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Krulwich considers the strange powers, and brilliant hue, of horseshoe crab blood. Read the full post here.

John Sparks, associate curator and curator-in-charge, department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, and David Gruber, assistant professor at the City University of New York and a research associate at the museum, discuss the variety of bioluminescent organisms—from fungus to dinoflagellates to jellyfish—and explain the various ways they glow, the functions of bioluminescence, and how scientists study it. The exhibition Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence is on view at the American Museum of Natural History through January 6, 2013.

E.O. Wilson, the biologist, theorist, and sometimes-novelist, has pioneered entire fields of study in his six-decade career. Back in 1975, Wilson popularized the theory of sociobiology: the idea that evolution and genetics shape human behavior. Wilson’s new book, "The Social Conquest of Earth" tackles this subject and through one simple question: how did altruism evolve in species like human and ants, when so few species are altruistic?

For our Guts episode, producer Tim Howard bravely headed to Rutgers University to see, feel...and smell...a fistulated cow firsthand. Check out his pictures here.

Popular science is more popular than ever. Its subjects also seem more rarefied than ever: string theory, theoretical physics, theoretical astrophysics. Whatever happened to the more tangible natural sciences? The ones we all think we know — chemistry, for example. We all remember studying the periodic table of the elements in high school, maybe even in college, but do we remember what it all meant? Do we understand what the elements do — and what they can do?

While visiting Sweden, Latif Nasser encountered the spirit of a long-dead legend of taxonomy. And he found himself wondering about an age-old puzzle: how do you savor the mystery of new-found oddities while you're uncovering the facts behind the weirdness?

Sean Cole tries to square the idea that the fallout from a war between teensy organisms and teensier viruses can be seen from space. Luckily, he finds a perspective-shaking demo built by two 14-year-old boys that helps him get his bearings. Read more, and play with the demo, here.

Every day, every moment, an epic battle is raging across the globe. It's happening in the ocean. And the evidence is both highly visible and totally hidden, depending on your perspective. In this short, the tale of an arms race involving trillions of sea creatures--and why their struggle is vital to our survival.

Sometimes being a good scientist requires putting aside your emotions. But what happens when objectivity isn't enough to make sense of a seemingly senseless act of violence? In this short, Jad and Robert talk to an entomologist about the risks, and the rewards, of trying to see the world through someone else's eyes. 

Look at this animal. ... What do you see? Or more importantly, what don't you see?

Charles Mann explains how Christopher Columbus changed the world when he set foot in the Americas, setting off a series of vast ecological changes as European vessels carried thousands of species across the oceans. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, is a new history of the Columbian Exchange, the reason there are tomatoes in Italy, oranges in Florida, chocolates in Switzerland, and chili peppers in Thailand, and explains how earthworms, mosquitoes, and cockroaches; honeybees, dandelions, and African grasses; bacteria, fungi, and viruses; and rats were moved across the globe, changing lives and landscapes.

Science writer Lone Frank talks about using her own DNA to examine the new science of consumer-led genomics. In My Beautiful Genome she looks at how this science is used, how important it is for our health, and the consequences of biological fortune-telling.

After hearing about the "Whale Fall" story in our just-released Loops episode, former Radiolab intern Sharon Shattuck rallied the folks at Sweet Fern Productions and made this beautiful video. They created an intricate world of paper cutouts to illustrate the different stages a whale carcass goes through after dropping to the bottom of the ocean. The music is courtesy of Kentucky-based band Rachel's.

The Nobel Prize committee decided on Monday to posthumously award Dr. Ralph Steinman a prize in medicine and physiology. Steinman's ground-breaking winning research into dendritic cells helped treat his own pancreatic cancer, but he died just three days before the committee awarded him with the prize. Nobel rules say the award can only go to living scientists, but the foundation did not know Steinman had died on Friday and thus did not reverse their decision. Steinman shares this year's award with two other researchers, Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann.

Joe Roman, author of Listed: Dispatches from America's Endangered Species Act; George Amato, director of the American Museum of Natural History's Sackler Institute of Comparative Genomics; and Ernie Cooper, from TRAFFIC, a joint wildlife trade monitoring network of the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, discuss the Endangered Species Act, which species are at risk and why, and the efforts are made to protect them.

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Dr. Arthur Horwich, from Yale University, and Dr. F. Ulrich Hartl, from the Max Plank Institute in Germany, won this year’s Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. They’ll explain their discovery of “chaperone assisted protein folding,” a seminal finding that has allowed many of the modern breakthroughs in molecular biology and biotechnology, paving the way for advances in research into everything from Alzheimer’s Disease to Mad Cow Disease. Their discoveries are now part of the basic tool box scientists use to build experiments that give them a better understanding of the cellular mechanisms that comprise all life.

For Dr. Anthony Ritaccio, the idea of being a human-cyborg isn't just something of science fiction books, but a real world possibility. Ritaccio was born without his right hand, and through his work, as the director of the Epilepsy and Human Brain Mapping Program at the Albany Medical Center and J. Spencer Standish Professor of Neurology at the Albany Medical College, he has learned to map intentions of the human brain. In his lab, Ritaccio is mapping out the electrical layout of the brain, in hopes of building interactions that will one day change the lives of millions of Americans with physical and mental disabilities.

Little kids love dinosaurs, bugs and exploring the woods. Science doesn't scare them; they find it fun — until 9th grade. That's when most of us take our first biology class and everything changes. That's when we learn, not because we choose to, but because we know it might be on The Test, and too often, curiosity gets replaced by fear.

Psychologist, historian of science, and skeptic Michael Shermer explains his theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished—from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. His book The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths examines how humans form beliefs about the world. Once beliefs are formed the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them.

You may have spent time at the beach this summer, watching the waves and swimming in the surf, but on this week’s Please Explain, we're going below the surface to look at some of the creatures that live on the ocean floor—cuttlefish, squid, and octopus. Roger Hanlon senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and Ellen Prager, formerly the chief scientist at Aquarius Reef Base in Florida and author of Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime join us to talk about these creatures and their amazing abilities to camouflage themselves.

Watch this amazing video of an octopus shot by Roger Hanlon: