Archive: 2014

Bacterial Genes Reveal Course of Infection

Figure 1 ~ Bacteria infecting your body continue to evolve as they reproduce. [Image credit: CDC/ Judith Noble-Wang, Ph.D. http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/details.asp?pid=8669]              Like most of the trillions of bacteria that surround us, growing on…

Putting Your DNA to the Test: How much of what it says is true?

Who am I? This is a fundamental question that philosophers and anthropologists have been trying to answer for generations. With the discovery of DNA and the development of technologies to investigate genetic information, people have begun to probe the…

Zebrafish embryo

Close-up of a live ~5 hour-old zebrafish embryo. Individual cells are distinguishable, as well as nuclei, visible as circles within each cell. At this developmental stage, cells are actively moving and dividing, and their fates have not yet been…

Zebrafish embryo development

After only 24 hours of development, this live zebrafish embryo already has eyes, muscles, blood, and many other tissue types. See this Flash article for more info on zebrafish: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2012/issue120/

Zebrafish embryo cells

Cells in a ~5 hour-old zebrafish embryo. The cell membranes are labeled in red. The green dots are clumps of a signaling protein called FGF8 that has been fused to a green fluorescent protein. See this Flash article for more info on zebrafish:…

Crochet nucleosome

DNA doesn’t just float freely inside a cell; in eukaryotes, it is organized into successively more complicated structures to form chromatin. Nucleosomes are the most fundamental unit of DNA packaging in eukaryotes. They’re composed of an…

Intelligence Inspired by Nature

Have you ever wondered what inspires the creation of new products like Velcro, or paint that remains dirt-free [1]? Peeking into the secrets of nature has inspired countless technological applications such as these. Responsive, adaptive, and functional,…

Can computer simulations help design new vaccines?

Vaccines teach your immune system to recognize and destroy certain pathogens. Unfortunately, it can be tricky to get your immune system to recognize and mount attacks against some pathogens, like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Researchers recently…

Extreme Dieting, Gut Microbe Edition

Researchers from Harvard University and the University of California, San Francisco have found that going on a diet may be easier for your gut microbes to adjust to than it is for you. Their latest study, published in Nature in December 2013 [1],…