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Moonlighting Genes Evolve for a Venomous Job
An unexpected mechanism allows wasps to rapidly co-opt genes for new toxic functions.
Sylvia Earle Is Not Done Exploring
The legendary marine biologist discusses why she’s excited about the coming era of ocean science, the shortsightedness of maritime exploitation and diving in the Arctic in her 80s.
Wanted: More Data, the Dirtier the Better
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.
Solution: ‘Darwinian Evolution Explains Lamarckism’
How Darwinian natural selection can produce and sustain a Lamarckian “inheritance of acquired characteristics.”
A Theory of Reality as More Than the Sum of Its Parts
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.
Awash in Sea of Data, Ecologists Turn to Open Access Tools
To assess the ocean’s health, ecology’s “rugged individualists” learned to get with the big data program.
The Thoughts of a Spiderweb
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.
Can Darwinian Evolution Explain Lamarckism?
Answering three questions can help reveal how the “inheritance of acquired characteristics” fits into modern evolutionary theory.
How Heat Kills Cells
The proteins that unravel as the temperature starts to rise turn out to be among the most vital.