The whole subject rests on a single exchange: turn something slower and you turn it harder, in precise proportion. Nothing is gained and nothing is free. Here are fourteen consequences.…
There is a useful way of framing biological questions that makes familiar things strange, and sleep is the clearest case.
The framing is to ask what a trait costs, and…
There is a category of biological material that outperforms engineered equivalents, and the interesting question is usually not the material but the manufacturing.
Silk is the clearest example. The properties…
There is a class of everyday object where the design solves a problem so completely that the problem becomes invisible, and the pencil is a good example.
The problem is…
There is a satisfying category of question where something entirely familiar turns out to be unexplained, and purring belongs in it.
The sound is known to essentially everybody. It is…
There is a category of behaviour that everybody recognises immediately and nobody can define precisely, which is usually a sign that something interesting is going on.
Play is obvious when…