Archive

Transcription factors that act throughout the genome can arise from mashups of transposable elements inserted into established genes.

Originally devised as a rigorous means of counting holes, homology provides a scaffolding for mathematical ideas, allowing for a new way to analyze the shapes within data.

The secret to making a qubit for future quantum computers might depend on knowing how to tie knots in unusual materials, argues the physicist Charlie Marcus.

New work shows that histones, long treated as boring spools for DNA, sit at the center of the origin story of eukaryotes and continue to play important roles in evolution and disease.

Math teachers have stymied students for hundreds of years by sticking goats in strangely shaped fields. Learn why one grazing goat problem has stumped mathematicians for more than a century.

A new proposal would use quantum hard drives to combine the light of multiple telescopes, letting astronomers create incredibly high-resolution optical images.

An enigmatic connection between the forces of nature is allowing physicists to explore gravity’s quantum side.

To a dynamicist like Amie Wilkinson, understanding the universe is about knowing all the right moves.

Glycans, the complex sugars that stud cellular surfaces, are like a language that life uses to mediate vital interactions. Researchers are learning how to read their meaning.