Life
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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
How to see sea turtles — without bothering them
Sea turtles come out of the water to lay eggs on beaches. It’s a great time to see the reptiles — if you know what you are doing.
- Animals
These fish would rather walk
Slowpokes of the sea, frogfish and handfish creep along the ocean bottom.
By Susan Milius - Genetics
Benyam Kinde: Gene expression and Rett syndrome
M.D.-Ph.D. student Benyam Kinde studies how genetic changes affect brain cells’ activity in Rett syndrome.
- Health & Medicine
Isaac Kinde: Finding cancer via altered genes
Isaac Kinde helped create a technology that can spot cancers early to give patients a better chance at survival.
- Neuroscience
Priya Rajasethupathy: Memories mark DNA
Neuroscientist Priya Rajasethupathy has discovered a tiny molecule that may turn off part of the genome to help the brain store long-term memories.
By Erin Wayman - Neuroscience
Steve Ramirez: Erasing fear memories
Neuroscientist Steve Ramirez is manipulating memories in mice to one day erase fearful memories of PTSD.
- Neuroscience
Yasser Roudi: Creating maps in the brain
Physicist Yasser Roudi does the math on how the brain and other complex systems process information.
By Susan Gaidos - Life
Gia Voeltz: Redrawing the cell’s floor plan
Cell biologist Gia Voeltz has changed our view of the endoplasmic reticulum.
By Meghan Rosen - Genetics
Feng Zhang: Editing DNA
Scientist Feng Zhang has developed a system to easily and precisely edit genomes.
By Susan Gaidos - Animals
Blue-footed boobies dirty their eggs to hide them from predators
Blue-footed boobies lay bright white eggs on the ground. Dirtying the eggs camouflages them against gulls, a new study finds.
- Life
Old stem cell barriers fade away
Barrier that keeps aging factors out of stem cells breaks down with age.
- Health & Medicine
In 1965, hopes were high for artificial hearts
Developing artificial hearts took longer than expected, and improved devices are still under investigation.