The mimic octopus is, frankly, incredible. It can alter its shape, texture, and color to match poisonous and colorful sea creatures so accurately that it eluded detection by marine biologists for decades. It was finally discovered and scientifically named Thaumoctopus mimicus in 1998.

Stephen Hawking, leading cosmologist and recently retired Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, has co-authored a new book, The Grand Design. In it, he claims that the universe did not need God to create it.

Early in the 20th century, brilliant chemists generated pharmaceuticals in laboratories. But the cost/reward ratio of painstaking lab experiments turned out to be far greater than the cost/reward ratio of extracting chemicals from living things. It turns out that the chemists were not doing nearly as good a job at providing effective drugs as God already had through nature.

Inside a human cell's mitochondria--the tiny organelles that provide energy--there is a small and unique chromosome. This loop of DNA is passed from mother to child in every generation and provides an intriguing source of information about mankind's past. Geneticists are using that information in an attempt to determine exactly when the "mother" of all humans lived.