In the evolutionary history of life, the ability of a cell to separate its inner world from the external environment was an important turning point. The so-called plasma membrane lets cells control ...

It's tiny and needy, but is it alive? That's a question prompted by recent research that highlights a surprisingly complex part of biology. The organism in question is a microbe called Sukunaarchaeum ...

Life’s fundamental structure is the cell, and so the main things that a cell does — processing biomolecules, growing, replicating its genetic material and producing a new body — are considered ...