You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <pages>
      <page pageid="27741" ns="0" title="The Origin of Life: Recreating it in the Lab (Biotechnology and Society 2016)" touched="2016-11-28T14:45:16Z" lastrevid="97713" counter="955" length="73" redirect="" new="" />
      <page pageid="27659" ns="0" title="What is Synthetic Biology? (Microbes as Machines)" touched="2015-01-26T15:58:42Z" lastrevid="97274" counter="4301" length="496" />
      <page pageid="27734" ns="0" title="Wolbachia versus Gene Drives for Mosquito Control (Biotechnology and Society 2016)" touched="2016-11-07T16:41:27Z" lastrevid="97679" counter="12642" length="4453" />
    </pages>
  </query>
</api>