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Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely- make that m...more

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Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are eac...more

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If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this univer...more

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On a cooler sun on a primordial earth: "I later learned that biologists, when they are feeling jocose, refer to this as the 'Chinese Resaturant Proble...more

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Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.

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It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic ...more

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It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations an...more

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In terms of adaptability, humans are pretty amazingly useless.

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This is a world where things move at their own pace, including a tiny lift Fortey and I shared with a scholarly looking elderly man with whom Fortey c...more

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There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong...more

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The universe is an amazingly fickle and eventful place, and our existence within is a wonder.

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As we parted at the Natural History Museum in London, I asked Richard Fortey how science ensures that when one person goes there's someone ready to ta...more

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Bipedalism is a demanding and risky strategy. It means refashioning the pelvis into a full load-bearing instrument. To preserve the required strength,...more

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As the physicist Paul Davies puts it, 'If everything needs everything else, how did the communities of molecules ever arise in the first place?' It is...more

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In France, a chemist named Pilatre de Rozier tested the flammability of hydrogen by gulping a mouthful and blowing across an open flame, proving at a ...more