What's up in
Biology
Latest Articles
CRISPR Gene-Editing Pioneers Win Kavli Prize for Nanoscience
The inventors of a “Swiss army knife” for genome editing received prestigious honors, as did pioneering scientists in astrophysics and neuroscience.
Cores From Coral Reefs Hold Secrets of the Seas’ Past and Future
Layered deposits of coral skeletons hold vast stores of environmental data from thousands of years ago, including annual records of ocean temperatures, water pollution and storm activity.
How Brain Waves Surf Sound Waves to Process Speech
By paying more attention to behaviors, and not just the activity of neurons, two researchers critical of most neuroscience learned how brains make sense of spoken language.
Vaccines Are Pushing Pathogens to Evolve
Just as antibiotics have bred resistance in bacteria, vaccines can potentially lose their effectiveness over diseases they controlled. Researchers are working to head off the evolution of new threats.
Artificial Neural Nets Grow Brainlike Navigation Cells
Faced with a navigational challenge, neural networks spontaneously evolved units resembling the grid cells that help living animals find their way.
A Thermodynamic Answer to Why Birds Migrate
New modeling studies suggest that birds migrate to strike a favorable balance between their input and output of energy.
Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses
Disease-causing viruses and message-carrying vesicles sit at the ends of a spectrum of membranous particles that cells release.
Cell by Cell, Scientists Map the Genetic Steps as Eggs Become Animals
For the first time, researchers have traced the genetic programs that guide the development of each cell in early embryos. Surprisingly, even cells that start out different can end up the same.
Chronological Clues to Life’s Early History Lurk in Gene Transfers
To date the branches on the evolutionary tree of life, researchers are looking at horizontal gene transfers among ancient microorganisms, which once seemed only to muddle the record.