Our bodies and organs are shielded from the external environment by tissue barriers like the skin. These barriers must be tightly sealed to prevent unwanted substances from entering. This sealing is ...

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

In many submerged regions, murky mud shelters strange life-forms that seem to be the key to one of the biggest mysteries of life on Earth. These creatures belong to a domain of life called the archaea ...

Humans have evolved disproportionately large brains compared with our primate relatives — but this neurological upgrade came at a cost. Scientists exploring the trade-off have discovered unique ...

No one saw the blob takeover coming. In 2009 a team of biophysicists led by Anthony A. Hyman of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, were studying ...

Who were our earliest ancestors? The answer could lie in a special group of single-celled organisms with a cytoskeleton similar to that of complex organisms, such as animals and plants. Ten years ago, ...

Structures called desmosomes connect cells to each other and transfer mechanical stress. They are especially important in tissues under continual mechanical stress, such as heart muscle (pictured).

One of the most well-studied cellular responses is how they react during times of stress, such as when the temperature gets ...

Even after drastic weight loss, the body’s fat cells carry the ‘memory’ of obesity, research 1 shows — a finding that might help to explain why it can be hard to stay trim after a weight-loss ...