Archive: Oct 2011

-- Are there other planets like Earth out there? Could they be places that future generations could eventually live? Is our Solar System somehow special? Current research on exoplanets – planets orbiting stars other than our own – aims to answer these…

-- As reported in a recent issue of the Flash, in the 1990s scientists found they could extend lifespan in yeast and roundworms through caloric restriction, providing the bare minimum set of nutrients necessary for survival. Other groups extended these…

-- On a Monday morning, as he was sorting through Petri dishes of Staphylococci he had left on his laboratory bench before going on vacation, Dr. Alexander Fleming noticed one that had become contaminated with mold. Fungal contamination was not…

-- Every organism is an incredibly complex machine whose biological processes benefit from 3.6 billion years of refinement through natural selection. Thus, it should not be surprising that designing biological systems is still difficult for scientists…