In one episode of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Birdman, the eponymous hero struggles to fight the evil Dr. Shark aboard a submarine without solar energy to recharge his powers. So Birdman would surely ...

Cobb County's 2026 High School Teacher of the Year says her greatest purpose is helping students find theirs. Before Lisa Peacock begins a biology lesson, she asks her students to think about ...

When a cell gets ready to divide, it shuts down its gene-reading machinery almost entirely. "As cells prepare to divide, they rapidly shut down most gene reading, or transcription," says Claudio R.

Meghana Keshavan covers biotech and contributes to The Readout newsletter. Imagine Google Earth, but for a human cell. Zoom in closely enough, and instead of streets and buildings, there are proteins ...

For more than a decade, scientists have built “minimal cells” capable of some lifelike processes. In a world first, scientists from the University of Minnesota successfully created a synthetic cell ...

Understanding the origin of life requires addressing a collection of overlapping scientific questions. We’ve made a lot of progress toward explaining how simple chemicals present on an early Earth ...

From why it was created to whether it’s alive, here’s what to know about SpudCell, the latest advance in synthetic biology. By K. R. Callaway SpudCell is a synthetic cell made by scientists at the ...

Scientists say they have built a cell from scratch for the first time that can feed, grow and replicate like a natural cell. This breakthrough in synthetic biology could usher in an era of ...

Scientists have long dreamed of discovering the alchemy by which chemicals can be turned into life. On Wednesday, a team at the University of Minnesota announced that it had taken a major step toward ...

The cells of animals, plants, and fungi start their lives by being torn apart. Cells are born by division, and just before a parent cell becomes two daughters, it doubles its nuclear DNA and carefully ...

When a human cell prepares to split into two daughter cells, it must first construct a tiny internal machine called the mitotic spindle—a structure of protein fibers that physically pulls chromosomes ...

Using an innovative combination of biochemical experiments and ultra-high-resolution microscopy, a research team at Kiel University has solved the long-standing mystery of how the bacterium B.