Abstractions blog

Jellyfish didn’t need novel genes to take an evolutionary leap in complexity.

A primordial developmental toolkit shared by all vertebrates, and described by a theory of the mathematician Alan Turing, sets the growth pattern for all types of skin structures.

Digital security depends on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. A new proof shows why one method for breaking digital encryption won’t work.

Neither animal, plant, fungus nor familiar protozoan, a strange microbe that sits in its own “supra-kingdom” of life foretells incredible biodiversity yet to be discovered by new sequencing technologies.

The renowned physicist Leonard Susskind has identified a possible quantum origin for the ever-growing volume of black holes.

As it becomes clear that the body’s cells have more diverse regenerative capabilities than expected, experts have had to reconsider their approach to stem cell research.

Alexander Smith’s work on the Goldfeld conjecture reveals fundamental characteristics of elliptic curves.

Evidence for life in 3.7-billion-year-old rocks appears to be crumbling away.

By using the power of evolution to solve practical problems, three researchers opened new avenues to chemical discovery.