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A growing number of cosmologists and string theorists suspect the form of our Universe is little more than a coincidence. Are these harmless thought experiments, or a challenge to science itself? Geoff Brumfiel investigates.
The Afar region of Ethiopia is littered with traces of the earliest humans. Rex Dalton gets on the trail with a team of devoted experts who just live for the next find.
Wiring up retinal neurons to the correct brain region during development is a feat of precision growth. A novel directional cue repels retinal neuron fibres, acting as a counterbalance to a known attractive signal.
The most accurate way of determining the size of some bodies in the Solar System is to observe them as they pass across the face of a star. In the case of Charon, Pluto's largest satellite, it's been a long wait.
A major player among the phytoplankton can exploit a source of phosphorus previously thought to be unavailable to it. That ability may provide an ecological advantage in nutrient-depleted regions of the open ocean.
Crystallization of ascending magma may affect the style of volcanic activity. Pockets of melt incorporated into crystals provide windows on processes that occur several kilometres below Earth's surface.
Do random environments make for random responses to them? Mathematical models suggest that this is not always the case — adding noise could create synchronous oscillations in cell–cell signalling systems.
