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Cells Across the Tree of Life Exchange ‘Text Messages’ Using RNA
Long known as a messenger within cells, RNA is increasingly seen as life’s molecular communication system — even between organisms widely separated by evolution. For a molecule of RNA, the...
The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View
...co-organized the meeting, said the community is scrambling to absorb both JWST’s data and its implications. Observers see things that are not explained in current theories about the evolution of...
The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA
...to understand biological sequence,” said the computer scientist Brian Hie, who heads the Laboratory of Evolutionary Design at Stanford University, based at the nonprofit Arc Institute. This was the impetus...
The Road Map to Alien Life Passes Through the ‘Cosmic Shoreline’
...an Atmosphere Stripped of its fanciful name, the cosmic shoreline might not seem like a particularly interesting boundary. But planets are enormously complicated, long-lived objects. Simple questions about their evolution...
A New Proof Smooths Out the Math of Melting
...to mean curvature flow. Should a singularity appear, the flow can go on — making it possible for mathematicians to assess the surface’s evolution. Over the past few decades, mathematicians...
Will AI Ever Understand Language Like Humans?
...evolution of cooperation, from a biological perspective. I’m not even sure that values are outside of science. I guess I’m espousing what the critics call scientism. LEVIN: Mmmm… uh-oh… STROGATZ:...
Introducing The Quanta Podcast
...now. We do a lot of stories, as you said about molecular biology, about evolution. What are the rules through which evolution through natural selection works? So, we kind of...
The Thoughts of a Spiderweb
...and Kevin Laland, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Saint Andrews, proposed a bold answer to the question. They argued in a review paper, published in the journal Animal...
With ‘Downsized’ DNA, Flowering Plants Took Over the World
Compact genomes and tiny cells gave flowering plants an edge over competing flora. This discovery hints at a broader evolutionary principle. When people consider evolutionary events related to the origin...