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Life Helps Make Almost Half of All Minerals on Earth

July 1, 2022

A new origins-based system for classifying minerals reveals the huge geochemical imprint that life has left on Earth. It could help us identify other worlds with life too.

Protein Blobs Linked to Alzheimer’s Affect Aging in All Cells

June 28, 2022

Protein buildups like those seen around neurons in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other brain diseases occur in all aging cells, a new study suggests. Learning their significance may reveal new strategies for treating age-related diseases.

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An Immunologist Fights Covid with Tweets and a Nasal Spray

June 21, 2022

Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist who became a lifeline for the worried and the curious during the pandemic, thinks that nasal spray vaccines could be the next needed breakthrough in our fight against the coronavirus.

What Is Life?

June 15, 2022

Without a good definition of life, how do we look for it on alien planets? Steven Strogatz speaks with Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and astrobiologist, and Sheref Mansy, a chemist, to learn more.

The Brain Has a ‘Low-Power Mode’ That Blunts Our Senses

June 14, 2022

Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained details.

Reshuffled Rivers Bolster the Amazon’s Hyper-Biodiversity

June 7, 2022

The lush biodiversity of the Amazon may be due in part to the dynamics of branching rivers, which serve as invisible fences that continuously barricade and merge bird populations.

Brain-Signal Proteins Evolved Before Animals Did

June 3, 2022

Some animal neuropeptides have been around longer than nervous systems.

How Could Life Evolve From Cyanide?

June 1, 2022

How did life arise on Earth? Steven Strogatz speaks with the Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jack Szostak and Betül Kaçar, a paleogeneticist and astrobiologist, to explore our best understanding of how we all got here.

Life’s First Peptides May Have Grown on RNA Strands

May 24, 2022

RNA and peptides coevolving in the primordial world might have jointly served as a precursor to the modern ribosome.

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