News & Opinions

Covering the life sciences inside and out

Virus phage  λ Brian D. Wade and Alicia Pastor, Center for Advanced Microscopy, MSU

The Making of a Trait

By Megan Scudellari

Populations of organisms acquire beneficial traits repeatedly and rapidly through co-evolution with other species and through gene interaction.

FDA, Wikimedia Commons

The Breast Implant Risk

By Hannah Waters

Breast implants leaking contaminated silicone are causing a fuss in Europe, but all breast implants carry risks.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.Wikimedia Commons, Janice Haney Carr, CDC

Antimicrobial Cross-Resistance Risk

By Sabrina Richards

Bacteria that evolve resistance to antimicrobial therapies may be able to evade natural immune peptides.

Istock, sjlocke

Opinion: Occupy Science?

By Krishanu Saha and J. Benjamin Hurlbut

Biomedical research can learn from citizen science, which is grounded in strong relationships with study participants.

The Nutshell

Daily News Roundup

Ind. Senators Vote for Creationism

A committee in the Indiana state legislature OKs a bill aimed at getting creationism into public school science classes.

Chemicals Undermine Vaccines?

Perfluorinated compounds, a class of manufacturing chemicals, may be harming the immune system in a way that reduces the effectiveness of standard childhood vaccines.

Breast Implants Arrest Made

A producer of unapproved silicone breast implants is arrested by French authorities.

Caffeine Affects Estrogen Levels

Moderate caffeine intake is associated with higher estrogen levels for Asians, but lower levels for whites.

H5N1 Researcher Speaks Out

Japanese virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who led one of the recent studies on avian flu transmissibility, says that type of research is necessary.

Current Issue

January 2012

01_12_Cover_Website

Resolving Chronic Pain

The body’s own mechanism for dispersing the inflammatory reaction might lead to new treatments for chronic pain.

Animal Mind Control

Examples of parasites that manipulate the behavior of their hosts are not hard to come by, but scientists have only recently begun to understand how they induce such dramatic changes.

Top Ten Innovations 2011

Our list of the best and brightest products that 2011 had to offer the life scientist

No Mo’ Slow Flow

Tools and tricks for high-throughput flow cytometry

Multimedia

Video, Slideshows, Infographics

01162012_yeast

Multicellular Yeast

Yeast selected to settle more quickly through a test tube evolved into multicellular, snowflake-like clusters in just 2 weeks, or…

A variegated butterfly bat (Glauconycteris variegata), one of the many bats captured by bat mammalogist DeeAnn Reeder during her most recent trip to South Sudan in the fall of 2011. Courtesy of DeeAnn Reeder

Bat Hunt

For the past four years, Bucknell University mammalogist DeeAnn Reeder has been raising nets high into the darkened forest canopies of…