Biology

Evidence from Southwestern deserts suggests that oxygen-breathing organisms arose on land rather than in the seas.

Knowing the rules behind ant-made structures could help scientists understand how other complex systems emerge in nature.

Support is growing for a decades-old physics idea suggesting that localized episodes of disordered brain activity help keep the overall system in healthy balance.

A large new study of ovenbird lineages questions the extent to which competing species push each other to evolve.

Scientists have finally resolved the structure of the molecule that responds to chili peppers, high temperatures and spider toxins.

Scientists have discovered building blocks similar to those in modern RNA that can effortlessly assemble when mixed in water and heated.

An MIT physicist has proposed the provocative idea that life exists because the law of increasing entropy drives matter to acquire lifelike physical properties.

Some organisms respond to stress by driving up their mutation rate. Are they evolving specific mechanisms to enhance evolution in times of crisis?

Mysterious episodes of genetic duplication in our great ape ancestors may have paved the way for human evolution.