Biology

The evolutionary biologist Jessica Flack seeks the computational rules that groups of organisms use to solve problems.

If gut bacteria can sway their hosts to be selfless, it could answer a riddle that goes back to Darwin.

An unexpected mechanism allows wasps to rapidly co-opt genes for new toxic functions.

The legendary marine biologist discusses why she’s excited about the coming era of ocean science, the shortsightedness of maritime exploitation and diving in the Arctic in her 80s.

The computational immunologist Purvesh Khatri embraces messy data as a way to capture the messiness of disease. As a result, he’s making elusive genomic discoveries.

How Darwinian natural selection can produce and sustain a Lamarckian “inheritance of acquired characteristics.”

New math shows how, contrary to conventional scientific wisdom, conscious beings and other macroscopic entities might have greater influence over the future than do the sum of their microscopic components.

To assess the ocean’s health, ecology’s “rugged individualists” learned to get with the big data program.

Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head.