One of the challenges of working with ancient DNA samples is that damage accumulates over time, breaking the double-helix structure into smaller and smaller fragments. In the samples we have worked with, these fragments spread out and mix with contaminants, making reconstructing a genome a major technical challenge. But a dramatic paper published Thursday shows … Read more
Researchers at Northwestern University have discovered that the structural features of the brain are almost at a critical point, similar to a phase transition, observed in various species such as humans, mice and fruit flies. This finding suggests that a universal principle could govern brain structure, which could inspire new computational models to mimic the … Read more
A new photo of the Crab Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope is helping scientists parse the composition and history of the ancient supernova remnant. The Crab Nebula, located in the constellation Taurus, is the result of a supernova explosion that was observed on Earth in 1054 CE and was bright enough to … Read more