Animals

Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. From chaotic assemblies of life, order somehow emerges. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz interviews the evolutionary ecologist Iain Couzin about how and why collective behaviors arise.

Altering a protein in the neurons that coordinate a rattlesnake’s movement made a slow slither neuron more like a speedy rattle neuron, showing one way evolution can generate new ways of moving.

The visual systems of an obscure group of mollusks provide a rare natural example of path-dependent evolution, in which a critical fork in the creatures’ past determined their evolutionary futures.

Why does natural selection appear to happen slowly on long timescales and quickly on short ones? A multigenerational study of four lizard species addresses biology’s “paradox of stasis.”

For the first time, scientists have decoded the molecular structure of a protein that helps to sync a biological clock to the phases of the moon.

Sticking out your tongue while doing delicate work with your hands reveals a history of evolutionary relationships.

Genetic elements called Mavericks that have some viral features could be responsible for the large-scale smuggling of DNA between species.

The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t persist in adults.

Jellyfish and other aquatic creatures embody solutions to diverse problems in engineering, medicine and mathematics. John Dabiri, a fluid dynamics expert, talks with Steven Strogatz about what jellyfish can teach us about going with the flow.