Biology

Tiny genetic sequences in a mother’s bacteria seem to hop into the infant's bacteria, perhaps ensuring a healthy microbiome later in life.

Nikta Fakhri is adapting and extending concepts from physics to describe how tiny biological components give rise to living organisms.

Queen ants live far longer than genetically identical workers. Researchers are learning what their longevity secrets could mean for aging in other species.

A new radiation-based mechanism adds to the ways that amino acids could have been made in space and brought to the young Earth.

Momentum for new ideas in Alzheimer’s research joined advances in neuroscience, developmental biology and origin-of-life studies to make 2022 a memorable year of biological insights.

The ecologist Holly Moeller studies microorganisms that expand their range by absorbing organelles and gaining new metabolic talents from their prey.

The neural representations of a perceived image and the memory of it are almost the same. New work shows how and why they are different.

After decades in the shadow of the reigning model for Alzheimer’s disease, alternative explanations are finally getting the attention they deserve.

Researchers discover that to sharpen its control over precision maneuvers, the brain uses comparisons between control signals — not the signals themselves.