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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…

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…

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,…

My family lives just outside New Delhi, India, and in 2008, our garden was invaded by monkeys. The monkeys quickly made themselves at home, launching themselves off of trees into the pond with shrieks of delight and wandering into the house to help…

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…

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],…

Scientists created stem cells by treating white blood cells from newborn mice with acidic conditions!

From the weather to air travel, pressure plays a dramatic role in our lives. It plays especially important roles during chemical reactions. By manipulating pressure, chemists can force chemical reactions to occur and the transitions between solids,…

Since the discovery of DNA structure in the 1950s, the central dogma of molecular biology has been widely accepted in the scientific community. Essentially, the central dogma holds that information flows from DNA to RNA to protein (Figure 1). DNA is a…

The development of the atomic bomb during World War II brought unprecedented devastation to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, this tragedy also stimulated a wave of biomedical research aimed at both understanding the effects of…