biology

This butterfly-shaped gland influences every cell in your body.

Snakes: Ian Macdonald / Art: Rebecca O'Connell

The venom of the baby brown snake is neurotoxic, while the adult snake’s venom causes internal bleeding and strokes.

A single cell can be used to restore an entire mammal circulatory system.

Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that the creepy crawlies are an amazingly successful bunch, with over 1500 known species lurking about.

Your tongue isn't just important for tasting. Here are a few underappreciated facts about the most flexible muscle in your body.

<em>C. elegans</em> nemotodes respond to exercise in very similar ways to humans.

Researchers used a CT scanner to watch how dolphins' oddly shaped junk fits together during sex.

The drug manipulates the expression of a specific gene associated with the disease.

Frank Fo via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0

These microscopic monsters just get weirder and weirder.

We're still learning about one of the most important structures of the brain.

You're probably aware of some vestigial body parts, like wisdom teeth, that the human body doesn't really need. But did you know there are several muscles in that category as well?

Turns out there are six of them.

Laurinemily via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.5

So why doesn’t the world look that way?

Xavax via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 4.0

A recent study from Penn State details how researchers coaxed ordinary skin cells to grow into heart cells.

Sergio Carvalho via Flickr // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The world is teeming with life, and we're always discovering new species—including some that stretch the limits of how we view and classify biological life forms. Here are a few that clearly don't play by the rules.

8. You might want to rethink an ankle tattoo.

Bird poop has been a favored fertilizer for centuries—and, it turns out, is an excellent preserver of human flesh.

Dysfunctional gene expression may make some people hypersensitive to sex hormones like estrogen and progesterone.

Charles Robert Knight via Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Less grunting, more hoarse screaming.

Your body hosts trillions of microbes—mainly bacteria, fungi, and viruses. That's (mostly) a good thing.

9. Surgeons can make thumbs out of big toes.

Scientists were able to reduce methane production by 99 percent in preliminary tests on artificial cow stomachs.

Life on Mars has yet to be found, but we're already making plans to protect it from us—and us from it.

The animal lived off the coast of what is now Washington state about 10 million years ago and probably fished like seals do, relying on the power of its oversized eyes to track its prey.

11 Eye-Opening Facts About the Thyroid

This Snake’s Venomous Powers Morph as It Grows Up

Scientists Grow Blood Stem Cells in the Lab for the First Time

10 Stinging Facts About Scorpions

10 Flexible Facts About the Tongue

Worms Benefit Immediately From Exercise, Too

Scientists Record an Extremely Intimate Look at How Dolphins Get It On

A Common Steroid May Have the Potential to Treat PTSD

Tardigrades Produce Glass Shields to Survive Extreme Conditions

7 Amazing Facts About the Amygdala

5 Muscles You Might Be Missing

How To See Colors That Don’t Exist

How Our Eyes See Everything Upside Down

Scientists Use Stem Cells to Regenerate Layers of a Human Heart

5 Strange Microbes (and 1 Bonus Organism)

8 Facts About the Ankle

How the Global Bird-Poop Trade Created a Traveling Mummy Craze

Scientists Have Found a Possible Cause of Severe PMS

Here's What a Neanderthal's Voice Might Have Sounded Like

10 Mysteries of the Human Microbiome Revealed

10 Stubbed Facts About Your Big Toe

Could Feeding Seaweed to Cows Help Save the Climate?

When We Go to Mars, How Will We Protect the Microbes From Us?

Scientists Discover Seal-Like Prehistoric Predator