st Century
• A Profound Sense of Time
  PZ Myers on the process that prompts the growth of all vertebrates from embryos to unspecialized segments to multicellular animals.
• The Evolution of Language
  What songbirds, dancing, and knot-tying can tell us about why we speak.
• The Meaning of Life
  We create life, we search for it, we manipulate and revere it. Is it possible that we haven't yet defined the term?
• Prime Vertebrae
  PZ Myers discusses the critical difference between having six or seven cervical vertebrae.
• On Extravagant Proportions
  PZ Myers on scarab beetles and the influence of genes on the predictability of proportion.
• To Keep on Looking
  As we explore Mars, it forces us to imagine otherworldly evolution, challenging our definition of life and our sense of place in the solar system.
• Variant Genes-In-Waiting
  PZ Myers on how the garden-variety caterpillar is revealing surprising information about the circumstances under which genetic traits actually put themselves forward.
• PZ Myers on How the Cavefish Lost Its Eyes
  The Mexican blind cavefish raises the challenging evolutionary question: Does disuse lead to degeneration or disappearance of a feature? Here, an answer Darwin would have loved.
• Cribsheet #7: Extinction
  Seed's Downloadable Tool for Living in the 21st Century
• We've Seen The Future, And It Is Us
  As we drive the evolution of species, humans may be building a future with ever more diverse pests and pathogens and without the creatures we value most.
• Microbes' Scent Knocks Out Competitors
  
• A Varied Menu for Homo's "Cousins"
  
• Neanderthals in Our Midst
  Genetic and fossil evidence comes together to reveal a hidden chapter of human history.