nature

Rivers, skies, and mountains become legal persons under Rights of Nature laws, but their implementation has been difficult. To help interpret and enforce these laws, scientific knowledge must be integrated.

by Jessica Schifffigures by Rebecca Senft For millennia, people have held to the notion that spending time in nature is healing and restorative. Hippocrates stated that “Nature itself is the best physician”. At some point in our lives, many of us have…

by Piyush Nandafigures by Corena Loeb In an area devastated by deforestation, an 18-month-old toddler from the nearest settlement, Meliandou in Guinea, was seen playing around a fallen tree swarming with bats. The child then contracted a mysterious…

Have you ever considered how the total weight of all the structures, vehicles, and infrastructure built by humans compares to all life on Earth? In their recent Nature paper Ron Milo and colleagues estimate that human made objects now weigh more than all…

Xiaomeng Han is a graduate student in the Harvard Ph.D. Program in Neuroscience. She uses electron microscopy to study neuronal connectivity. Cover image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay This biography is part of our “Picture a Scientist”…

Central to coral reefs around the world is the deeply interdependent relationship between corals and algae. This interconnection is responsible for algae’s protected habitat, corals’ bright colors, and the mutual exchange of nutrients for photosynthesis.…

by Rebecca Silberman figures by Aparna Nathan Seen through the harsh, unsentimental lens of evolutionary biology, menopause doesn’t make sense. Why don’t women live like giraffes, like tarantulas, like pigeons, reproducing throughout their lives in…