biology – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 Cells Across the Tree of Life Exchange ‘Text Messages’ Using RNA https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-across-the-tree-of-life-exchange-text-messages-using-rna-20240916/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-across-the-tree-of-life-exchange-text-messages-using-rna-20240916/#respond Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140852 The post Cells Across the Tree of Life Exchange ‘Text Messages’ Using RNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> For a molecule of RNA, the world is a dangerous place. Unlike DNA, which can persist for millions of years in its remarkably stable, double-stranded form, RNA isn’t built to last — not even within the cell that made it. Unless it’s protectively tethered to a larger molecule, RNA can degrade in minutes or less. And outside a cell? Forget about it. Voracious, RNA-destroying enzymes are everywhere...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-across-the-tree-of-life-exchange-text-messages-using-rna-20240916/feed/ 0 The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/#respond Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:18:08 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140436 The post The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> The bottom of the ocean is cold, dark and under extreme pressure. It is not a place suited to the physiology of us surface dwellers: At the deepest point, the pressure of 36,200 feet of seawater is greater than the weight of an elephant on every square inch of your body. Yet Earth’s deepest places are home to life uniquely suited to these challenging conditions. Scientists have studied how the...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/feed/ 0 How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-our-longest-nerve-orchestrates-the-mind-body-connection-20240826/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-our-longest-nerve-orchestrates-the-mind-body-connection-20240826/#respond Mon, 26 Aug 2024 14:45:37 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140053 The post How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> It is late at night. You are alone and wandering empty streets in search of your parked car when you hear footsteps creeping up from behind. Your heart pounds, your blood pressure skyrockets. Goose bumps appear on your arms, sweat on your palms. Your stomach knots and your muscles coil, ready to sprint or fight. Now imagine the same scene, but without any of the body’s innate responses to an...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-our-longest-nerve-orchestrates-the-mind-body-connection-20240826/feed/ 0 How Colorful Ribbon Diagrams Became the Face of Proteins https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-colorful-ribbon-diagrams-became-the-face-of-proteins-20240823/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-colorful-ribbon-diagrams-became-the-face-of-proteins-20240823/#respond Fri, 23 Aug 2024 14:43:59 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140004 The post How Colorful Ribbon Diagrams Became the Face of Proteins first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Jane Richardson never considered herself an artist. Then, in the late 1970s, the structural biologist found herself in need of some colored pencils, pastels and sketching paper. Richardson, a professor of biochemistry at Duke University, studied proteins, the biomolecules that underpin all the workings of life. At the time, structural biologists were getting better at creating 3D models of...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-colorful-ribbon-diagrams-became-the-face-of-proteins-20240823/feed/ 0 The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-viral-paleontologist-who-unearths-pathogens-deep-histories-20240816/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-viral-paleontologist-who-unearths-pathogens-deep-histories-20240816/#respond Fri, 16 Aug 2024 13:06:13 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=139856 The post The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Like many children of his generation, raised on a steady diet of Jurassic Park and its sequels, Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer wanted to be a paleontologist when he grew up. Unlike most, he came close. Rather than digging for fossilized bones in the dirt, however, he paws through objects in natural history museums and medical collections for old biological specimens from which he can extract the...

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