Looking for LUCA, everyone’s shared ancestor
Scientists are making headway in learning about our great-grand-germ Grandma, is that you? Scientists who have tried to understand early…
Category: biology
No one’s sure if synthetic mirror life will kill us all
For four days in February 2019, some 30 synthetic biologists and ethicists hunkered down at a conference center in Northern…
Life Among the Dead
Decomposing animals host diverse ecosystems that reveal the inner workings of microbial life. A threadlike rain has started falling sideways.…
Scientists Grow First Plants in Lunar Soil
Last May, scientists reported that they’d successfully grown plants in moon soil for the first time. At the University of…
Some ecologists value parasites — and now want a plan to save them
Chelsea Wood always wanted to be a marine biologist. As a child growing up on New York’s Long Island, she…
Researchers turn to deep learning to decode protein structures
Twenty-eight years ago, computational biologists led by John Moult then at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, launched an ambitious, large-scale…
Genes point to how some bacteria can gobble up electricity
Bacteria can have superpowers. Some flourish in almost any environment. Others can transform toxic materials into harmless sludge. A bacterium…
Bringing Out the Dead
One bright morning in November 2018, state biologists in Louisiana loaded three dead and toothy alligators, each more than 5…
The Golden Riffleshell’s Appalachian Roadtrip
The emergency surgery took place in the back of a modified pickup truck in a McDonald’s parking lot in Pikeville,…
What’s the best way to build a molecular machine?
Some of the smallest, most useful machines known to science are the biological molecules that keep living things living. The…