Elephants are extraordinary communicators and community builders. They send rumbles so deep we can’t hear them, yet those calls can travel for miles through the air and even the ground, guiding a herd’s movements across the landscape. Families are led by wise matriarchs, while young males eventually strike out on their own or join roaming bachelor groups. Elephants comfort each other with trunks, greet with playful ear flaps, and even mourn their dead by keeping vigil. Their biology is just as remarkable: elephants carry many copies of a gene called p53 that protects them from cancer, and scientists are studying it for clues that may one day help us too.