Post of the month! Summer Ash blogs her heart surgery, with pics of her own heart on the operating table

Yes our ancestors did have sex with Neanderthals, and no, that new paper doesn’t prove otherwise. John Hawks has the best account of the story. Ewen Callaway

NASA just patched a piece of software on another planet.

Have there been modern-day virgin births? A great historical tale, from the pre-genomic era.

Wait, whale sharks can ungrow?! Awesome. And I learned that even before the bit about lasers

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a new columnist for the NYT magazine. This is good news for everyone, and I love it when excellent writers end up in the right places.

“I think people who