Biology

The computational biologist John Novembre uses our genetic code to rewrite the history of humanity.

Examine evolution over the course of years or centuries, and you’ll find that it progresses much more quickly than it does over geologic time.

The ancient creatures who first crawled onto land may have been lured by the informational benefit that comes from seeing through air.

The circadian clock is in nearly every cell, and researchers have untangled many of its secrets. But sleep has been harder to pin down.

Powerful new experiments have uncovered some of the molecular underpinnings of sleep.

Scientists are uncovering how our bodies — and everything within them — tell right from left.

Life was long thought to obey its own set of rules. But as simple systems show signs of lifelike behavior, scientists are arguing about whether this apparent complexity is all a consequence of thermodynamics.

Without viruses, we might never have evolved.

Life might have originated in droplets that behave surprisingly like living cells.