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A Mathematician Who Decodes the Patterns Stamped Out by Life
Corina Tarnita deciphers bizarre patterns in the soil created by competing life-forms.
The End of the RNA World Is Near, Biochemists Argue
For decades, an origin-of-life story starring RNA has prevailed. New research may be shaking that theory’s hold on our understanding of life’s beginnings.
Light-Triggered Genes Reveal the Hidden Workings of Memory
Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa’s lab is overturning old assumptions about how memories form, how recall works and whether lost memories might be restored from "silent engrams."
New Bird Species Arises From Hybrids, as Scientists Watch
The rapid, unorthodox emergence of a new finch in the Galápagos hints that speciation isn’t rare. New hybrid species may quietly appear and disappear without anyone noticing.
Solution: ‘Triumph or Cooperation in Game Theory and Evolution’
How well does the Nash equilibrium concept from game theory map to the real world?
What Bacteria Can Tell Us About Human Evolution
To discover our species’ deep history and to shape its future health, we should learn from the microbes that accompanied us on our evolutionary journey.
How Bacteria Help Regulate Blood Pressure
Kidneys sniff out signals from gut bacteria for cues to lower blood pressure after meals. Our understanding of how the symbiotic microbes affect health is becoming much more molecular.
The Overlooked Link Between Two of This Year’s Nobel Prizes
To better understand the molecules described by the latest prize in medicine, we will need the technique recognized by the latest prize in chemistry.
Bacteria Sacrifice DNA Repair for Better RNA
Preserving its DNA ought to be a cell’s top priority. But bacteria slow their DNA repair to a crawl in favor of proofreading gene transcripts.