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Emily Singer

Former Senior Writer

Q&A

In Warm, Greasy Puddles, the Spark of Life?

By Emily Singer
March 17, 2016
Read Later

The biologist David Deamer proposes that life evolved from a collection of interacting molecules, probably in a pool in the shadow of a volcano.

origins of life

How to Build Life in a Pre-Darwinian World

By Emily Singer
February 16, 2016
Read Later

Perhaps chemistry played a more instrumental role in the origin of life than scientists thought.

neuroscience

New Clues to How the Brain Maps Time

By Emily Singer
January 26, 2016
Read Later

The same brain cells that track location in space appear to also count beats in time. The research suggests that our thoughts may take place on a mental space-time canvas.

Biology

How Strange Twists in DNA Orchestrate Life

By Emily Singer
January 5, 2016
Read Later

Coils and twirls in DNA’s double-helix change how the molecule behaves, opening a new role for topology in the study of life.

Biology

The Incredible Shrinking Sex Chromosome

By Emily Singer
December 1, 2015
Read Later

Nature offers species a panoply of ways to determine an organism’s sex. That flexibility suggests we need not be concerned about losing sex chromosomes, but it raises the question of why such a fundamental property is so variable.

Life’s Big Leaps: Critical Moments in Evolution

Life’s Secrets Sought in a Snowflake

By Emily Singer
November 3, 2015
Read Later

A single genetic change and some clever geometry show how single-celled organisms can band together to form cooperative multicellular entities.

Life’s Big Leaps: Critical Moments in Evolution

Mongrel Microbe Tests Story of Complex Life

By Emily Singer
October 29, 2015
Read Later

A newly discovered class of microbe could help to resolve one of the biggest and most controversial mysteries in evolution — how simple microbes transformed into the complex cells that produced animals, plants and fungi.

Q&A

An Explorer of Life’s Deepest Partnerships

By Emily Singer
September 17, 2015
Read Later

The biologist Nancy Moran has spent a career investigating the surprising nature of symbiosis, a phenomenon in which two species can appear to merge into one.

Biology

A Surprise Source of Life’s Code

By Emily Singer
August 18, 2015
Read Later

Emerging data suggests the seemingly impossible — that mysterious new genes arise from “junk” DNA.


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