News

Relationships based on “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” are everywhere in the biological world. The recently established Center for the Origin of Life (COOL) will harness these mutualisms to…

Conventional wisdom says complex structures should be harder to assemble than simple ones. Their assembly requires more information and presents more opportunities to make mistakes. But in nature, complex assemblies and higher error rates do not…

The American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) has elected 109 new fellows in 2019. Among them…

Here's a science enigma: Try to explain where the neat, even DNA/RNA helix came from. That actually might be easy. The helix probably spun around itself with complete ease long before first life evolved, as this possible RNA precursor did in…

The fish killer and the fish live in perfect harmony: But how the clownfish thrives in the venomous tentacles of the anemone remains a mystery. A new study tackles the iconic conundrum from the microbial side by watching bacterial colonies shift…

Humans will soon embark on a detailed characterization of habitable planets beyond the solar system. Space-based telescopes probing the atmospheres of small planets around nearby stars will shortly be joined by ground-based observatories. What…

Do genes fire off signals to cause some behaviors? Science is getting closer to finding out. Researchers were able to directly match gene regulation with ritual mating behavior in fish. Their research field may give some insight into autism…

Methane clathrates, crystalline lockers for natural gas deposits deep under Earth's oceans, may also exist on icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter. An interdisciplinary team of Georgia Tech College of Sciences researchers will look into possible…

This experiment had a good chance of crashing. Instead, it delivered whopping evidence to collaborate the earliest evolution of the translational system, the mechanisms which make life out of our genes. The study swapped out all its…

How natural can the seawater in a large inland aquarium be? New study at Georgia Aquarium gives scientists a good sign

Researchers with mammal tail simulator

A new study shows how animals use their tails to keep mosquitoes at bay by combining a swish that blows away most of the biting bugs and a swat that kills the ones that get through.

Optical tweezers are one of two inventions that won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Work from the Center for Chemical Evolution suggests a mechanism by which organic compounds and silica, found in sand, could have produced long peptides in prebiotic Earth.

Data science researchers at Georgia Tech are partnering with minority-serving Atlanta colleges to train a diverse workforce for the data-driven future.

Will Ratcliff and Peter Yunker at Highland Bakery

When Will Ratcliff and Peter Yunker first met for coffee they had no idea they would eventually collaborate on research that would be published in Nature Communications and Nature Physics. 

Jenny McGuire, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences, has a tough commute to her summer research site: an 80-foot drop into a deep, dark Wyoming cave. McGuire studies fossils…

Using a mathematical model, Georgia Tech biomathematician Howard “Howie” Weiss and Stockholm University microbiologist Klas Udekwu open a potential path to slowing microbial resistance to current antibiotics.

Using a mathematical…

Ants digging tunnels in simulated soil

For ants and robots operating in confined spaces like tunnels, having more workers does not necessarily mean getting more work done. Just as too many cooks in a kitchen get in each other’s way, having too many robots in tunnels creates clogs that…