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Cell biology
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Expansion Microscopy Has Transformed How We See the Cellular World
How physically magnifying objects using a key ingredient in diapers has opened an unprecedented view of the microbial world.
Once Thought To Support Neurons, Astrocytes Turn Out To Be in Charge
New experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest that neuron-only brain models, such as connectomes, leave out a crucial layer of regulation.
Cells Use ‘Bioelectricity’ To Coordinate and Make Group Decisions
The discovery that tissues use electricity to expel unhealthy cells is part of a surge of renewed interest in the currents flowing through our bodies.
The Year in Biology
Take a jaunt through a jungle of strange neurons underlying your sense of touch, hundreds of millions of years of animal evolution and the dense neural networks of brains and AIs.
Tiny Tubes Reveal Clues to the Evolution of Complex Life
Scientists have identified tubulin structures in primitive Asgard archea that may have been the precursor of our own cellular skeletons.
What Can a Cell Remember?
A small but enthusiastic group of neuroscientists is exhuming overlooked experiments and performing new ones to explore whether cells record past experiences — fundamentally challenging what memory is.
RNA Is the Cell’s Emergency Alert System
How does a cell know when it’s been damaged? A molecular alarm, set off by mutated RNA and colliding ribosomes, signals danger.
The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria
Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, suggesting that the world is far more interconnected than anyone realized.
Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life
Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent home inside another. For the first time, biologists made it happen in the lab.