A cell sitting in fluid looks like one of the most passive things in biology. Nutrients drift toward it on the aimless currents of molecular motion, and now and then one bumps into the right spot on the cell's surface and ...
Tiny, shapeless invaders can find their way from ponds to the human brain and cause an infection so severe that it has a 95% fatality rate. The amoeba Naegleria fowleri naturally lives in ponds, feasting on bacteria, but ...
Some of the best engineers and inventors are copycats. They look at how the natural world solves complex problems and use those mechanisms as the basis for innovations. But Mother Nature doesn't always give up her secrets ...
When a person falls and gets a cut or a scrape, they often use hydrogen peroxide to clean the wound. This molecular compound is also produced within our cells, helping our immune system build its defenses against harmful ...
In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers have shown that magnetic order can survive weak quantum fluctuations in disordered magnets that lack an energy gap. The work establishes robust ferromagnetism ...
When light or sound bounces around inside an oddly shaped room, its reflections can quickly become difficult to predict. But new research led by scientists at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center ...
In the world of carnivorous plants, Venus flytraps—with their showy, snapping reflexes—have long hogged the limelight. But plants have many creative bug-capture strategies, from slippery waxes to vibrating lids to bizarrely ...
Across every cell in the body, molecules are constantly pulling, gripping and releasing under mechanical strain. That force often decides whether a drug sticks to its target, whether a cell holds its shape or whether a disease ...
New research from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in collaboration with other institutions, highlights the fragmented and staggered timing of warming increases across the planet, providing a nuanced perspective ...
The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, preceded by decades of breakthroughs in genetics. It eventually gave us a sequence of the human genome. Yet, while the physical rules behind the genome's organization remain ...
