The Latest Breaking News from Charles Darwin

Two of naturalist Charles Darwin’s notebooks that were reported stolen from Cambridge University have been returned, two decades after they disappeared

Ukraine’s president prepares to address UN security council but casts doubt on meeting Putin. Plus, why it’s over for fossil fuels

The episode also features a stunning set of traditional Highland dress that was once worn by a Highland chieftain

Do Charles Darwin’s ideas on sexual selection hold up today? The biologist was very much of his time, which meant it may have shaped his understanding of evolutionary biology.

Knowing this column's penchant for a good mystery, Frank Bergersen invited me to accompany him on a mission to solve a long-standing local art conundrum

Carnivorous plants fascinate as much now as when their gruesome diet was first discovered. Molecular biology is helping botanists trace the origins of their predatory ways.

Was Charles Darwin a one-hit wonder? According to scientists who take a gene’s-eye view of evolution, the 19th-century English naturalist contributed one crucial idea to understanding how species change: natural selection, or “design without a designer”.

In his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, British naturalist Charles Darwin put forward his theory of natural selection. This, he argued, was the mechanism of biological evolution: like an animal or plant breeder selects for certain characteristics, individuals with better survival ability leave more offspring. In this way…

A new paper suggests Charles Darwin’s patriarchal worldview led him to dismiss female agency and mate choice in humans. Do his ideas, Matthew Wills asks, still hold up today?

Sex is an expensive business, biologically speaking. Finding a suitable mate takes time and energy. Offspring are also a huge investment of resources. But sex does offer a rewarding possibility: children who are fitter than their parents thanks to new and “better” combinations of genes. Darwin realised that many animal…