Is synbio really cool, really scary, or both?

Challenges for synthetic biology

Can engineering approaches tame the complexity and unpredictability of living systems? An exploration of five challenges for the field and how they might be resolved.

How to prevent a worst-case scenario with synbio

Author and entrepreneur Rob Reid reviews the risks of a world where more and more people have access to the technology needed to create a doomsday bug that could wipe out humanity.

Inside the community movement behind DIY synthetic biology

Margaret Talbot spotlights the rise of DIY biology in community labs, where amateur scientists—often outside formal institutions—create everything from insulin to prosthetic prototypes. These grassroots biohackers challenge traditional science by pursuing open, accessible innovation, raising questions about credibility, ethical oversight, and acceptance by mainstream researchers.

Synthetic biology transforms cells into custom DNA foundries

At companies like Ginkgo Bioworks, researchers are reprogramming cells to act as workshops that can create custom molecules, such as medicines and fertilizers, by stitching together DNA sequences—often in novel combinations—before inserting them into an organism's genome.

Meet six commercially available synbio products

An article exploring the science behind synbio products currently on the market, and projecting the products that can be expected over the next 10 years.

Biohacking: The effort to optimize health and extend life through technology

Biohacking seeks to optimize human health and performance through everything from simple lifestyle adjustments to more radical interventions like body modifications and experimental technology. At its core, biohacking covers a wide spectrum—ranging from improving sleep and focus to implanting devices that integrate technology with the human body.

Genetic engineering will change everything forever

Designer babies, the end of diseases, genetically modified humans that never age. Outrageous things that used to be science fiction are suddenly becoming reality. As scientists increasingly understand how specific genes cause disease, the possibility of engineering our genes to not only "fix" problems but enhance our natural ability grows.

A deeper (nontechnical) dive into how CRISPR works

Extra crispy? No, it's CRISPR, but this gene-editing technology is "extra" in the sense of being momentous and destined to change everything. Through CRISPR, scientist exploit a quirk in bacteria immune systems, allowing them to potentially, and quickly, control genes, remove undesirable traits, and add preferred ones. The possibilities and applications are endless.

The secret lives of cells

Cutting-edge microscopy has revealed previously unseen interactions of biological molecules within their cellular environment, enabling scientists to observe and analyze the molecules in a holistic view. This podcast explains the minute advancements made over the last few decades in observing cells, revealing how scientists have come and what the future holds for the field.

The world's first commercial biological computer combines neurons with silicon

Australian start-up Cortical Labs unveiled CL1, a hybrid chip designed to help scientists study brain function in real-time. The 800,000 lab-grown neurons on the chip are kept viable for six months via a built-in life support system.

How epigenetics blurs the line between nature and nurture

An exploration of the study of how behaviors and environment affect the way genes work — and how that complicates the nature-versus-nurture debate.

A deep dive into how a body decomposes

Dead bodies are, understandably, scary and unsettling. Learn about the fascinating process of decomposition that takes place in every human, and how its teeming with life.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Decoding the hype around AI

2022 was the year AI broke onto the scene, with applications like ChatGPT amazing users with its ability to generate realistic-sounding answers. Technologist Arvind Narayanan presents a clear-eyed view of what the technologies can (and can't) do.

Using deep learning to analyze tumors

The explosive growth of life sciences data is driving artificial intelligence methods to gain traction in biology and medicine — including cancer research.

The science of fear

The Hidden Brain podcast team explores the science of fear by traveling to a haunted house curated by a scientist to investigate what scares us, and why some people enjoy this sensation more than others.

The debate on why humans are conscious—and what that means

Understanding what consciousness is, and why and how it evolved, is perhaps the greatest mystery known to science. Watch interviews with the world's leading experts on what it is and whether we'll ever know.

Why scientists are making robot insects

Insects have much to teach us about flying, jumping, moving quickly, and more. So, roboticists are studying how insects do the ridiculous things they do, like walk on water or jump fifty times their body height, to inform their design and engineering of a new slate of robots: tiny ones. Learn the future of this type of robot with this fascinating video with insights into both insects and robots.

Visualizing the built world compared to the natural world

In the last century, humans have covered the Earth in 1,300 metric gigatons of built material, known as technomass. That amount is more than the Earth's entire biomass at 1,100 GT, which includes all living organisms. To get a sense of the scale of this comparison, click through this striking, simple visualization showcasing the various organisms comprising biomass as well as the materials making up the technomass.

Science fiction or new technology?

Dystopian literature is no longer relegated to the page, with innovations like the Tesla Cybertruck and Meta virtual reality headsets mirroring the aesthetics of texts like "The Running Man" and "Neuromancer." In this essay, Casey Michael Henry argues that the images from these works remain while their messages have faded.

Solutions of bioluminescent bacteria can create FOMO-inducing living art

A 2002 exhibition at Montana State University-Bozeman placed the bacteria onto petri dishes that served as macroscopic pixels to create images. Once the bacteria finished eating all the food in the sealed dishes, the light slowly faded away, ending the exhibit.

GMOs sound scary, but you eat them every day

Why are GMOs bad? They aren’t. We’ve been eating them for decades with no ill effects, which makes sense, because a genetically modified organism is simply an organism, like every other organism, produces hundreds of thousands of proteins, but one or two of them are proteins that were chosen specifically by humans. Watch this 11-minute video for more.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Research studies can be conducted inside or outside of living samples

While "in vitro" experiments occur outside living organisms for cost-effectiveness, "in vivo" experiments take place inside them, providing real-life insights at a higher cost and with increased ethical concerns. Alternatively, "in silico" methods use computational simulations.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Dawkins believes cultural memes have mutated into internet memes

The world's creations fall into two categories: those that look designed but whose appearance or function came about due to random mutation and natural selection, such as birds, and those whose designs and mutations are knowingly crafted, such as airplanes.

Science communicator Bill Nye (1955 - ) on science

"Science is the key to our future, and if you don’t believe in science, then you’re holding everybody back."

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Watch how viruses like Ebola can spill over from animals to humans—and vice-versa.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

Scientists testing how climate change affects plants found, in a years-long simulation study, that poison ivy grew 70% faster with the resulting extra carbon dioxide.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.