Understanding the human cell is vital to progress in the life sciences and to human health. Cells are the smallest, most basic unit of life responsible for all of life’s processes. A typical human ...

The problem of cell type became clear to genome biologist Jason Buenrostro in 2013. He was studying a cell line derived from someone with cancer, trying to map out how the DNA was arranged in the ...

Life and death are traditionally viewed as opposites. But the emergence of new multicellular life-forms from the cells of a dead organism introduces a “third state” that lies beyond the traditional ...

A growing number of new studies have found that, at least for some cells, death isn’t the end, but the beginning of something wholly unexpected.

The cell--the irreducible unit of life on Earth--has an estimated history nigh on 3.5 billion years. Scientists since Charles Darwin have attempted to trace that history to a so-called last common ...

Long known as a messenger within cells, RNA is increasingly seen as life’s molecular communication system — even between organisms widely separated by evolution. For a molecule of RNA, the world is a ...

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

In many submerged regions, murky mud shelters strange life-forms that seem to be the key to one of the biggest mysteries of life on Earth. These creatures belong to a domain of life called the archaea ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For a molecule of RNA, the world is a dangerous place. Unlike DNA, which can persist for millions of years in its remarkably stable, ...