Life in all of its complexity

What’s Happening

Real talk: Editor in Chief Nancy Shute talks about life’s complexities, from its evolution on Earth as a single cell to complex human behavior.

Editors Note Life in all of its complexity By Nancy Shute Editor in Chief 13 hours ago this: via email (Opens in new window) Email Click to on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Click to on X (Opens in new window) X Click to print (Opens in new window) Print The other day I walked along the bank of the Potomac River upstream of Washington, D. The trees had shed most of their leaves, but they were vehemently alive. (let that sink in)

A giant sycamore, easily 4 meters in diameter, had sprouted new shoots from its base.

The Details

A hickory that took an L its top to a windstorm had produced nuts. The lone remaining leaf on an oak tree rattled in the breeze, as if refusing to succumb to winter.

It’s hard for me to grasp that this forest, and much of the life that blankets our planet (including me), probably arose from a single-celled microbe that developed a unique ability to evolve. For the last decade, researchers have been studying the Asgard archaea , microbes first identified in deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Arctic.

Why This Matters

For our We summarize the week’s scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. Scientists have since found out them in multiple sites around the world, and are trying to reconstruct the backstory of how they could have given rise to the first complex cells on Earth. The existence of Asgard archaea also raises questions about how likely it is for similarly advanced life-forms to evolve on planets beyond our solar system.

The scientific community tends to find developments like this significant.

Key Takeaways

• That’s a lot of big questions sparked we can’t see without a microscope.
• Also in this issue, we explore the science of two human behaviors: gambling and drinking.
• Dry January is upon us, and it’s part of a long trend, with American adults consuming less alcohol now than they have in almost 90 years.
• Alcohol poses health risks, social sciences writer Sujata Gupta notes, but history suggests that it may have long provided social benefits.

The Bottom Line

Dry January is upon us, and it’s part of a long trend, with American adults consuming less alcohol now than they have in almost 90 years. Alcohol poses health risks, social sciences writer Sujata Gupta notes, but history suggests that it may have long provided social benefits.

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