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By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome can be too simple to evolve.

New observations of a faraway rocky world that might have its own magnetic field could help astronomers understand the seemingly haphazard magnetic fields swaddling our solar system’s planets.

Genetic elements called Mavericks that have some viral features could be responsible for the large-scale smuggling of DNA between species.

Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the cost of forgetting the path they took. A new result suggests that the trade-off may be inevitable.

In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain whole underground ecosystems.

To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is built into the brain’s blood vessels.

New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.”

Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

The most comprehensive survey of how we share our microbiomes suggests a new way of thinking about the risks of developing some diseases that aren’t usually considered contagious.