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Archive: 2013

Pandoraviruses: Relics of a hidden domain of life?

Since the first discovery of virus by Martinus Beijerinck in 1898, viruses have been classified in a number of different ways. First, viruses were considered a poison, then a life-form, next demoted to classification as a biological chemical, and finally…

Be the Change You Wish to See in Your Genes

In today’s busy world, it can be hard to find time to exercise. Various factors, such as sedentary jobs and the presence of TV and video games at home, can contribute to inactivity in adults and kids alike. Both fitness experts and medical professionals…

Earth Formation: The making of planet earth

Presented by Katherine Rosenfeld, Laura Schaefer, Anjali Tripathi For millennia, our understanding of Earth came from our own experiences on the planet. Today, with the ability to observe other planets in the Solar System and planets around other stars,…

Cerebral Organoids: A tool to study human brain development

It has long been a goal of the scientific community to understand the mysteries of how the human brain develops from just a few cells into an organ capable of coordinating conscious thought. Slowly but surely, scientists are illuminating this black box…

Brains in a Dish Establish New Tool for Developmental Neuroscience

Researchers studying neural development are plagued with an ever-present difficulty: how does one study the developing human brain without using invasive methods or being restricted to post-mortem tissue? Due to the complexity of human brain development,…

Antibiotic Resistance – Super Drugs for Superbugs

Presented by Amy Rohlfing, Marina Santiago, and John Santa Maria Many of us have heard of “superbugs” from the media – deadly bacteria gone wild, that are no longer responsive to antibiotic treatments. Our lecture will begin with Amy’s…

1001 Bites: The road to a successful malaria vaccine

The public health world has been abuzz recently with the results of the Phase I clinical trial of a malaria vaccine that proved 100% effective in protecting vaccinated people against Plasmodium falciparum infection when they were bitten by infected…