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Mighty Mitochondria and Neurodegenerative Diseases

-- While sitting in your elementary school classroom or making some amorphous jelly mold studded with jelly beans, you may have heard the phrase “mighty mitochondria” from your studies on the cell structures. More than just a catchy alliteration, this…

Are We Alone? - How astronomers hope to find life in the Universe

-- For the first time, recent advances in technology and space exploration have made the prospect of detecting evidence for life outside of our Solar System a foreseeable possibility. The pursuit of this evidence and the desire to learn more about the…

Scaly Skin, Drippy Nose, Wheezy Breathing: Coincidence or Connection?

-- Itchy, watery eyes, and a drippy nose. Constricted, swollen airways secreting thick mucus. Itchy, red, dry, cracked skin. These symptoms describe three conditions — allergies, asthma, and eczema, respectively — that are commonly found together in the…

A conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Barron

Dr. Elizabeth Barron holds a joint appointment as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and in the Program on Science, Technology & Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.…

Metagenomics: Exploring the depths of the microbial world

Adapted from image by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center The World is Full of Bacteria There are over a billion microbes in just one liter of ocean water [1]. The same goes for a liter of soil. As the human population reaches 7 billion individuals…

Biodiversity and human health

Over 250 million years ago, cataclysmic volcanic activity wiped out nearly all life on earth. 65 million years ago, a meteor impact in the Yucatán drove the dinosaurs to extinction. In the past 540 million years of earth’s history, paleontologists have…

Alien invasion! Ecological and societal impacts of invasive species

A worker fire ant is steadily traversing the landscape looking for a good meal to take back to the nest. Suddenly, it finds a lizard basking in the sun lying directly in its path. Undaunted, the ant goes back to the nearest foraging trail and recruits…

The importance of being biodiverse

“An inordinate fondness for beetles” is what the celebrated biologist J.B.S. Haldane apocryphally quipped when asked his opinion of God. purchasing levitra Beetles comprise just under a third of the 1.2 million species described so far [], and a recent…

Obesity, Inflammation and Diabetes

-- In 1985, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) began tracking the prevalence of obesity in the United States. Since then, a clear trend has emerged: obesity is on the rise... If you’re wondering why the CDC is tracking obesity, it’s because those…