Cells

Molecular detective work is zeroing in on the origins of sexual reproduction. The protein tools for cell mergers seem to have long predated sex — so what were they doing?

A mathematical model shows how a thermodynamic mechanism could have made protocells split in two.

The computational biologist Anne Carpenter creates software that brings the power of machine learning to researchers seeking answers in mountains of cell images.

The evolution of a defensive gland in beetles shows how organs can arise from novel cells carving out new functional niches for their neighbors.

Mitochondria appear to communicate and cooperate with one another, both within and between cells. Biologists are only just beginning to understand how and why.

Embryonic cells can self-assemble into new living forms that don’t resemble the bodies they usually generate, challenging old ideas of what defines an organism.

In grafted plants, shrunken chloroplasts can jump between species by slipping through unexpected gateways in cell walls.

An unorthodox symbiotic theory about the origin of eukaryotes’ defining characteristic may soon be put to the test.

New research links serotonin and dopamine not just to addiction and depression, but to the ability to control genes.