Bob Holmes
‘Like turning a golf ball into string’: Making meat substitutes is not easy
If you’re an environmentally aware meat-eater, you probably carry at least a little guilt to the dinner table. The meat ...
Why do some animals live extraordinarily long lives — and can humans benefit from studying them?
Life, for most of us, ends far too soon — hence the effort by biomedical researchers to find ways to ...
Why SARS disappeared in 2003 while the coronavirus keeps on spreading
The unusual cases of pneumonia began to appear in midwinter, in China. The cause, researchers would later learn, was a ...
Using ‘genomic breadcrumbs’ to track the coronavirus—and predict how to cope with it
Rapid sequencing of viral genomes can help public health officials figure out the origins, spread and nature of quickly moving ...
Exercise Rx: Physical activity is ‘personal regenerative medicine’ and ‘acts like pharmaceutical drugs’
As researchers learn more about how exercise fights chronic ills like heart disease and diabetes, doctors may soon be able ...
How our bodies protect cancer and why this could be key to better chemotherapy treatments
Tumors resist chemotherapy with help from a surprising source: nearby normal cells. Researchers are developing workarounds ...
Long-term partnership or quickie hookup: Can evolution explain why a woman chooses one over the other?
For women, a short-term fling may involve a quest for good genes or just a good time. It’s a puzzle ...
Sour or sweet? Your genes guide your food preferences
Every one of us, I learned through my preliminary research for Flavor: The Science of Our Most Neglected Sense, probably ...
‘Resurrected gene’ offers glimpse into Earth’s evolutionary past
A resurrected gene, brought back from the dead in the lab, is allowing molecular biologists to travel billions of years ...
Building synthetic life: Yeast experiments pave way for new drugs, treatments
The team that built the first synthetic yeast chromosome [in 2014] has now added five more chromosomes, totaling roughly a ...
Bonobos’ tool use mirrors that of early humans
Bonobos can be just as handy as chimpanzees. In fact, bonobos' tool-using abilities look a lot like those of early humans, ...
Were women the masterminds behind hunting with weapons?
Women could have been the first humans to use weapons to hunt. An analysis of spear-wielding chimps, most of which ...
