Christen Brownlee
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All Stories by Christen Brownlee
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Health & Medicine
Inner-brain electrode may curb depression
Deep-brain electrical stimulation has shown promise in treating severe depression.
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Master gene found for insect smell
A single gene may oversee the sense of smell in a variety of insect species.
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Cytoplasm affects embryonic development
The DNA in a fertilized egg's mitochondria may play a pivotal role in the organism's growth.
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Healing secret lies in blood
An unknown factor in blood may be the key to why young people and animals heal much faster than old ones do.
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Hearing Repaired: Gene therapy restores guinea pigs’ hearing
By turning on a gene that's normally active only during embryonic development, researchers have restored hearing in deaf guinea pigs.
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Humans
Lean Times: Proposed budget keeps science spending slim
After accounting for inflation, President Bush's proposed research-and-development budget for fiscal year 2006 is down 1.4 percent from FY 2005, a figure that has many science agencies tightening their belts.
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A Bug’s Life: E. coli can’t escape old age
Bacteria that divide symmetrically, once thought to be functionally immortal, may age and die just like other organisms do.
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Tech
Detecting life on Mars
A new device could look for life on Mars by analyzing the geometric traits of amino acids in soil.
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Drugs lengthen worm’s life span
A class of antiseizure drugs significantly extends the life span of roundworms, a finding that could lead to better understanding of factors that influence aging in people.
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Giardia Bares All: Parasite genes reveal long sexual history
Sexual reproduction started billions of years ago, as soon as life forms that have nuclei and organelles within their cells branched off from their structurally simpler ancestors.
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Tech
Matrix Realized
Devices called brain-computer interfaces could give paralyzed patients the ability to flex mechanical limbs, steer a motorized wheelchair, or operate robots through sheer brainpower.