Archive: 2015

  Visualization of Earth’s magnetic field [Author: P. Sumanth Naik, distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license] Many animals have been known to take advantage of the Earth’s magnetic field, often for migration…

Image from 2009 Hoppenrath et al, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License Take a moment to consider the complexity of the human eye. Now, envision a single-celled organism that also contains this extremely complex and…

This is not the face of a health hazard (sorry Daily Mail)Credit: By Dion75e (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Skinny jeans have been blamed for many things, from the downfall of American men to #Bendgate, but hardly ever for medical…

The plume-like shape of these Bovine Pulmonary Artery Epithelial (BPAE) cells is characteristic of cell motility. Although cells that make up your tissues and organs are typically stationary throughout adult life, there are many reasons a cell may need…

by Mary E. Gearing  figures by Shannon McArdel 35% of the adult population is obese, a condition which puts one at a high risk for many diseases, namely heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Unfortunately, the treatments available for obesity…

U.S. Capital by Kevin McCoy. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons The funding of biomedical research, through the National Institute of Health (NIH), has been receiving bipartisan support as of late.  The Senate has put forward a bill that…

Can flies feel fear? What does that question even mean? A study finds that fruit flies perform behaviors suggestive of a fearful state in response to threats. The authors go on to establish a new language for discussing and studying emotions in…

by Katherine Wu figures by Kristen Seim We live in an increasingly wired world: with apps for every purpose imaginable, it has become easier and easier to share information and build global communities. In the wake of the recent Ebola pandemic, we have…

BPA is commonly used to make plastic bottles [HebiPics under CC0 Public Domain license]Consumer pressure – not scientific evidence – has prompted companies like Nalgene, General Mills, and Campbell’s to remove a chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) from…

by Tansu Daylan figures by Kaitlyn Choi As Philae just woke up, we examine one exciting question of the Rosetta mission: what is the origin of water on Earth? A hypothesis proposes that comets brought to our planet this molecule central to life. The…