Senior writer Tina Hesman Saey is a geneticist-turned-science writer who covers all things microscopic and a few too big to be viewed under a microscope. She is an honors graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she did research on tobacco plants and ethanol-producing bacteria. She spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, studying microbiology and traveling. Her work on how yeast turn on and off one gene earned her a Ph.D. in molecular genetics at Washington University in St. Louis. Tina then rounded out her degree collection with a master’s in science journalism from Boston University. She interned at the Dallas Morning News and Science News before returning to St. Louis to cover biotechnology, genetics and medical science for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. After a seven year stint as a newspaper reporter, she returned to Science News. Her work has been honored by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the Endocrine Society, the Genetics Society of America and by journalism organizations.
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All Stories by Tina Hesman Saey
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Life
Epic Genetics
The way genes are packaged by "epigenetic" changes may play a major role in the risk of addiction, depression and other mental disorders.
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Health & Medicine
Leaving a mark
Child abuse may leave chemical marks on the brains of people who later kill themselves.
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Life
DNA tweak no good for diabetics
A genetic variation that increases levels of a blood-building protein also ups the risk of developing complications from diabetes.
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A moment on the lips …
Adults may be stuck with the fat they have. A study suggests the number of fat cells doesn't change with weight gain or loss.
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Life
Bring out your dead cells
A protein called Six-Microns-Under turns certain fruit fly brain cells into undertakers to clear away dead neighbors.
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Health & Medicine
Friend or foe? Drunk, the brain can’t tell
Intoxicated brains can’t discern between threatening and safe situations.
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Health & Medicine
Let there be light
Researchers report restoring vision to people with a rare, genetic form of blindness. A different technique helped blind mice see again and could bring back some sight in people with macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa or other blinding diseases.
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Health & Medicine
Asperger’s syndrome may not lead to lack of empathy
People with high-functioning autism respond to others' pain, two studies show.
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Life
Rest in peace nanobacteria, you were not alive after all
New studies bid a fond farewell to nanobacteria -- the extremely tiny “microorganisms” that have sparked controversy and may cause disease.
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Health & Medicine
Body and Brain: Possible link between inflammation and bipolar disorder
Inflammatory genes create a signature for bipolar disorder in some people.