Molecular biology

By genetically instructing cells to perform tasks that they wouldn’t in nature, synthetic biologists can learn deep secrets about how life works. Steven Strogatz discusses the potential of this young field with researcher Michael Elowitz.

Everybody gets older, but not everyone ages in the same way. In this episode, Steven Strogatz speaks with Judith Campisi and Dena Dubal, two biomedical researchers who study the aging process.

Structural studies of the robust material called sporopollenin reveal how it made plants hardy enough to reproduce on dry land.

When researchers gave a genetic molecule the ability to replicate, it evolved over time into a complex network of “hosts” and “parasites” that both competed and cooperated to survive.

Traits from RNA molecules passed between multiple generations of worms can work with genetic changes to influence future evolution.

Life could use a more expansive genetic code in theory, but new work shows that improving on three-letter codons would be a challenge.

Steven Strogatz explores the mysteries of knots with the mathematicians Colin Adams and Lisa Piccirillo.

Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be.

The detailed understanding of brains and multicellular bodies reached new heights this year, while the genomes of the COVID-19 virus and various organisms yielded more surprises.