One of the craziest things epidemiologists do is called “gain of function” research. This is where scientists take deadly communicable diseases and poke them with enzymes (or something) to make these microscopic killers even more powerful. Then these hopefully not-mad scientists can learn more about the virus and maybe…

Charles Darwin rarely used the term “evolution,” even as he popularized the concept that species change over successive generations. Instead, Darwin preferred the phrase “descent with modification.” His groundbreaking idea was that organisms randomly mutate over generations, and that the mutations that helped the creature survive would be passed…