Asking a biologist to define 'life' is a bit like looking-up the word 'definition' in a dictionary — it's as if you're questioning their very existence. Biologists like myself don't agree on what life ...

Scientists have debated the definition of life for decades, but they still lack a consensus on the answer. Experts believe that "edge cases" make life difficult to define and blur boundaries across ...

Definitions of "life" are a dime a dozen. In a paper published back in 2011, University of Haifa biophysicist Edward Trifonov documented 123 of them. But which one is best? Trifonov decided to seek ...

I watch Rufus, a friend’s dog, chew enthusiastically on a rubber bone. I know the dog is alive, and his toy is not. I know that intuitively. But can I prove it scientifically? Can science parse the ...

The CRISPR entry notes both its original function, as an immune defense in bacteria and archaea, and its recent adoption as a gene editing tool. The latter part of the definition raised eyebrows for ...