~1940-1960 was the “Golden Age” of antibacterial drug discovery. Every major class of antibiotics was discovered in those two decades. However, since the 1960s, few drugs have been developed to target new classes of bacterial targets. Rather, new drugs since the “Golden Age” are often chemical modifications of pre-existing antibiotics. Medicinal chemists engineered those modifications to existing drugs in order [...]
You can explore, search, and save any combination of virtual human body parts with BioDigital Human, a 3D interactive program developed by BioDigital Systems. BioDigital Human is available free in beta form at http://www.biodigitalhuman.com, and can also be downloaded as a Google Chrome App.
Since the dawn of HIV epidemic in 1981, the development of an HIV vaccine to protect people from infection has been a priority for many scientists. However, there have been many challenges to developing a vaccine. For example, HIV mutates rapidly to evade immunity, and there are no recovered HIV/AIDS patients, so an immune response induced by a vaccine cannot [...]
“Curiosity”, the biggest Mars rover yet (the size of a 1-ton car) successfully launched from Florida two days ago. Before it figures out if there really is life on the red planet, it first has to land, about 8.5 months from now. Steps: 1. Descend into the thick Mars atmosphere with your aeroshell heat shield, guided by MEDLI and MARDI. [...]
In recognition of Thanksgiving, I came across a fun article in the Journal of Consumer Research, which showed how our Thanksgiving activities reflect the cultural meanings surrounding the abundance that we celebrate every fourth Thursday of November. Thanksgiving is when the family celebrates the abundance of the simple goods that we have, rather than the quality of goods we can [...]
Last year, my friends and I found that Harvard freshmen get an average of 6.5 hours of sleep per night, from a random self-reported survey sent out to the freshmen dorm lists that enlisted about 120 responders. Given that our authority figures have probably told us that we need 8 hours, it seems that we students are chronically sleep-deprived. Why [...]
In a paper published in Nature yesterday, scientists at Johns Hopkins University share their success in modifying yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), replacing parts of a yeast’s original chromosomes with synthetic fragments. This marks the first time a eukaryote with synthetic chromosomes has been successfully produced. Not only do these new yeast grow about as normally and healthily as normal yeast, but [...]
Beyond our traditional five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, some animals (like this loggerhead turtle) also have magnetoperception. Newly hatched turtles have the ability to sense the earth’s magnetic field and project internal maps to navigate across vast expanses of the sea. You can hear more about loggerhead turtles on this segment of NPR: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134175104/for-turtles-earths-magnetism-is-a-built-in-gps
We now have a robot winning Jeopardy, cars that can speak to us, and countless options for wireless communication. Since discovering the structure of DNA, we’ve sequenced several genomes, engineered genetically modified organisms for research and food, and made substantial progress in illuminating the molecular basis of many diseases. Not to mention ongoing efforts in creating alternative energy, improving cancer [...]
