Science

Biology is messy, and this is a problem for imaging science. Living things are squishy and porous. They tend to be bathed in fluid. They also move, and all that motion makes it practically impossible to get good high-resolution images of cells and what’s inside them. The best we’ve had to …

Modern medical technology has granted doctors the ability to transplant many of the body’s organs, extending the life of people suffering from chronic diseases. But what about replacing all the organs at once along with the body they are in? That’s science fiction right now, but Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero …

Bait-and-switch might just be the oldest trick in the book, but maybe it’s time to start kickin’ it old school. At least a little bit. In search of another way to manage the endless slog against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, scientists just figured out how to bait bacteria into developing an Achilles’ …

Several years ago, so-called “brain training” games from companies like Luminosity were all the rage. The various companies that brought these products to market claimed they could be used to offset the aging process by slowing or even reversing age-related cognitive declines. In 2014, two groups of scientists released two …

Biotechnologists have discovered some horrifying new consequences of lateral gene transfer: a virus that started making the toxin from black widow spider venom, all by itself. This might be the single combination humanity needed least. No matter what the permutation, viruses plus black widows add up to a whole lot …

The human nervous system is a delicate thing. Damage it in the right place, and a person can lose the ability to control much of their bodies. Since the nervous system is largely based on the transmission of electrical impulses, scientists have long experimented with ways to replace the missing …

Finding bacteria in extreme environments, like at thermal ocean vents or in the sulfur pools at Yellowstone, isn’t all that novel. In 1991, remote-control robots brought out samples of pitch-black fungi that had been growing inside the ruins of the Chernobyl reactor. Scientists sat up and paid attention, but then …

Cellular mitosis is the basis of all higher life. When you need new cells, they can be created through a process called mitosis, whereby a cell makes a copy of itself. This process is highly regulated within the body, but sometimes those mechanisms fail and cells can grow out of …

Photosynthesis evolved some 3 to 3.5 billion years ago, allowing organisms to turn solar energy into sugars. This process has worked pretty well for all that time, but humans have very specific requirements for the plants we grow as crops. It may be possible to tweak photosynthesis to improve yields …