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How Spiders Spin ‘Silk Dope’ Into Nature’s Toughest Material
By probing its molecular structure, biologists are uncovering how a tangle of unstructured proteins turns into a strong, flexible fiber.
Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering
To invade red blood cells, the deadly protist creates a temporary molecular portal that disappears behind it — a door we can now see in fine detail.
See Inside Cells Like Never Before in These Vivid Microscopic Images
Winning entries in the 2026 Nikon Small World competitions reveal the hidden interactions that govern everyday life.
How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?
Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers explains how fungal networks in soil trade nutrients with plants, help keep carbon underground, and strike bargains without having a brain.
How Does Life Unfold? A Landscape Metaphor Comes Into Its Own.
C.H. Waddington’s powerful image of embryonic stem cells specializing on a rolling landscape has captivated biologists since the 1950s. Experimental data is finally confirming, and complicating, his visionary ideas.
Surprisingly Complex Waves Reveal the Brain’s Inner Workings
Unexpected patterns traveling across the human brain may be reorganizing its activity in real time.
How Virus-like ‘Jumping Genes’ Became Our Partners in Evolution
Half of our genome is made of transposons — snips of DNA that can move and copy themselves. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk.
Ctenophores Aren’t Just Beautiful. They’re Biological Wonders.
Comb jellies are helping answer fundamental questions in biology, from how the earliest nervous systems evolved to how bioluminescence works.
Why Do These Fossil Shells Flip Their Spirals Every Few Millennia?
The mystery of the flipping foraminifera may conceal a rarely observed evolutionary process playing out across the planet.