“Our sense of smell seems to be the most complicated, and as such it’s the least understood. To help shed some light on the system, researchers at Rockefeller University have taken the first cryo-electron microscope images of an olfactory receptor […]
“Concrete may not seem like a particularly hospitable environment for life, but bacteria do actually live inside it. A new study led by the University of Delaware has examined this concrete microbiome to find out how they get there, how […]
Covid-19 isn’t the theme of this story, but it is one interesting observation. “Genetic scientists from the University of California Santa Cruz have learned that just 7%—or less—of our DNA is unique to the human species, with the remainder of […]
“The hardworking ones are precisely four times faster than the lazy ones. The hardworking enzymes are built with valine, the lazy enzymes with methionine.” | learn more
“Studies are starting to demonstrate how one day we might be able to check the time of this body clock through a simple blood test, and a team at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder has now put forward a […]
Shockingly interesting! “Many researchers and doctors—and broader societies—take it as a given that obesity means ill health. In fact, says Ruth Loos, who studies the genetics of obesity at the University of Copenhagen, “We can be obese but remain healthy.” […]
“As a newborn mammal opens its eyes for the first time, it can already make visual sense of the world around it. But how does this happen before they have experienced sight? A new Yale study suggests that, in a […]
This essay is from 2009 and much of this still feels novel. I guess paradigms take time to shift. Or is it gradually, then suddenly? “I present here examples of what in my mind constitute paradigm shifts and drifts in […]
“The new database of roughly 350,000 protein sequences and structures represents a potentially monumental achievement for the life sciences, one that could hasten new biological insights and the development of new drugs. DeepMind said it will be free and accessible […]
“An extraordinary new study from a team of scientists at Yale University is reporting the first direct cellular demonstration of a single psilocybin dose inducing neural plasticity in a mammalian brain.” | learn more