Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Fossil discoveries unlock chapters of our planet’s storied ...

One hundred years ago, the small town of Dayton, Tenn., became the unlikely stage for one of the most sensational trials in American history. A local substitute teacher, John Scopes, was charged with ...

Paleontologists who study earth’s ancient fossil record might not seem to be the obvious choice when asking about the prevalence of intelligent life in the cosmos. But paleontology, the study of ...

Researchers at the University of Maine are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary shift—driven not by genes, but by culture. "Human evolution seems to be changing ...

A lot’s changed on the surface of the Earth over the past 4.5 billion years. This video explains the long, slow process that enabled simple cells to evolve into the creatures that inhabit our planet ...