Interview with Susana Coelho, who uses brown algae to study evolution, development, and life-cycle complexity at the Max Planck Institute for Biology.

In LIFE UNBOUNDED, pioneering evolutionary biologist William C. Ratcliff reveals that every great leap in life’s complexity, from the first cells to human culture, was driven by the same underlying pr...

Molecular clock and preservation of early microfossil assemblages suggest that eukaryotes were present and already diverse more than ~1600 million ...

Exquisite early Cambrian fossils of Protomelission gatehousei and Dayingomelission hexaclitia preserve soft-tissue anatomy and skeletal microstructure, confirming that these taxa are definitively...

First-principles approaches, based on physics or chemistry, are key pillars of biological theory. Despite their value, there are recurrent problems with many first-principles approaches in biology: th...

Multinucleate cells — single cells containing multiple nuclei in a shared cytoplasm — are found across the eukaryotic tree of life. Having evolved ind…

Mushroom-forming fungi have along evolutionary history and a suite of important ecological roles. This Review highlights advances in understanding of Agaricomycetes evolution and ecology driven by gen...

The benthic ctenophore Benthoplana meteoris (adults left and bottom, planktonic juveniles to the top right), type species for the genus, which in turn is type for the newly erected family: Benthoplan....

New reconstructions of 540 million years of climate history show the planet tumbling between icehouse and hothouse states, revealing how rare and vulnerable our temperate moment is.

The same pulling force that causes “tears” in a glass of wine also shapes embryos. It’s another example of how genes exploit mechanical forces for growth and development.

New reconstructions of 540 million years of climate history show the planet tumbling between icehouse and hothouse states, revealing how rare and vulnerable our temperate moment is.

Freire-Delgado and Brunet discover a new mode of cell motility in choanoflagellates, the closest relatives of animals. Under mild confinement, choanoflagellate move over surfaces without cell deformat...

The Pacific coast of the Southern Central American Isthmus is a highly productive and biodiverse region with a rich human history. Although the interaction of the oceans, climate, biodiversity and early human systems has shaped the region’s ecology, ...

The advent of clonal multicellularity is a critical evolutionary milestone, seen often in eukaryotes, rarely in bacteria, and only once in archaea. We show that uniaxial compression induces clonal mul...

During the evolution of multicellularity, the unit of selection transitions from single cells to integrated multicellular cell groups, necessitating the evolution of group-level traits such as somatic...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...