Comets continue to confound cosmologists, who often assert that the small celestial bodies came from the “Oort Cloud,” a theoretical group of planetary leftovers that supposedly orbits the solar system.

Hopes of finding life on Mars have been consistently dashed by data clearly showing that the planet's surface would be extraordinarily hostile to anything resembling a living cell. Scientific studies have demonstrated that conditions there would quickly put an end to any incipient life form.

David Queller and Joan Strassmann, evolutionary biologists at Rice University, recently proposed a new way to describe what makes an organism a unified whole. They defined an organism as an entity made up of parts that cooperate well for an overall purpose, and do so with minimal conflict. But how do parts like these get together, and where does purposeful behavior come from?

How fast can a disaster zone bounce back? Apparently, faster than previously thought. Yale University ecologists conducted a meta-analysis of 240 studies of devastated ecosystems. They found that ecosystems damaged by pollution can be restored in as few as 10 years. Why then was it believed they would take so much longer to recover?

Researchers recently announced that they have unlocked some of the mystery surrounding the evolution of insect flight.¹ Their observance of a certain wingless insect led them to hypothesize that its “directed aerial descent” might be an important stage in flight evolution. But is it?