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Stem Cells Remember Tissues’ Past Injuries
Stem cells seem to retain memories of old injuries to improve future healing. When that system goes wrong, chronic inflammation can result.
Solution: ‘How Equality and Inequality Shape Birds and Bees’
Puzzle solvers explored how evolution may have used negative and positive control mechanisms to shape the conflicting parental functions of reproduction and child rearing.
Theorists Debate How ‘Neutral’ Evolution Really Is
For 50 years, evolutionary theory has emphasized the importance of neutral mutations rather than adaptive ones at the level of DNA. Real genomic data challenges that assumption.
New Proof Shows Infinite Curves Come in Two Types
Alexander Smith’s work on the Goldfeld conjecture reveals fundamental characteristics of elliptic curves.
In the Nucleus, Genes’ Activity Might Depend on Their Location
Using a new CRISPR-based technique, researchers are examining how the position of DNA within the nucleus affects gene expression and cell function.
Mystery Math Whiz and Novelist Advance Permutation Problem
A new proof from the Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan and a 2011 proof anonymously posted online are now being hailed as significant advances on a puzzle mathematicians have been studying for at least 25 years.
Ewine van Dishoeck, the Netherlander Who Traced Water’s Origin
The astrochemist and winner of the 2018 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics has wondered about the cosmic origin of water while enjoying Noordwijk beach near her hometown of Leiden.
Without a Proof, Mathematicians Wonder How Much Evidence Is Enough
A new statistical model appears to undermine long-held assumptions in number theory. How much should it be trusted when all that really matters is proof?
Astronomers Creep Up to the Edge of the Milky Way’s Black Hole
Hot spots have been discovered orbiting just outside the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center. Their motions have given us the closest look at that violent environment.