Latest Articles
She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain
Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and neurochemistry in one of the country's epicenters of substance use disorder and addiction.
In the Gut’s ‘Second Brain,’ Key Agents of Health Emerge
Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand.
Why the Human Brain Perceives Small Numbers Better
The discovery that the brain has different systems for representing small and large numbers provokes new questions about memory, attention and mathematics.
Fossilized Molecules Reveal a Lost World of Ancient Life
A new analysis of ancient sediments fills a gap in the fossil record — revealing a massive dynasty of ancient eukaryotes, which may have reigned for 800 million years and shaped the history of life of Earth.
Nobel Prize Honors Inventors of ‘Quantum Dot’ Nanoparticles
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three researchers who harnessed the quantum behaviors of semiconductor nanocrystals.
Nobel Prize Awarded to mRNA Vaccine Scientists
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to mRNA vaccines, such as those that protect against Covid-19.
Magnetism May Have Given Life Its Molecular Asymmetry
The preferred “handedness” of biomolecules could have emerged from biased interactions between electrons and magnetic surfaces, new research suggests.
Even Synthetic Life Forms With a Tiny Genome Can Evolve
By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome can be too simple to evolve.
Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis
The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t persist in adults.