Whenever I listen to debates regarding the ethics and scientific value of animal experiments for medical progress, the justification tends to rely on historical rather than scientific reasoning: Because animals were used in the past, … Read more
Imagine being able to take a crystal-clear snapshot of an entire brain, recording what every single neuron was doing at a particular moment as an animal experienced fear or pleasure or any other emotion. Today, … Read more
A lack of sleep doesn’t just leave you cranky and spoiling for a fight. Researchers at The Ohio State University Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research say it also puts you at risk for stress-related inflammation. … Read more
Throughout our evolution, viruses have continually infected humans just as they do today. Some early viruses became integrated into our genome and are now known as human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs). Over millions of years, they … Read more
When Mark Martindale decided to trace the evolutionary origin of muscle cells, like the ones that form our hearts, he looked in an unlikely place: the genes of animals without hearts or muscles. In a … Read more
Patients with dementia may actually die sooner if their family caregivers are mentally stressed, according to a new UC Berkeley study. From 2007 until 2016, UC Berkeley researchers tracked the mortality of 176 patients with … Read more
People experiencing migraines often avoid light and find relief in darkness. A new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has revealed a previously unknown connection between the … Read more
Many cognitive processes, such as decision-making, take place within seconds or minutes. Neuroscientists have longed to capture neuron activity during such tasks, but that dream has remained elusive — until now. A team of MIT … Read more
When organic chemists identify a useful chemical compound — a new drug, for instance — it’s up to chemical engineers to determine how to mass-produce it. There could be 100 different sequences of reactions that … Read more
Amazing, incredible, miraculous is how one could characterize the resilient, successful and unrelenting rail enterprise that the Northwestern Pacific Railroad is. At the same time, it’s about as uncharacteristic a railroad-development story as there is. … Read more
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