Biology

Emerging data suggests the seemingly impossible — that mysterious new genes arise from “junk” DNA.

Did the minerals on our planet arise in a predictable fashion, or did they result from chance events? The answers could eventually help scientists identify planets likely to harbor life.

A new technique for finding and characterizing microbes has boosted the number of known bacteria by almost 50 percent, revealing a hidden world all around us.

Scientists hope that new genetic letters, created in the lab, will endow DNA with new powers.

The biologist Deborah Gordon has uncovered how ant colonies search efficiently without central organization, an insight that might improve computer networks.

By swapping ancient genes into modern E. coli, scientists hope to tease out the rules of evolution.

The soil teems with billions of hidden microbes. Researchers have begun to catalog how these organisms are changing the world.

Modern birds emerged in a snap of evolutionary time through a series of simple genetic changes.

In the few decades since viruses were first found in the oceans, scientists have only been able to identify a handful of species. A new survey has uncovered nearly all the rest.