The New York Times

…our society is deeply confused by the occasions when a blue pill is required and not required, or when we need a causal explanation and when we need a further description, clarification or elucidation. We tend to get muddled and imagine that one kind of explanation (usually the causal one) is appropriate in all occasions…

In April 1815, the most powerful volcanic blast in recorded history shook the planet in a catastrophe so vast that 200 years later, investigators are still struggling to grasp its repercussions. It played a role, they now understand, in icy weather, agricultural collapse and global pandemics — and even gave rise to celebrated monsters.

The Canadian tiger swallowtail caterpillar is a plump green creature that spends all its time munching leaves. It ought to be an easy meal for a bird, yet many birds pass it by. The caterpillar is protected by a remarkable defense, researchers have found: It tricks birds into thinking it’s a snake.

“They’re like a fox and a raccoon and a bear and a dog and a cat. They’re like every adorable animal in one animal.” Darwin could not have said it better. The red panda is loved but vulnerable to habitat loss and climate change.

A new report suggests that our ancestors were able to fuel the evolution of our oversize brains by incorporating cooked starches into their diet.

Can you spot the drowning child in the image here? An average of 10 people a day die from unintentional drowning according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but often it’s a quiet struggle that hardly resembles the dramatic affair we see on television.

The total mass of the atmosphere on Pluto appears to have fallen by half in just two years, scientists working on NASA’s New Horizons mission reported during a news conference on Friday.

Today the majority of American military aircraft are drones, and commercial aircraft now fly most of their routes on autopilot. The new program’s goal is to use robots to augment, rather than automate, flight.

After a hospital error, two pairs of Colombian identical twins were raised as two pairs of fraternal twins. This is the story of how they found one another — and of what happened next.