Editor’s Note: Journalist and crew member Kathryn Eident is traveling on board the RV Atlantis on a monthlong voyage to explore undersea volcanism in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, among other research projects. This is the third blog post detailing this voyage of discovery for ScientificAmerican.com For geologist Tracy Gregg, exploring submarine volcanoes is a [...]

What do the Sumatran tiger, Philippine tarsier, and Galapagos land iguana have in common? They are all endangered or critically endangered species; they have all appeared on the covers of O’Reilly Media’s iconic software manuals; and they are all featured in the publisher’s new O’Reilly Animals campaign, which aims to mobilize the technology community to [...]

He was the last of his kind and now he is gone. Lonesome George, the world-famous Pinta Island tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni) has died in the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. George, estimated to be at least 100 years old, was the last known member of his subspecies, and his solitary existence for [...]

The Galápagos National Park Service has launched a project to protect the famous archipelago’s endangered species by wiping out introduced, invasive rats. As has been done in other locations, such as Australia’s Christmas Island, the Galápagos rats will be targeted with poison bait dropped from helicopters, starting on nine of the chain’s small and medium-sized [...]

175 years and a few months ago a landing party rowed into this little bay. Their ship, a small, storm-weathered British sloop was anchored in the distance. As they approached the shore, a lanky, suntanned, salt-encrusted 26-year-old stepped out with a splash and clambered up onto a jumble of broken basalt. Charles Darwin had arrived [...]