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A few rare viruses can reach the fetus when pregnant women are infected, with tragic result. As explored in this Q&A, researchers are figuring out how the placenta acts as protector and how some pathogens slip through.
How do trees find their sense of direction as they grow? Researchers are getting to the root — and the branches — of how the grandest of plants develop.
Ultrasound isn’t just for images. Sonogenetics and other promising technologies let researchers use focused sound waves to control genes and entire cells deep in the tissues of living animals, without surgery.
Epidemics of forest-felling diseases are on the rise thanks to globetrotting pathogens that slip through even the best defenses. To prevent further losses, scientists are turning to high-tech surveillance and detection, even canine noses.
Carnivorous plants fascinate as much now as when their gruesome diet was first discovered. Molecular biology is helping botanists trace the origins of their predatory ways.
Millions of years of coevolution have given the insects a bag of tricks to escape their predators — from signal-jamming and decoys to acoustic camouflage
From monkeys washing potatoes to cockatoos raiding trash cans, socially spread behaviors allow creatures to adapt more rapidly to changing environments than conventional evolution would allow. But the traits are also more easily lost.
COMIC: The feisty orange-black butterfly uses a toolbox of biological tricks to find its way down to Mexico for winter and flap north again in spring. Here’s how scientists figured out those tricks — and what they don’t yet understand.
Fossilized leaves and pollen are revealing the evolutionary past of New World tropical forests. The findings are helping to reshape predictions of what might happen to these ecosystems as the climate changes.
Social insects disobey evolutionary principles that say creatures invest in body maintenance or reproduction — not both. Scientists want to know how the creatures do it.
By engineering mutations into fruit flies, scientists reconstructed how the butterflies may have evolved resistance to the toxins found in milkweed, allowing their caterpillars to feast on the plant
Some scientists propose that in the beginning, geochemistry gave way to biochemistry — with no genetic material necessary. Only later did RNA and DNA appear.
No one knows exactly how the nocturnal hunters manage their whisper-soft flight, yet it is inspiring the design of quieter airplanes, fans and wind turbines
The scientific literature is riddled with bad charts and graphs, leading to misunderstanding and worse. Avoiding design missteps can improve understanding of research.
VIDEO: Many cellular processes are guided by fluctuations of molecules, from circadian clocks to the feat of precisely dividing into two daughter cells
For centuries, the wild delicacy grew only in Europe. But improved cultivation techniques have enabled the pricey, odorous fungus to be farmed in new landscapes.
Rich data on the global state of our feathered friends presents plenty of bad news — but also some bright spots. Researchers know better than ever how to help endangered birds, and there are notable bird conservation successes.
Researchers are investigating medicines that selectively kill decrepit cells to promote healthy aging — but more work is needed before declaring them a fountain of youth
Decades of exploring the seafloor have helped oceanographer Samantha Joye tackle marine issues — from the underwater movement of oil from Deepwater Horizon to the biology of remote microbial communities
A newfound peace has spurred the hunt for disease-resistant wild cacao within the nation’s borders. What scientists find could help the country expand its role in the global trade.
Before the formidable bird went extinct, scientists say, it likely hunted the islands’ flightless moa. Now evidence suggests the eagle was part of a wave of feathered invaders, and its story holds lessons for today and the future.
Best known as a holiday trimming, the parasitic plant is a botanical luminary in its own right. Research suggests it may give as much as it receives from the flora and fauna around it.
In winter, the birds must remember where they’ve hidden tens of thousands of seeds. Biologist Vladimir Pravosudov explains what this can teach us about how the brain evolves.
In an evolving branch of forensic science, genealogists help solve crimes, sometimes identifying suspects with the DNA of distant relatives they’ve never met. As cold cases yield, concerns about privacy issues persist.
For women, a short-term fling may involve a quest for good genes or just a good time. It’s a puzzle for the researchers looking at how people choose mates.
They worm into snails and infect the brains of fish. They’ve also found their way into Kevin Lafferty’s heart. He sees them as beautiful examples of sophisticated evolution, and as keys to ecosystem balance.
New blood assays and brain scans are among the biomarkers revolutionizing clinical trials and changing the way researchers think of the disease. They may soon change the way patients are treated as well.
Studies of birds, fish and ants reveal the hidden ways groups coordinate movement, which might influence engineers designing drone armadas and efficient information flow
The thalamus has traditionally been viewed just as the brain’s sensory relay station. But it may also play an important role in higher-level cognition, MIT’s Michael Halassa explains in a Q&A.
VIDEO: Scientists have captured live video of parts of the most fundamental event in biology — cells reading and copying DNA instructions to make proteins
OPINION: A study in Chicago found that rodents surviving poisoning are more likely to carry disease. Good pest control needs to take such things into account.
The way we see and describe hues varies widely for many reasons: from our individual eye structure, to how our brain processes images, to what language we speak, or even if we live near a body of water
The field has long been more mice than men. New technologies and systems-based approaches with human cells may soon fill gaps in our understanding of autoimmune disease and health, Mark Davis says in a Q&A.
For decades, genetics and biochemistry have formed the bedrock of developmental biology. But it turns out that physical forces — the way cells push, pull and squeeze each other — play a huge role, too.
Scientists have long thought that avian migration is guided by the magnetic field, but how, exactly? The search has led to three very different hypotheses.
PODCAST: The journey to solving the structures of these critically important molecules began with a chance discovery. Today, after decades of painstaking lab work and huge technological leaps, the field of protein science is exploding. (Season 2/Episode 3)
Ancient rocks suggest that ice entirely covered our planet on at least two occasions. This theory may help explain the rise of complex life that followed.
Researchers are finally getting the tools to understand just how the microbial communities in and on our bodies affect health. But there are many mysteries left to solve — and many technological challenges.
Suddenly, biologists have hundreds of complete genome sequences of our feathered friends. That wealth of data is revolutionizing understanding of bird biology and evolution.
Because of their height, giraffes require scarily high blood pressures — yet they escape the massive health problems that plague people with hypertension. Can clinicians learn from these animals?
Is Chernobyl a radioactive wasteland reeling from chronic radiation, or a post-nuclear paradise with thriving populations of animals and other life forms? Studies don’t always agree about levels of mutations and other ill effects.
PODCAST: Digging — quite literally — into our planet’s past to study its paleoclimate has shed light on bygone ice ages and hints at trouble ahead for our now-warming world (Season 2/Episode 4)
For most of Earth’s history, hardly any of the mucky stuff existed on land. It finally started piling up around 458 million years ago, changing life on the planet forever.
Sure they cause disease, but the microbes can be a help as well. Witness long-lasting pepper seeds, drought-resistant crop plants and even our own placentas.
COMIC: Do forests warm or cool the Earth? What’s their effect on global climate change? A comic narrated by polymath Benjamin Franklin describes the evolution of thought on this issue and what we still don’t know.
Some lizard species do without males altogether. Scientists are studying these all-female species to see what they might reveal about the pros and cons of sex.
VIDEO: Culture was once thought to be uniquely human, but scientists are finding evidence that many birds are also cultural creatures. What does avian culture look like? And why does it matter?
To understand what might be lost, ecologist Janet K. Jansson taps molecular methods to explore Earth’s underground microbes, from the permafrost to the grasslands
Individual behavior patterns may skew studies. A new approach called ‘STRANGE’ could help, by taking into account the habits, tendencies and life experiences of the creatures under scrutiny.
Many sea creatures release eggs and sperm into the water on just the right nights of the month. Researchers are starting to understand the biological rhythms that sync them to phases of the moon.
It’s not easy to find the source of a swirling scent plume. Scientists are using experiments and simulations to uncover the varied strategies that animals employ.
Sea levels rising and falling over hundreds of thousands of years helped build up these special islands
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