Biology

An MIT physicist has proposed the provocative idea that life exists because the law of increasing entropy drives matter to acquire lifelike physical properties.

Some organisms respond to stress by driving up their mutation rate. Are they evolving specific mechanisms to enhance evolution in times of crisis?

Mysterious episodes of genetic duplication in our great ape ancestors may have paved the way for human evolution.

Striking evidence that plants warn each other of environmental dangers is reviving a once ridiculed field.

A rare brain stimulation study suggests that a brain circuit known as the “salience network” contributes to differences in our ability to overcome challenges and cope with stress.

Analyzing individual cancer cells could reveal the answer to some of the disease’s most enduring mysteries.

Circulating RNAs carry messages for plants and invertebrates. Do they do the same for us?

Neuroscientists have identified a network of highly linked brain regions that could prove essential in integrating information and facilitating higher-order cognitive tasks.

New technologies have launched the life sciences into the age of big data. Biologists must now make sense of their windfall.