A gardener friend of ours used to object to calling a plant by its Latin name. She heard it as pretense and obfuscation. But after the sage incident, she conceded that there was some point to it.

God, the Bible tells us, gave Adam the job of naming the animals. But it was Carl Linnaeus who figured out a good way to do it. Linnaeus, also known as Carolus Linnaeus or Carol von Linne, was the ...

The age of Enlightenment provided the backdrop for eighteenth century European theories about human difference. Exploration of Africa, Asia and the Americas brought Europeans in contact with people ...

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The relevance of taxonomy in our genomic era is greater than ever. Correct naming is crucial for developing new foods and medicines, and for understanding our changing environment. Amazingly, we do ...

A new naming structure proposed by an American researcher moves beyond the Linnaeus system to one based on the genetic sequence of each individual organism. This creates a more robust, precise, and ...