theSIGNAL SCIENCE
2 July 2026
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."
NEWSBUSINESSTECHNOLOGYWORLDSCIENCECULTUREENVIRONMENTSPORT
Science

Tiny blobs learn to grow, divide, and compete

A team in Minnesota has built synthetic cells from scratch that complete the full cycle of life — and the results are delightfully, unsettlingly alive.

Picture a blob of liquid, no wider than a few thousandths of a millimetre, quivering in a dish. It feeds. It grows. It splits in two.

It was never born — it was built. This is SpudCell, and it may be the closest thing to artificial life that science has ever produced. Dr Kate Adamala and her team at the University of Minnesota assembled these synthetic cells entirely from chemical components, starting with tiny water-filled spheres called liposomes and adding lab-made DNA. What makes SpudCells remarkable is not just what they are — it is what they do.

They are believed to be the first fully synthetic cells to complete the entire cell cycle: growth, genetic replication, and division into the next generation.

Photo: Logan Gutierrez / Unsplash
A SpudCell assembled from non-living chemical components undergoes division in a laboratory dish.
Discuss
  • What is the difference between something that behaves like life and something that actually is alive?
  • Should scientists be allowed to create entirely new forms of synthetic life from scratch?
  • How might SpudCells be used to manufacture medicines or fuels in the future?
  • Dr Adamala built her cells 'from the bottom up' — why does that matter more than modifying existing cells?
  • If a synthetic cell can evolve and compete, does it deserve any moral consideration?
Science

A Camera That Never Blinks

On a Chilean mountaintop, a telescope has just opened its eyes — and it plans to keep them open for ten years straight. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has officially begun its Legacy Survey of Space and Time, mapping billions of galaxies, tracking vanishing stars, and hunting for clues about dark matter and dark energy. …
  • Should one telescope survey dominate global astronomy funding for a decade?
∞
It is proof of principle that molecules can reconstitute behaviours that up until now we only associated with natural living cells.
Dr Kate Adamala, lead researcher, University of Minnesota
Science

Ancient Americans ate only the giants

Here is a strange number: 85%. That is roughly how much of the diet of the earliest Americans came from enormous creatures — mammoths, gomphotheres, giant ground sloths — according to a new study in *Science Advances*. Archaeologist Ben Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks led an international team across 50 sites, from the Yukon to Patagonia. …
  • Did early humans cause megafauna extinction, or did climate change do it?
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theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
proof of principlereconstitute
inert chemistrynatural selectiontorrent
outcompetedspecialists
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Gerunds and infinitives — complex patterns (stop to do vs stop doing)
Some verbs change meaning depending on whether they are followed by a gerund or an infinitive — for example, 'stop doing' means to quit an activity, while 'stop to do' means to pause in order to do something else. Verbs like remember, try, forget, regret, and go on follow similar patterns.
to consider · competing · dividing · to map · replicating · to ask · growing
  1. When SpudCells were given a genetic advantage, they never stopped with the others for space and resources in the dish.
  2. Adamala's team went on synthetic cells from entirely chemical components, pushing the boundary of what we call life.
  3. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has stopped the night sky and has finally begun its ten-year survey.
  4. Scientists remember billions of galaxies across the southern sky as one of the core goals of the Rubin mission.
  5. After SpudCells fused with feeder liposomes, they went on until they were large enough to split into the next generation.
  6. The research team stopped whether 85% reliance on megafauna was truly universal across all fifty sites.
  7. SpudCells try their DNA before division, though the process is not yet as reliable as in natural cells.
3COLLOCATIONS
Match the verb on the left with the noun phrase it best collocates with on the right.
  1. complete
  2. outcompete
  3. map
  4. cross
  5. raise
  6. carry
4CRITICAL THINKING
The earliest Americans apparently specialised in hunting the very largest animals, yet those animals eventually disappeared. Given what SpudCell research reveals about competition and natural selection among even artificial organisms, what does this pattern suggest about the long-term consequences of any species — including humans — dominating an ecosystem so completely?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
The Rubin Observatory and SpudCell research both depend on vast international collaborations — consider what these projects reveal about whether science today can still be driven by a single brilliant individual, or whether that era is permanently over.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • useful→→
  • moving→→
  • different→→
  • large→→
  • eat→→
  • small→→
  • understanding→→
8SPEAKING
  1. What would replacing natural cells with synthetic ones mean for medicine?
  2. Which discovery from these articles worries you most, and why?
  3. How might megafauna extinction have changed human cultural development permanently?
  4. Could a telescope survey ever reveal something humanity is unprepared for?
  5. When specialist hunters lose their prey, what survival strategies typically emerge?