Gene Expression 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 …
Science 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 …
Chromosomes 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 …
Jellyfish 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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 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 …
Genes 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 …
Neurophilosophy 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 …
Monkeys 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 …
Stem Cells 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 …
Doudna’s Confidence in CRISPR’s Research Potential Burns BrightQuanta Magazine - Vanessa Schipani Jennifer Doudna, one of CRISPR’s primary innovators, stays optimistic about how the gene-editing tool will continue to empower basic biological …
Smarter Parts Make Collective Systems Too StubbornQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz As researchers delve deeper into the behavior of decentralized collective systems, they’re beginning to question some of their initial …
New Squid Genome Shines Light on Symbiotic EvolutionQuanta Magazine - Laura Poppick Researchers hope that the genes of a glowing squid can illuminate how animals evolved organs for beneficial bacteria.
Artificial Intelligence Finds Ancient ‘Ghosts’ in Modern DNA | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz With the help of deep learning techniques, paleoanthropologists find evidence of long-lost branches on the human family tree. Could deep learning help …
Fragile DNA Enables New Adaptations to Evolve Quickly | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Viviane Callier If highly repetitive gene-regulating sequences in DNA are easily lost, then that may explain why some adaptations evolve quickly and …
Jellyfish Jellyfish Genome Hints That Complexity Isn’t Genetically Complex | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert Jellyfish didn’t need novel genes to take an evolutionary leap in complexity. An overarching theme in the story of evolution, at least over the past …
Alan Turing Ancient Turing Pattern Builds Feathers, Hair — and Now, Shark Skin | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert A primordial developmental toolkit shared by all vertebrates, and described by a theory of the mathematician Alan Turing, sets the growth pattern for …
Biology Quanta’s Year in Biology (2018) | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - John Rennie Biologists gained new insights into life’s genomically tumultuous past, viruses as crucial components of life, the hidden talents of complex cells …
