Barbara J King

Alex Honnold doesn't like to watch his friends "free solo" on big rock formations like El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

"Free solo" means that the climber uses only his or her body to climb: There are no ropes, no partner, no bolts drilled into rock for stability and support. ...

Animal rescues go on urgently every day around the world.

This autumn, rescuers have worked frantically to save wild orangutans caught up in terrible fires in Borneo and Sumatra. Most of these fires were set deliberately in order to clear land for the very same industry — the palm-oil ...

In the area of 1 in 2,000 people are born intersex. These individuals may have mixed genitalia, meaning some combination of ovaries and testes. This comes about either because ovarian and testicular tissue grow together in the same organ or because a "male side" and a "female side" develop in ...

For people in the 43 million U.S. households with domestic cats, there's good news: Your cat doesn't really want to kill you.

Recent media headlines like "Your cat may want to kill you, study finds" and "Bad news, your cat probably wants to kill you" suggest that ...

In just four weeks, on Dec. 2, I'll teach my last-ever college class.

When I depart my classroom in the College of William and Mary's anthropology department around 3:20 that afternoon, it will surely feel surreal. After 27 years, I'm retiring from teaching to take up full-time science writing.

On ...

All life on earth is related. The way children wiggle, breathe, cuddle and grab objects can help them to realize their ancient link with fish, reptiles, mammals and apes.

This is the message of Grandmother Fish, a new book for 3- to 7-year-olds written by Jonathan Tweet and illustrated ...

In The New York Times last Sunday, University of Toronto political scientist Courtney Jung argued that the "righteous zeal" and "moral fervor" that surrounds urging of new mothers to breast-feed their babies in this country is harmful, especially because the touted benefits of breast-feeding are more modest than ...

On Thursday, the Odense Zoo in Denmark is scheduled to dissect a lion for the educational benefit of children on school holidays.

The 9-month-old female lion was considered "surplus." Officials at Odense said they had too many female lions. They also were concerned about inbreeding, according to reports. The ...

"We are biocultural ex-apes trying to understand ourselves," declares biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks in his new book, Tales of the Ex-Apes:How We Think About Human Evolution.

That term — ex-apes — get emphasized in the book a lot by Marks, as does "human exceptionalism." Marks really doesn't want ...

A six-year-old crested black macaque monkey named Naruto, who lives in the Tangkoko Nature Reserve on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, is at the center of a provocative lawsuit filed on Monday by the animal rights organization PETA.

Naruto's face is known the world over because, in 2011, he ...

In the arena of ocean ecology and conservation, Carl Safina is a superstar. Through television documentaries, his writings and the Safina Center, he's been a vital force for years in educating the public about ocean pollution, overfishing and conservation.

When I found out that Safina ...

In The New York Times travel section Sunday, Stephanie Rosenbloom described a hot day this summer when she sat in the Roman amphitheater in Arles, France.

As she imagined scenes Van Gogh may have observed there during the 19th century, she says, a soft whirring sound broke into her ...

There's a lot of debate about how to define a mass shooting.

According to a recent NPR report, mass killings happen every two weeks in the U.S. — as defined by the FBI.

Some say the if the shooter dies, this person should be included in the number of ...

An 11-question quiz that tests science literacy — some would say very basic science literacy — is on my mind this week.

The quiz, developed by Jon Miller, now director of the International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy at the University of Michigan, has been around a ...

In U.S. counties with warm winters, temperate summers and beautiful natural resources — like beaches, lakes, hills or mountains — people's rates of affiliation with religious organizations are lower than in other places, according to a new study.

The study's authors, Todd W. Ferguson and Jeffrey A. ...

A few months ago, a 10-year-old gray-and-white cat called Bootsie was taken, together with his mother and brother, to an animal shelter in Virginia. The caretakers of the cats said they were just too old to care for animals anymore.

Bootsie's mother and brother were sent away to another animal ...

The idea that our oceans teem with cultural animals — and have for millions of years — is the central conclusion of a new book by two whale scientists. And it's a convincing one.

Whales and dolphins, as they forage for food and interact with each other in their social ...

This week, Switzerland's Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the Indian sprinter Dutee Chand may race as a woman in international competition.

This decision is significant because, just last year, Chand was denied by track and field's governing body (the International Association of Athletics Federations or IAAF) the right ...

Cecil the lion's slaughter at the hands of trophy hunters in Zimbabwe has lit up the Internet and social media with protest and outrage in recent days.

Earlier this month, an American dentist from Minnesota named Walter Palmer paid hunting fees to organizers in Zimbabwe; either these local men, ...

The methodology described in a recent study, a peer-reviewed paper on animal behavior — in which biologists Tina Peckmezian and Phillip W. Taylor of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, worked with 56 female jumping spiders — is fascinating.

Here's what the biologists did:

First, the spiders were ...