How was complex life able to develop on the inhospitable early Earth? At the beginning there must have been ribonucleic acid (RNA) to carry the first genetic information. To build up complexity in their sequences, these biomolecules need to release water.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen have broken new ground by demonstrating that an HMG-box gene in brown algae is crucial for determining male sex. This breakthrough significantly expands our understanding of sex-determination

New research from the Universities of Oxford and Exeter has revealed that plant species recommended as 'pollinator-friendly' in Europe begin flowering up to a month too late in the spring to effectively contribute to bee conservation. This 'hungry gap

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen and University of Southern Denmark have recently published FreeDTS—a shared software package designed to model and study biological membranes at the mesoscale—the scale "in between&quo

Curly—or Karelian—birch is a mysterious tree with a patterned wood texture and a bizarre trunk shape. Unlike the elegant white-stemmed traditional birch, the Karelian one may seem unsightly at first glance: It is a low-growing, sinuous tree with bumps and

Researchers at the University of Toronto and Sinai Health have created a new platform to identify proteins that can be co-opted to control the stability of other proteins—a new but largely unrealized approach to the treatment of disease.

Researchers at McMaster University and Stanford University have invented a new generative artificial intelligence model that can design billions of new antibiotic molecules that are inexpensive and easy to build in the laboratory.

Scaling down single-cell reactions to the nanoliter level is critical to minimize the risk of contamination, increase reaction efficiency, and reduce costs. Researchers from the Single-cell Center of the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Techn

Why is the heart slightly on the left side of the body for most people? Why is DNA almost always a right-handed helix? Same with alpha helices, the building blocks of proteins. Chirality, or handedness, is everywhere in biology, but the reasons can be a m

A new analysis of zooplankton in western Lake Erie shows that their biomass and seasonal behavioral patterns have been drastically altered by human-driven changes in water temperature and food webs.

Arachnophobia can make humans flee at the sight of a brown recluse, black widow or even a daddy long legs, but animal predators of spiders know no such fear.

It's no surprise that your dog can learn to sit when you say "sit" and come when called. But a study appearing March 22 in the journal Current Biology has made the unexpected discovery that dogs generally also know that certain words "stan