A cell can act in astonishingly complex ways. It must decide for itself whether to grow and multiply, rest, specialize, age ...

The planarian is nobody's idea of a genius. A flatworm shaped like a comma, it can be found wriggling through the muck of lakes and ponds worldwide. Its pin-size head has a microscopic structure that ...

Studying the process of brain formation illuminates just how much of development is a series of tiny miracles. Only a few weeks after a human egg is fertilized, a sheet of cells called the neural ...

Want more bioengineering stories? Email us at [email protected]. Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

It has long been understood that groups of cells can perform complex tasks, such as navigating mazes or strategically ...