John Travis

All Stories by John Travis

  1. Visionary Research

    Scientists are debating why primates evolved full color vision and whether that development led to a reduced sense of smell.

  2. Letting the Dog Genome Out: Poodle DNA compared with that of mice, people

    Biologists have deciphered the DNA sequence of a poodle, an accomplishment that may help researchers study more than 300 human diseases that also affect dogs.

  3. Estrogen Shock: Mollusk gene rewrites history of sex hormone

    Estrogen and similar hormones evolved much earlier than thought.

  4. The Body Electric

    An electric field inside an embryo may tell it whether to place an internal organ on its left or right side.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Paper Chased: Cancer-vaccine study is retracted

    Researchers in Germany have retracted a paper that reported promising results for a vaccine that elicited immune responses against cancer cells.

  6. A New Shot at Fighting Obesity

    In another sign that people in the United States are losing the battle of the bulging waistlines, the New York Times recently ran a front-page story on the legion of people resorting to drastic obesity-fighting operations such as gastric bypass surgery. “Doctors and hospitals across the country are scrambling to satisfy the booming demand for […]

  7. The Naked Truth? Lice hint at a recent origin of clothing

    A study of genetic differences among human lice hints at the origin of clothing.

  8. Did cavefish trade eyes for good taste?

    Certain blind cave-dwelling fish in Mexico may have developed more taste buds and bigger jaws as they lost their eyes.

  9. Livers: Better late than never

    Drawing on an ancient Greek myth, researchers have given the name prometheus to a mutant strain of zebrafish that appear to have no liver early in their lives.

  10. Probing Ocean Depths: Photosynthetic bacteria bare their DNA

    Scientists have deciphered the DNA of two highly abundant, photosynthetic ocean bacteria.

  11. Winning Bet: Horse and mule clones cross the finish line

    Scientists have for the first time cloned a mule and a horse.

  12. Untangling the Brain: Enzyme counters Alzheimer’s-like snarls

    The enzyme Pin1 prevents brain cells from developing harmful protein deposits called tangles.