Understanding biology’s software—the rules that enable great plasticity in how cell collectives generate reliable anatomies—is key to advancing tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

While questions still outnumber answers, new findings from archaeology, genetics, and other disciplines are revealing surprising insights into the early cultures of the most recently populated continent.

Better understanding the CD8+ T cells already present in tumors could be key to making immunotherapies work for more patients.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has revealed the limitations of R0 as no other disease outbreak has before, at a time when policymakers need accurate forecasts.

Absence of human contact is associated with declines in cognitive function. But as the COVID-19 pandemic brings concerns about the potential harms of isolation to the fore, researchers are still hunting for concrete evidence of a causal role as well as possible mechanisms.

Social distancing measures prevented millions of COVID-19–related deaths around the world, according to a handful of studies, but it’s hard to quantify the effects with certainty.

Once considered an unimportant curiosity, Z-DNA is now recognized to provide an on-the-fly mechanism to regulate how an RNA transcript is edited.

The gut microbiome is more malleable in the first two years after birth, allowing probiotics to make their mark. Can we exploit this to improve infants’ health?

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, which help translate the genetic code into protein, also function in angiogenesis, fat metabolism, and more.