Nautilus

Nautilus stands out as a unique science magazine that blends science, philosophy, and culture. We provide fresh insights into what makes us human and our place in the universe, all presented with stunning illustrations. Each month, we dive deep into a specific theme, collaborating with award-winning writers and talented illustrators to create engaging features that redefine science reporting—captivating, thought-provoking, and original. Nautilus offers long-form articles in both online and print formats, along with a blog called Facts So Romantic and a news feature known as Three Sentence Science. With its captivating content and a sense of wonder, Nautilus exemplifies the essence of quality science journalism.

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Articles

Feather Forensics Could Help Identify Poached Wild Birds

1 day ago | nautil.us | Jude Coleman

Every year, the illegal wildlife trade ensnares millions of wild birds in a vast global industry. Poaching for the black market affects a huge diversity of life, including nearly half of all bird species. Songbirds and parrots are particularly popular targets, with thousands illegally caught and traded every year. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . But proving that a bird sold as a pet was poached from the wild, rather than born in captivity, is difficult.
Storm Chasers on the Hail Trail

1 day ago | nautil.us | Katherine Harmon Courage

This spring, storm-chasing scientists will scatter across more than a dozen states to hunt for hail. The falling ice does more than crush newly planted pansies: It pockmarks cars, shreds roofs, cracks solar panels, and crushes agricultural crops, which caused some $35 billion in damages last year in the United States. But predicting where and when these severe storms will land has proven a challenge, and large-scale field study of hailstorms has been largely on ice for decades.
The Genetics of Putrid-Smelling Flowers

6 days ago | nautil.us | Molly Glick

Flowers enchant us with their alluring perfumes—lavender’s calming aroma or honeysuckle’s sugary scent. But some flowers are downright malodorous, including corpse flowers, whose shocking smell (and infrequent blooms) attracts people to botanical gardens in droves. When a species called Amorphophallus gigas bloomed in Brooklyn this past winter, visitors waited hours for a cautious sniff of the deathly odor.
“Monsters of the Deep” Show Explores the Role of Imagination in Science

6 days ago | nautil.us | Kristen French

For centuries, seemingly unknowable monsters lurked under the murky seas around Europe, revealing only glimpses of themselves to wary seafarers. During these expansive times, when ocean travel was revelatory and perilous, maps tended to feature drawings of hideous dragons and serpents of the seas. But slowly, Europeans became acquainted with these beasts as they washed up on the shores and as the whaling industry began to haul them alongside their ships.
A New Species of Butterly Has Survived Inbreeding for 40,000 Years

6 days ago | nautil.us | Elena Kazamia

When you first enter Waterton Lakes National Park, just north of the Canadian border from Montana, you may be forgiven for not immediately examining the prairie grass.
A Cicada Fossil Surprise

1 week ago | nautil.us | Molly Glick

Scientists recently uncovered a 47-million-year-old fossil of a cicada in a rock formation in Germany. The find could help us chart the evolutionary history of this charismatic and troublesome insect. Cicadas represent one of the most diverse families of insects in the world, with more than 3,000 documented species, but the fossil record they have left behind is surprisingly sparse. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now .
The Woman Who Saw Birds as Individuals

1 week ago | nautil.us | Eva Meijer

In 1938, Gwendolen Howard purchased a plot of land at the edge of Ditchling, a town near Brighton, England. Howard played the viola in a London orchestra, but, now in her mid-40s, had grown tired of city life. She also wanted to study birds. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . When she moved into Bird Cottage, as Howard named the house she built in Ditchling, she didn’t yet know birds very well.
Author Thomas Levenson on Writing His New Book SO VERY SMALL, about Germs and Vaccines.

1 week ago | nautil.us | Thomas Levenson

Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Before germ theory, disease seemed unknowable—a punishment, a mystery, a fate. After it, we could fight back. But the leap from the first glimpse of a microbe to the realization that these tiny beings could kill us took two hundred years. We often tell the story of germ theory as a straightforward triumph: microscopes, microbes, medicine. But discovery isn’t the same as acceptance.
Halley’s Comet’s Debris and the Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower

1 week ago | nautil.us | Katherine Harmon Courage

Fragments of the storied Halley’s Comet are zinging into Earth’s atmosphere this week in the annual Eta Aquarids meteor shower, which will peak in the early dark of Tuesday morning. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . The famous comet is still alive and well, of course. But over time, these icy, rocky bodies do break down, shedding bits and pieces of themselves.
Ghost Forests Are Growing

1 week ago | nautil.us | Jude Coleman

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Like giant bones planted in the earth, clusters of tree trunks, stripped clean of bark, are appearing along the Chesapeake Bay on the United States’ mid-Atlantic coast. They are ghost forests: the haunting remains of what were once stands of cedar and pine. Since the late 19th century, an ever-widening swath of these trees has died along the shore.