A sweeping analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years shows the usual rules of body size evolution change during mass extinctions and their recoveries. The discovery is an early step toward predicting how evolution will play out on the other side of the current extinction crisis.
A new Stanford University study shows rising oxygen levels may explain why global extinction rates slowed down over the past 541 million years. Below 40 percent of present atmospheric oxygen, ocean dead zones rapidly expand, and extinctions ramp up.
Three researchers join 21 other Stanford faculty as Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators. The seven-year term frees faculty to pursue the most innovative biomedical research.
A new study offers up a more realistic modeling of the rise and fall of fads as culture evolves and is transmitted to new generations, including an examination of the role “influencers” play in shaping what’s popular.
Bioengineers have repurposed a “non-working” CRISPR system to make a smaller version of the genome engineering tool. Its diminutive size should make it easier to deliver into human cells, tissues and the body for gene therapy.
Stanford researchers develop machine learning methods that accurately predict the 3D shapes of drug targets and other important biological molecules, even when only limited data is available.
Stanford Associate Professor Paula Welander and her student Marisa Mayer discuss how microscopic traces of early life – called microbial lipid biomarkers – could help demystify the origins of life and life beyond Earth.
Stanford researchers have shown how the goopy material inside bacterial cells and interactions with other biomolecules encourage DNA segments to fold up to a thousandth of their actual length.
