Biologists have used population genomics to shed light on the evolution and consequences of a selfish genetic element known as Segregation Distorter (SD). The researchers report that SD has caused dramatic changes in chromosome organization and genetic diversity.

The human genome is littered with “selfish genetic elements,” which do not seem to benefit their hosts, but instead seek only to propagate themselves...

Breakthrough could point the way towards new quantum technology. University of Chicago physicists have invented a “quantum flute” that, like the Pied Piper, can coerce particles of light to move together in a way that’s never been seen before.

Described in two studies published in Physical Review Letters and Nature Physics, the breakthrough could point the way towards realizing quantum memories or new forms of error correction in quantum computers, and observing quantum phenomena that cannot be seen in n...

Analysis offers new means to predict ‘cosmological signatures’ for models of dark matter. A team of physicists has developed a method for predicting the composition of dark matter – invisible matter detected only by its gravitational pull on ordinary matter and whose discovery has been long sought by scientists.

Its work, which appears in the journal Physical Review Letters, centers on predicting “cosmological signatures” for models of dark matter with a mass between that of the electron and the proton...

Researchers found that in mice how much they ate and when altered the nature of their gut microbiome: too much food too frequently resulted in poorer microbial and metabolic health.

An estimated 500 to 1,000 bacterial species reside in each person’s gut, perhaps numbering 100,000 trillion microorganisms...