Marine biology

Comb jellies are helping answer fundamental questions in biology, from how the earliest nervous systems evolved to how bioluminescence works.

The mystery of the flipping foraminifera may conceal a rarely observed evolutionary process playing out across the planet.

New research is helping biologists understand how an overlooked aspect of coral physiology may affect their fate under climate change.

Extremophiles that thrive in the most unforgiving environments aren’t just biological curiosities. Understanding their resilience has many implications for us.

Off the coast of Japan, biologists netted a pea-size jellyfish with an unusual circadian clock — a chance finding that suggests there are likely more overlooked biological timekeeping mechanisms to be discovered.

A decade ago, Karen Lloyd discovered single-celled microbes living beneath the seafloor. Now she studies how they can survive in Earth’s crust, possibly for hundreds or thousands of years, and push life’s limits of time and energy.

Manu Prakash works on the world’s most urgent problems and seemingly frivolous questions at the same time. They add up to a philosophy he calls “recreational biology.”

Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the lowest light levels ever observed in nature.

At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient essential for life. The pair are in the process of merging into a single organism.