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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,…

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…

The Potential of Nanotechnology for Diabetes Management

Diabetes is a growing worldwide issue. In the United States alone, there are 25.8 million affected patients []. The annual cost of medical treatment (e.g. management and monitoring) and indirect expenses (such as disability and unemployment benefits) are…

Gut Microbes and the Origin of Species

The basis for the origin of new species is thought to be well-known: new species emerge when two or more subpopulations of (what was formerly) the same species become sufficiently dissimilar in their genetic makeup that they can no longer breed with each…

Prions: Friend or foe?

In 1996, the British government announced that ten suspected cases of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (CJD), a degenerative brain disorder, were caused by the consumption of beef products that harbor mad cow disease [1]. This news not only prompted the EU and…

Mommy 1 and Mommy 2: Could science end the age of Mom and Dad?

Whether we realize it or not, humans, like all organisms, are genetically programmed to reproduce, but today we have many more reproductive choices than our ancestors. Birth control, for example, prevents procreation by those who might otherwise have…

One Man on Mars: An interview with Dr. Andrew Knoll

Harvard University Professor Dr. Andrew Knoll speaks on the scientific intrigue of Mars, his involvement with the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, and the future of Mars investigation Mars. The Red Planet, the fourth from our sun. Named after the…

Can Humans Play Red Rover?

Image credit: NASA Manned missions to Mars have captured the public imagination since the first sci-fi novels in the late 1800s allowed people to imagine what it might be like to explore the Red planet. But it is only in the past few years that such an…