What's up in
Mathematical insights into how RNA helps viruses pull together their protein shells could guide future studies of viral behavior and function.
Sex might help natural selection purge excessive mistakes from our genes.
The evolutionary biologist Jessica Flack seeks the computational rules that groups of organisms use to solve problems.
If gut bacteria can sway their hosts to be selfless, it could answer a riddle that goes back to Darwin.
An unexpected mechanism allows wasps to rapidly co-opt genes for new toxic functions.
A definitive explanation for why plants evolved spines remains elusive, and human biases compound the problem.
The computational immunologist Purvesh Khatri embraces messy data as a way to capture the messiness of disease. As a result, he’s making elusive genomic discoveries.
New math shows how, contrary to conventional scientific wisdom, conscious beings and other macroscopic entities might have greater influence over the future than do the sum of their microscopic components.
Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head.