A handful of new studies moves the needle toward a consensus on the long-disputed question of whether insect wings evolved from legs or from the body wall, but the devil is in the details.

Viruses abound in the world’s oceans, yet researchers are only beginning to understand how they affect life and chemistry from the water’s surface to the sea floor.

Bacteria that live in the digestive tracts of animals may influence the adaptive trajectories of their hosts.

Several labs have reported the formation of bacterial nanotubes under different, often contrasting conditions. What are these structures and why are they so hard to reproduce?

By Jeffrey M. Perkel Surpassing the Law of Averages How to expose the behaviors of genes, RNA, proteins, and metabolites in single cells. By necessity or convenience, almost everything we know about biochemistry and molecular biology derives from bulk behavior: From gene regulation to Michaelis-Menten kinetics, we understand biology in terms of what the “average” cell in a population does. But, as Jonathan Weissman of the University of Califo

It has become increasingly evident that, like animals, plants are not autonomous organisms but rather are populated by a cornucopia of diverse microorganisms.

PRIZE WITH A PRICE: Science historian Peter Galison has taken some ribbing from his family since being named a MacArthur fellow. One could almost pity Peter Galison. A historian of science at Harvard University, Galison is one of seven members of the scientific community among the 23 recipients of this year's John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowships. The coveted five-year awards provide unrestricted support plus health insurance to talented individuals, with no reports or proj

Photo: Ori Fragman, Hebrew University Hordeum spontaneum, the plant studied for BARE-1 retroelements. With genome sequences arriving almost as regularly as the morning paper, the public's attention is focused on genes--new genes to protect crops against pests; rogue genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics; faulty genes that, if fixed, could cure diseases such as muscular dystrophy. What many people don't realize is that genes account for only part of an organism's DNA, and in many c

The 30,000-member, Providence, R.I.-based American Mathematical Society (AMS) has joined numerous advocates for biomedical research in objecting to recently proposed federal budget cuts for scientific research. Late last month, AMSUs Committee on Science Policy issued a resolution stating that it "is very concerned that proposed reductions in the federal budget for support of scientific research will seriously damage the U.S. scientific capacity for many years. . . . Support of scientific resea

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