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The Snail with the Right Heart — a love story, a science story, a story about the poetry of existence, about time and chance, genetics and gender, life and death, evolution and infinity, about not mistaking difference for defect, about recognizing diversity as nature’s wellspring of resilience and beauty.

Alan Turing science science and technology biology computing history

For computing pioneer Alan Turing’s birthday, his little-known contributions to biology, in hand-drawn diagrams.

Erwin Chargaff biology science and technology thought and opinion culture and society science

It is the sense of mystery that … drives the true scientist… If he has not experienced, at least a few times in his life, this cold shudder down his spine, this confrontation with an immense, invisible face whose breath moves him to tears, he is not a scientist. The blacker the night, the brighter the light.

Pioneering biochemist Erwin Chargaff on science, mystery, the poetics of curiosity, and what makes a scientist – absolutely beautiful read.

biology science and technology science

This newly discovered 305-million-year-old almost-spider, which crawled Earth long before its oldest living trees existed, is illuminating an unseen chapter of arachnid history.

Alan Turing history and literature science science and technology history biology

Alan Turing’s little-known contributions to biology and his mesmerizing hand-drawn diagrams of morphogenesis.

biology butterflies science and technology science

The wings of the first two butterflies show a normal male and female pattern, respectively. The rest are gynandromorphs, combining the two, and scientists are now studying them to understand the mystery of butterfly wing development.

Also see Stephen Jay Gould on the legacy of Nabokov’s butterfly studies.

Freeman Dyson science and technology science futurism biology

Freeman Dyson on the new Age of Wonder, the future of science, and why biologists are the new poets.

Joe Hanson science and technology science biology

Joe Hanson of It’s Okay To Be Smart explains some of our weirdest automatic body functions, including yawns, hiccups, and sun sneezes. Also see the science of why we cry and what the phenomenon of sleep paralysis reveals about how the brain works.

science and technology science Joe hanson biology anatomy

Joe Hanson looks behind our symmetry to break down the curious science of our left and right – biologically, not politically.

Complement with the evolutionary mystery of left-handedness.

medicine science and technology science Harvard music video biology

Harvard Medical School students break down what your spleen does in a delightfully geeky music video – best thing since the rap guide to evolution.

(via Open Culture)

science and technology evolution science culture and society biology

It turns out that cultures with a history of dairy farming and milk drinking have a much higher frequency of lactose tolerance – and its associated gene – than those who don’t. Drinking milk is just one of example of the way that traditions and cultural practices can influence the path of our evolution. Culture and genetics are traditionally thought of as two separate processes, but researchers are increasingly realizing that they are intimately connected, each influencing the natural progression of the other. Scientists call it “gene-culture co-evolution.” Why does it matter? If we can pin down how culture influences our genetic makeup – and how the same processes apply to other creatures too – then we can be better understand how the way we act as a society today could influence our future.

BBC explores how culture influences our genes.

Pair with how music and language helped us evolve.

LGBT LGBT Pride Month Tyler Cowen culture and society thought and opinion biology science and technology sciene

Actual science is that your brain can be gendered during development in a different fashion than your sex chromosomes. And that gender is not something that hormones alone can “fix”.

For example, the forceps minor (part of the corpus callosum, a mass of fibers that connect the brain’s two hemispheres) – among nontranssexuals, the forceps minor of males contains parallel nerve fibers of higher density than in females. But the density in female-to-male transsexuals is equivalent to that in typical males.

As another example, the hypothalamus, a hormone-producing part of the brain, is activated in nontranssexual men by the scent of estrogen, but in women—and male-to-female transsexuals—by the scent of androgens, male-associated hormones.

Quoting a reader, Tyler Cowen offers some remarkably intelligent commentary on LGBT matters, adding:

I would stress a social point. If it turns out you are born “different” in these ways (I’m not even sure what are the right words to use to cover all the relevant cases), what is the chance that your social structure will be supportive? Or will you feel tortured, mocked, and out of place?

Full piece here. Also see this sobering read on gender identity and one family’s moving story.

education apps biology science and technology media and communication Tinybop Kelli Anderson art and design science

My friends at Tinybop have just released the second installment in their wonderful series of educational apps: Plants is a vibrant, interactive diorama of the world’s biomes illustrated by French artist Marie Caudry, with a lovely stop-motion trailer designed by the inimitable Kelli Anderson (who knows a thing or two about making magical dioramas).

Tinybop’s first app, The Human Body, was inspired by this vintage gem.

microbiome science and technology science NPR animation biology health

There are ten times more cells from microorganisms than human cells in and on our bodies.

Fascinating NPR story on how gut bacteria might guide the workings of our minds, moods, and metabolism. For a deeper look, see The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today.

scinece and technology science Halloween biology

The so-called “startle reflex” is probably the fastest response you can have.

The science of why certain sounds scare us – another great illuminator from Joe Hanson. This might explain why Dickens and Babbage waged a war on noise…

Pair with Alfred Hitchcock on the fright complex and Vi Hart’s animated explanation of the science of noise.