What's up in
Biology
Latest Articles
Why South Asia’s COVID-19 Numbers Are So Low (For Now)
Many theories have been offered for why the official COVID-19 toll on the Indian subcontinent has been surprisingly low. The best explanation may be the shortage of good, timely data.
Random Search Wired Into Animals May Help Them Hunt
The nervous systems of foraging and predatory animals may prompt them to move along a special kind of random path called a Lévy walk to find food efficiently when no clues are available.
Males Are the Taller Sex. Estrogen, Not Fights for Mates, May Be Why.
To explain why men are on average taller than women, scientists theorized about competition for mates. But the effects of estrogen on bone growth may be answer enough.
Why Sleep Deprivation Kills
Going without sleep for too long kills animals but scientists haven’t known why. Newly published work suggests that the answer lies in an unexpected part of the body.
A Digital Locksmith Has Decoded Biology’s Molecular Keys
Neural networks have been taught to quickly read the surfaces of proteins — molecules critical to many biological processes.
Spreading the Word on a Possible Alzheimer’s Treatment
Neuroscientists could use brain waves to spur immune cells into action against the disease — but the process is almost too fantastic to believe.
Out-of-Sync ‘Loners’ May Secretly Protect Orderly Swarms
Studies of collective behavior usually focus on how crowds of organisms coordinate their actions. But what if the individuals that don’t participate have just as much to tell us?
Egg Laying or Live Birth: How Evolution Chooses
A lizard that both lays eggs and gives birth to live young is helping scientists understand how and why these forms of reproduction evolved.
Inside Deep Undersea Rocks, Life Thrives Without the Sun
Newly discovered worlds of microbes far beneath the ocean floor, inside old basaltic rocks, could point to a greater likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe.