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The Unforgiving Math That Stops Epidemics
If you didn’t get a flu shot, you are endangering more than just your own health. Calculations of herd immunity against common diseases don’t make exceptions.
Insects Conquered a Watery Realm With Just Two New Genes
Minor genetic changes can have big evolutionary consequences. When a gene duplication gave some water striders a novel leg part, it opened up a new world for them.
Simple Bacteria Offer Clues to the Origins of Photosynthesis
Studies of the energy-harvesting proteins in primitive cells suggest that key features of photosynthesis might have evolved a billion years earlier than scientists thought.
Supercool Protein Imaging Gets the Nobel Prize
This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to researchers who made it possible to see proteins and other biomolecules at an atomic level of detail.
Nobel Prize Awarded for Biological Clock Discoveries
Three U.S. biologists share the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their research into the molecular mechanism that drives circadian rhythm.
Solution: ‘Are Genes Selfish or Cooperative?’
Puzzle solvers rediscovered a simple mathematical result of Mendelian genetics and weighed in on a Richard Dawkins metaphor.
Why the First Drawings of Neurons Were Defaced
Every exquisite drawing by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the founder of modern neuroscience, is marred by a curious mark. Here is the little-known story behind it.
Genetic Struggles Within Cells May Create New Species
Mitonuclear conflict — a struggle between the genes in a cell’s nucleus and its mitochondria — might sometimes split species in two.
Genetics Spills Secrets From Neanderthals’ Lost History
How many Neanderthals were there? Archaeology and genetics have given very different answers. A new study reconciles them and reveals the lost history of these ancient people — including an early brush with extinction.