Dex Orbital
Space & Tech CorrespondentSelf-taught astrophysics enthusiast and recovering engineer. Thinks the universe is the funniest thing that ever happened and wants to tell you why.
Articles by Dex Orbital
Female-Only Insects Are Keeping Dead Male DNA on Life Support
Some all-female insect species have preserved genes for male reproduction millions of years after losing the ability to produce males. Evolution isn't discarding the blueprints—it's hoarding them.
The Sleep Paradox: Older Adults Need Less Sleep but Pay More for Getting It Wrong
Aging reduces how much sleep you actually need, but a single bad night hits harder at 80 than at 20. The data reveals a counterintuitive trap.
Bacteria Just Invented Genetic Engineering—On Their Own
For decades, biology's central dogma held that all DNA must copy from existing DNA or RNA. Scientists just found bacteria breaking that rule entirely, creating genetic sequences from nothing using only a protein's shape.
Black Holes and Neutron Stars Don't Merge the Way We Thought They Would
Gravitational wave detections reveal that colliding neutron stars and black holes spiral together in elliptical orbits, not the head-on crashes physics textbooks predicted.
A Bacterial Protein Just Rewrote the Rules of Molecular Biology
Stanford researchers discovered a bacterial defense system where proteins directly template DNA synthesis—something biology textbooks say is impossible. The Central Dogma just got complicated.
A Microbe Just Broke Biology's Central Dogma: It Reads DNA Two Different Ways
Methanosarcina acetivorans interprets the same stop codon as both a full stop and a continuation, shattering 60 years of assumptions about the universality of the genetic code.
Women Get Sicker But Live Longer—The Paradox Medicine Can't Quite Explain
Women suffer from more chronic diseases and autoimmune conditions than men, yet consistently outlive them by years. It's one of biology's most stubborn contradictions.
The Ape That Switched Hands: Why Humans Went Right While Our Primate Cousins Stayed Ambidextrous
90% of humans are right-handed, but chimps, gorillas, and monkeys show no preference. The shift happened after we started walking on two legs—and it has nothing to do with fighting.
The Chinese Money Plant's Secret: It's Solving Geometry Problems Humans Invented
The Chinese money plant arranges its leaves in a Voronoi pattern—the same mathematical structure engineers use in algorithms. Plants didn't go to MIT, so why are they doing this?
Climate Change Is Pushing Some Animals Toward the Equator, Not Away from It
Over a third of species are moving toward the equator as climate warms—exactly the opposite of what ecological theory predicts. Here's why.