Cell walls are a crucial structure of plant life, protecting cells from damage, giving plants shape, and containing energy-rich nutrients. And yet the process of how the walls begin to form remains ...

Lipids, or fats, are essential to life. They form the membranes around cells, protecting them from the outside. In nature, there is an enormous diversity of lipids, with each organism having its own ...

The cytoskeleton of the mammalian cell is one of its key determining components. It not only provides structural resilience by regulating the cell’s mechanical properties and by supporting the cell ...

Life and death are traditionally viewed as opposites. But the emergence of new multicellular life-forms from the cells of a dead organism introduces a “third state” that lies beyond the traditional ...

Long known as a messenger within cells, RNA is increasingly seen as life’s molecular communication system — even between organisms widely separated by evolution. For a molecule of RNA, the world is a ...

Billions of years of evolution have made modern cells incredibly complex. Inside cells are small compartments called organelles that perform specific functions essential for the cell’s survival and ...