Bhupendra Singh Chundawat Inside a cell, death often occurs like the wave at a baseball game. What starts with two hands flung skyward prompts another, and another, until the wave has rippled far and wide across the whole stadium. This kind of a rolling surge, spurred by the activity of one or a few things, is known as … Read more
All humans begin life as a single cell that divides repeatedly to form two, then four, then eight cells, all the way up to the ~26 billion cells that make up a newborn. Tracing how and when those 26 billion cells arise from one zygote is the grand challenge of developmental biology, a field that … Read more
Many patients with neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety or depression experience negative moods that lead them to focus on the possible downside of a given situation more than the potential benefit. MIT neuroscientists have now pinpointed a brain region that can generate this type of pessimistic mood. In tests in animals, they showed that stimulating … Read more
Uncovering the expansion processes of human habitats in the past is of great importance for understanding the origins and establishment of present-day populations and the acquisition of genetic characteristics of individuals as well as for investigating mechanisms of resistance against diseases and pathogens. Previous genetic/genomic studies aimed to uncover the expansion processes using present-day human … Read more
A new study led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History looks at the genes behind an incredible, luminous seasonal mating display produced by swarms of bioluminescent marine Bermuda fireworms. The new research, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, confirms that the enzymes responsible for the fireworms’ glow are unique among bioluminescent … Read more
The latest development in textiles and fibers is a kind of soft hardware that you can wear: cloth that has electronic devices built right into it. Researchers at MIT have now embedded high speed optoelectronic semiconductor devices, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and diode photodetectors, within fibers that were then woven at Inman Mills, in South … Read more
The Earth has been through a lot of changes in its 4.5 billion year history, including a shift to start incorporating and retaining volatile compounds from the atmosphere in the mantle before spewing them out again through volcanic eruptions. This transport could not have begun much before 2.5 billion years ago, according to new research … Read more
