All essays filed in this edition, newest first.
Your bedtime is not a moral failing. It is a rhythm ticking in your cells, inherited and ancient.
A weed from a Mexican valley became the most abundant crop on Earth, and it can no longer live on its own.
Aging was long treated as destiny. A handful of experiments suggest it behaves more like a setting.
The trillions of microbes in your gut may decide more about your health than the DNA you were born with.
Cancer is less a moral verdict than a statistic written into the act of staying alive.
A rare genetic condition erases all pain, and in doing so reveals why the rest of us need it.
Ancient viruses infected our ancestors millions of years ago, and they are still living inside us.
Some bodies block infection outright. Others fight a war so fast you never feel a single skirmish.
Your heart is not on the left. The reason it leans there began in a microscopic embryo.
Cheese was never invented in a kitchen. It was discovered, again and again, inside the curdle of spoiling milk.
No adult mammal drinks milk except us, and the reason is written into our genes by hunger.
Asparagus has divided dinner tables for three centuries, and the dividing line runs through your DNA.