Biologists often encounter mind-bending expansion in complexity the closer they look into the details. Notable examples include the length of DNA strands in each human cell (2-3 meters per cell,…
Continue ReadingAs many young academics very well know, science can bum you out. Experiments fail, equipment breaks, and funding opportunities are few and far between. Even when experiments run smoothly, the…
Continue ReadingImagine a pathogen that makes its host more sexually active. It may not kill its host right away. It may not kill its host at all. It is easy to…
Continue ReadingScientists thrive on “aha” moments— breakthroughs in knowledge that come from careful planning or perhaps fortuitous luck. For a team of researchers led by Josh Lawrimore, a fourth-year graduate student…
Continue ReadingValentine’s Day is today and it’s incredibly common to see public places decorated with paper hearts and store shelves packed with heart-shaped candy. Hearts are a universal representation of love, but…
Continue ReadingRecently, I read an article in The Atlantic by Ed Yong, an experienced science writer whom I admire. In this article, Mr. Yong describes a study commissioned by the Wellcome…
Continue ReadingMost readers are probably familiar with some of the implications of climate change: sea level rise; more frequent extreme weather events; habitat loss for arctic species. Other implications are equally…
Continue ReadingRecently featured in Science, Valentino Gantz and Ethan Bier have developed a novel genome editing method that subverts traditional heritability. Termed the mutagenic chain reaction, this process can insert new…
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