Medicine

As HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, continues to spread globally, there is increased demand for a drug that can effectively prevent HIV infection. Even more appealing is a drug that could guard against HIV over the long term, and not require a daily…

Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs – the hot new word for concussions) often transition from minor/temporary injuries to major/long-term problems when multiple head traumas occur before the brain fully recovers. The current methods for diagnosis…

Presented by Katherine Richeson, Mary Gearing, and Abbe Clark Nutrition is currently one of the most popular science topics in mainstream media, as it is intimately tied to lifestyle, health and personal appearance. However, this popularity has led to a…

Presented by Michael Schultz, Tyler Huycke, and Ryoji Amamato Imagine a future where you can take a pill that halts the aging process, and if your organs do wear down, they can be replaced like car parts; a future where you can expect to stay healthy…

Since the beginning of the current outbreak last May, Ebola has been a near daily news story.  Most articles have focused on the public health aspect of the disease in terms of its spread throughout West Africa, attempts to contain it, and efforts to set…

Retinal pigment epithelial cells made from stem cells / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 An important milestone in the field of regenerative biology has been reached: earlier this month a Japanese patient became the first person to receive a tissue transplant derived…

More than 10 million women in the United States (almost 20% of women between the ages of 15 and 44) take birth control pills as a means of contraception []. In 2013, more than 2.9 million American women were living with breast cancer, almost 300,000…

 Let’s consider a virus like Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). If we want to study it in a lab setting, we need an animal model, that is a living entity that we can infect and observe for a certain period of time. We cannot infect humans for obvious…

Image credit: Wikipedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AClassic_roll.jpg A study published last month suggests that the potential value of cinnamon may go far beyond tickling our taste buds. The research group reports that cinnamon was…

Presented by Yuly Fuentes-Medel Model organism systems amenable to genetic manipulation have made seminal contributions to many aspects of modern science. These organisms with small brains have inspired the discoveries of big ideas in such complex…