Ichnofossils in basaltic glass are putative microscopic trace fossils occurring on modern seafloor and throughout Earth history. While their biological origin remains debated, it is unknown why microorganisms thrive in […]
Prebiotic chemistry in nano-environments confined within catalytic mineral media is emerging as a promising frontier in origins-of-life research. Such confined spaces exhibit physicochemical properties distinct from bulk conditions, enabling out-of-equilibrium […]
The number of known proteins is infinitely small in comparison to the universe of possible proteins which could in theory be realized. Yet these known proteins are the only major […]
The emergence of protocells, membranous compartments with encapsulated genetic material, was a crucial step in life’s origin and evolution. The hot spring hypothesis for the origin of life suggests that […]
Editor’s note: with recent speculation about the potential habitability of other worlds and understanding the processes whereby other biospheres arise and evolve, thought needs to be given to developing sensor […]
Synthetic living constructs, which lack the long histories of selection in ecological contexts that shape behaviors of conventional organisms, offer an important complement to traditional studies of learning.
Space-based platforms currently represent the most accurate means to experimentally assess the influence of the space environment on biological systems. However, performing such experiments remains technically challenging and requires highly […]
Over the past decade, the rapid expansion of large-scale data and advances in computational power have allowed machine learning (ML), especially deep learning, to reshape many areas of biological research. […]
A new collaboration between EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Google DeepMind, NVIDIA, and Seoul National University has made millions of AI-predicted protein complex structures openly available through the AlphaFold Database. […]
A NASA-sponsored team has developed electronics that can operate reliably in the harsh radiation and temperature conditions found on distant planetary bodies like Europa, an ocean world orbiting Jupiter. Not […]
