Gary Ruvkun, a molecular biologist and professor of genetics at Harvard, wants to search for DNA on Mars.

The genetic-engineering tool could help combat malaria and invasive species. But should we use it?

Human eyes are very complex and are good at doing many jobs at once, while spiders have different sorts of eyes that do different jobs.

But if your neck hurts after hours of looking down at it, you might want to lie down on a pillow for a bit. By Kristina Killgrove.

The oceans hide all kinds of secrets and unknowns in the deep – like the 195,728 viruses that scientists just found lurking underwater, during the course of a pole-to-pole expedition carried out to survey marine life. The researchers say the vast m

Greater diversity of gut bacteria has been associated with better gut health, although the mechanisms are still not well understood. Less diversity has been linked to conditions including irritable bowel, diabetes and obesity.

The first organisms may have evolved before the rocky planets formed. By Mike Wall.

Car crashes, battle wounds, and surgeries can leave people with gaping holes in soft tissue that are often too large for their bodies to repair. Now, researchers have developed a nanofiber-reinforced injectable gel that can rebuild missing muscle and connective tissues by serving as a scaffold and recruiting the body’s wound-healing cells. So far, the team has tested the material only in rats and rabbits. But if it performs as well in humans, it could give reconstructive surgeons a fast and easy way to help patients regenerate lost tissues without scarring or deformity.

Stanford researchers have developed synthetic proteins that can rewire cancer cells in a lab dish by co-opting critical disease-associated pathways.

Using the plant like scaffolding, scientists built a mini version of a working heart, which may one day aid in tissue regeneration. By Delaney Ross.

As the content of Earth's atmosphere changes over time, the course of animal evolution itself might change.

Spiders, millipedes, cockroaches, beetles, flies and wasps that would have lived on the forest floor, found inside it

Sharks are pretty eclectic eaters. They'll go for prey ranging from fish and invertebrates to sea mammals and turtles. A shark may even have a chomp on the odd surfer. If they can catch it, or scavenge it, and it's made of meat, sharks will generally

There’s a method to the madness of the teenage brain. In the foothills of the Sierra Mountains, a few hours east of San Francisco, are the Moaning Caverns, a cave system that begins, after a narrow, twisting descent of 30-some feet, with an abrupt 180-foot drop. The Park Service has found ancient human skeletons at the bottom of the drop. Native Americans living there at the time didn’t make human sacrifices. Instead, these explorers took one step too far in the gloom. The skeletons belonged to adolescents.

The modified fungus produces spider toxin that rapidly kills mosquitoes, raising hopes for a new weapon to fight a disease that sickens millions. But not everyone is convinced.

Fungi and plants have a symbiotic relationship in which they trade phosphorous for carbon, and the mechanics of this market are surprisingly sophisticated. By Daniel Cossins.

Adjusting for their size, most of the longest lived mammals are bats.

New research has identified a novel approach to staving off the detrimental effects of aging, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Scientists in the FinnBrain research project of the University of Turku discovered that the gut microbes of a 2.5-month-old infant are associated with the temperament traits manifested at six months of age. Temperament describes individual differences in expressing and regulating emotions in infants...

Today, vaccinating against cervical cancer is routine. But before Sarah Stewart, scientists dismissed the idea of a cancer-preventing vaccine as ludicrous. By Leila McNeill.

Scientists seek to crack an evolutionary code.

The aesthetically challenged naked mole rat could offer clues to battling disease and slowing the effects of aging.

As our brains become increasingly intertwined with our technologies, we run the risk of exposing our minds to hackers. As this new video from AsapScience shows, the possibility is very real.

Three scientists won the Nobel medicine prize on Monday for plotting how cells transfer vital materials such as hormones and brain chemicals to other cells, giving insight into diseases such as Alzheimer's, autism and diabetes.

There have been some interesting creatures popping up in the Arctic. Canadian hunters have found white bears with brown tints—a cross between Ursus maritimus, the polar bear, and Ursus arctos horribilis, the grizzly. A couple of decades ago, off the coast of Greenland, something that appeared to be half-narwhal, half-beluga surfaced, and much more recently, Dall’s porpoise and harbor porpoise mixes have been swimming near British Columbia.

While death's cold, bony fingers will inevitably reach all creatures, Mother Nature has imbued a few of her quirkier children with resilient biology seemingly predisposed to keep mortality at bay. Tapping into their secrets has long been a quest for scientists, not least because the thought of our minds flickering out one day continues to bother most people. Here, in no particular order, are five animals who may just hold to clues to unlocking everlasting life

Tony Goldberg, a US professor of pathobiological science, recently returned from an Africa research trip only to discover that a potentially new species of tick had come back with him hidden up his nose. 

Twenty years ago, sequencing the human genome was one of the most ambitious science projects ever attempted. Today, compared to the collection of genomes of the microorganisms living in our bodies, the ocean, the soil and elsewhere, each human genome, which easily fits on a DVD, is comparatively simple. Its 3 billion DNA base pairs and about 20,000 genes seem paltry next to the roughly 100 billion bases and millions of genes that make up the microbes found in the human body.

The idea that there were several different human species walking the Earth two million years ago has been dealt a blow. Instead, scientists say early human fossils found in Africa and Eurasia may have been part of the same species.

Most scientists conduct their research in a lab, or by working with calculations or simulations on computers. Some engage in field work, perhaps observing animals in the wild or excavating fossils. Then, there’s the team of biologists from Brown University led by Henry Astley that studies the movement of animals and has been conducting some science in a decidedly less conventional atmosphere.

Group of researchers from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has shown that plants can absorb gold particles deep underground and bring it upward through their tissues—a finding that could help mineral exploration companies mine for gold.

Neuroscientists have learned that dendrites do more than just provide passive wiring in the brain. These nerve cell connectors also process information, essentially functioning as tiny computers. Our brains, it would appear, pack more computing power than we assumed.

This is unbelievable, but the fruit fly G tridens has somehow evolved to have what looks like pictures of ants on its wings. Seriously, its transparent wings have an ant design on them complete with "six legs, two antennae, a head, thorax and tapered abdomen." It's nature's evolutionary art painted on a fly's wings.

In our quest to discover strange new life on strange new worlds, a group of astronomers has modeled potential alien worlds using Earth’s biological history as a framework. From this they have determined that if we are to detect extraterrestrial biology, we should fine-tune our search to the color purple.

By unleashing a genetically modified virus onto microscopic electrode wires, researchers from MIT have shown that the performance of lithium-air batteries can be significantly improved - a remarkable breakthrough that could revolutionize the way our electric devices are powered.