Determining who and what is or is not sentient is one of the defining questions of almost any moral code.

The lying that we humans do requires a more sophisticated kind of cognition than a bird, flower, or fungus can muster.

A decade ago, the world’s heaviest pumpkin weighed 2,000 pounds. Now the 3,000-pound mark is within sight.

Within hours of hatching, these baby birds can learn concepts like “same” or “different”—and they do so faster than human infants.

Our microbiomes winnowed when we swapped hunting and gathering for cities—and a few months in a zoo will do the same to a monkey.