Wanted: expedition botanist to follow in Darwin’s footsteps and look for plants
If you have a sense of adventure and know your squills from your spurges, Cambridge University Botanic Garden may have the job for you
September 2024
Animals farmed
When dogs recall toys, and horses plan ahead, are animals so different from us?
Martha Gill
We’re warned not to assign human qualities to other species, but evidence of their complex abilities is mounting
August 2024
Christopher Ralling obituary
Emmy and Bafta-winning writer, producer and director of groundbreaking programmes about great explorers
July 2024
Biologist Rosemary Grant: ‘Evolution happens much quicker than Darwin thought’
The evolutionary expert discusses the triumphs and challenges of the groundbreaking research on Galápagos Islands finches she undertook with her husband, Peter
May 2024
‘Exceptional’: rare books of illustrations from Darwin’s ‘bird man’ on sale for £2m
The set of folios published by John Gould will be presented at Firsts book fair in London in mid-May
April 2024
The French aristocrat who understood evolution 100 years before Darwin – and even worried about climate change
Georges-Louis Leclerc proposed species change and extinction back in the 1740s, a new book reveals
March 2024
Darwin’s plant specimens stored for 200 years to go on public display
Specimens collected on Voyage of the Beagle have been unearthed at Cambridge University archive
February 2024
Contents of Charles Darwin’s entire personal library revealed for first time
300-page catalogue details thousands of books, journals, pamphlets and articles in naturalist’s library
December 2023
Southern frontlines: Latin America and the Caribbean
Darwin in Patagonia: tracing the naturalist’s route around the foot of South America
Darwin spent more than half of the five years of the Beagle expedition in the most southerly region of Argentina, where his legacy is still vivid
November 2023
Country diary
Country diary: This 550-year-old tree stands for all of life
‘Darwin’s oak’ to be felled to make way for Shrewsbury bypass
August 2023
In Darwin’s footsteps: sailing ship to retrace round-the-world voyage of the Beagle
On Monday, a three-masted schooner will set sail from Plymouth, taking outstanding young naturalists on a two-year educational trip. Crew members still needed …
March 2023
Dame Phyllida Barlow obituary
British sculptor determined to turn convention on its head to create vast, uncontainable works of art
December 2022
Country diary
Country diary: The holly and meadowsweet are flowering out of time
Egglestone, Teesdale: Unseasonal blooming could be the norm if we have more summer droughts and mild autumns – how closely is this being recorded?
October 2022
Charles Darwin autograph manuscript could fetch £700,000 at auction
Naturalist penned document in response to request for sample of his handwriting to reprint in magazine
September 2022
Book of the day
An Intimate History of Evolution by Alison Bashford review – Darwin’s outriders
A sprawling history of the illustrious Huxley family charts the evolution of science and society over 200 years
August 2022
Rare orchid flourishes in Charles Darwin’s gardens after two-year project
Unusually the violet helleborine is only pollinated by wasps and is thriving thanks to nectar that is irresistible to the insects
July 2022
How Charles Darwin got sexual selection wrong
Letter: The theory needs to be updated by incorporating recent genetic breakthroughs and viewing the process through a female lens, says Heather Remoff
Evolutionary biologists are ever adapting to progress in science
Letter: Many discoveries since the modern synthesis have been incorporated into evolutionary biology without substantially changing its major tenets, write Brian Charlesworth, Deborah Charlesworth andJerry Coyne
The Audio Long Read
Do we need a new theory of evolution? – podcast
A new wave of scientists argues that mainstream evolutionary theory needs an urgent overhaul. Their opponents have dismissed them as misguided careerists – and the conflict may determine the future of biology. By Stephen Buranyi
