Every living organism inherits a unique combination of traits, from eye colour and blood type to resistance against certain diseases. These characteristics are determined by genes, but genes ...

What it means: Abiotic means "without living organisms." Scientists typically use the term when referring to nonliving aspects of an ecosystem that affect organisms' growth or reproduction. Some ...

This is a part of Science Diction, a series digging into the scientific origin stories behind our words and language. Find all our stories and previous issues here. Words like these weren’t just ...

What it means: Abiogenesis is the emergence of life from nonliving matter through chemical processes. Scientists still don't know exactly how abiogenesis happened on Earth. Theories range from ...

In “Scientific Inquiry,” children’s poet Susan Blackaby introduces us in an entertaining and memorable way to remember key vocabulary words used by scientists and engineers. Here is Blackaby’s poem, ...