Protein Math Reveals the Secrets of Cells’ Feedback CircuitryQuanta Magazine - XiaoZhi Lim Maintaining perfect stability through negative feedback is a basic element of electrical circuitry, but it’s been a mystery how cells could do it — …
Science Origin-of-Life Study Points to Chemical Chimeras, Not RNA | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Origin-of-life researchers have usually studied the potential of pure starting materials, but messy chemical composites may kick-start life more …
Biological Species New Hybrid Species Remix Old Genes Creatively | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert Clues from fish diversity suggest that interbreeding between species could be a major mechanism of fast speciation.
Bacteria Bacterial Clones Show Surprising IndividualityQuanta Magazine - Carrie Arnold Genetically identical bacteria should all be the same, but in fact, the cells are stubbornly varied individuals. That heterogeneity may be an …
Fungi Soil’s Microbial Market Shows the Ruthless Side of ForestsQuanta Magazine - Gabriel Popkin In the “underground economy” for soil nutrients, fungi strike hard bargains and punish plants that won’t meet their price. Beneath the green vegetable …
The Brain A Mathematical Model Unlocks the Secrets of VisionQuanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett Mathematicians and neuroscientists have created the first anatomically accurate model that explains how vision is possible. This is the great mystery …
Science Can New Species Evolve From Cancers? Maybe. Here’s How.Quanta Magazine - Christie Wilcox Researchers agree it’s a long shot, but transmissible cancers could theoretically evolve into independent species. Certain weird parasites might be …
For Embryo’s Cells, Size Can Determine FateQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz New research suggests that many embryonic cells commit to a developmental fate when they become too small to divide unevenly anymore. The developing …
Scientists Debate the Origin of Cell Types in the First AnimalsQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Theories about how animals became multicellular are shifting as researchers find greater complexity in our single-celled ancestors. Subsequent …
Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz By studying a swarm of flying midges as though it were a fluid, physicists have learned how collective behaviors might stabilize a group against …
Cellular Life, Death and Everything in BetweenQuanta Magazine - Elizabeth Svoboda The discovery that apparently dead cells can sometimes resurrect themselves has researchers exploring how far they can push the point of no …
What’s in a Name? Taxonomy Problems Vex BiologistsQuanta Magazine - Christie Wilcox Researchers struggle to incorporate ongoing evolutionary discoveries into an animal classification scheme older than Darwin.
Bacteria Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’Quanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for insights into how complex cells evolved. Among the best …
The Brain Do Brains Operate at a Tipping Point? New Clues and ComplicationsQuanta Magazine - Charlie Wood New experimental results simultaneously advance and challenge the theory that the brain’s network of neurons balances on the knife-edge between two …
Protein Immune Cells Measure Time to Identify Foreign ProteinsQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Immunologists confirm an old hunch: T-cells identify what belongs in the body by timing how long they can bind to it. To mount a successful defense …
Viruses The Body’s Clock Offers a Rhythmic Target to VirusesQuanta Magazine - Veronique Greenwood Viruses and other parasites may sync with their host’s biological clock — or reset it — to gain an advantage. For at least 3,000 years, humans have …
DNA Ancient DNA Yields Snapshots of Vanished EcosystemsQuanta Magazine - Monique Brouillette Surviving fragments of genetic material preserved in sediments allow metagenomics researchers to see the full diversity of past life — even …
Genes Viruses Can Scatter Their Genes Among Cells and ReassembleQuanta Magazine - Viviane Callier Some viruses can replicate without passing all their genes into any one cell. For a virus, a compact genome neatly packaged in a coat of proteins, …
Scientists Discover Nearly 200,000 Kinds of Ocean VirusesQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert New work raises the estimated diversity of viruses in the seas more than twelvefold and lays the groundwork for a better understanding of their …
New Turmoil Over Predicting the Effects of GenesQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Promising efforts at disentangling the effects of genes and the environment on complicated traits may have been confounded by statistical …
Oxygen Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - John Rennie The rainbow of pigments that animals use for blood illustrates a central truth about evolution. In February, a genomics study appearing in Nature …
Logic Puzzle: The Joy of Recursion | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Pradeep Mutalik Solve a linguistic whodunit about a college mascot by thinking like a self-referencing computer subroutine. Recursion is one of the most fascinating, …
Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old FireQuanta Magazine - Carrie Arnold In harsh ecosystems around the world, microbiologists are finding evidence that “microbial seed banks” protect biodiversity from changing …
Viruses Have a Secret, Altruistic Social LifeQuanta Magazine - Viviane Callier Researchers are beginning to understand the ways in which viruses strategically manipulate and cooperate with one another. Social organisms come in …
Researchers Rethink the Ancestry of Complex CellsQuanta Magazine - Christie Wilcox New studies revise ideas about the symbiosis that gave mitochondria to cells and about whether the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes was one …
Goals and Rewards Redraw the Brain’s Map of the WorldQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Two new studies show that the brain’s navigation system changes how it represents physical space to reflect personal experience. The iconic cover …
How the Brain Links Gestures, Perception and MeaningQuanta Magazine - Raleigh McElvery Neuroscience has found that gestures are not merely important as tools of expression but as guides of cognition and perception. Remember the last time …
Biologists Discover Unknown Powers in Mighty MitochondriaQuanta Magazine - Diana Kwon Mitochondria are most famous as sources of metabolic energy. But by splitting and combining, they can also release chemical signals to regulate cell …
The Math That Tells Cells What They Are | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz During development, cells seem to decode their fate through optimal information processing, which could hint at a more general principle of life. In …
