Close-up of a live ~5 hour-old zebrafish embryo. Individual cells are distinguishable, as well as nuclei, visible as circles within each cell. At this developmental stage, cells are actively moving and dividing, and their fates have not yet been specified. Cells are roughly 10 microns in diameter. See this Flash article for more info on zebrafish: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2012/issue120/ Continue reading Zebrafish embryo
After only 24 hours of development, this live zebrafish embryo already has eyes, muscles, blood, and many other tissue types. See this Flash article for more info on zebrafish: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2012/issue120/ Continue reading Zebrafish embryo development
Cells in a ~5 hour-old zebrafish embryo. The cell membranes are labeled in red. The green dots are clumps of a signaling protein called FGF8 that has been fused to a green fluorescent protein. See this Flash article for more info on zebrafish: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2012/issue120/ Continue reading Zebrafish embryo cells
DNA doesn’t just float freely inside a cell; in eukaryotes, it is organized into successively more complicated structures to form chromatin. Nucleosomes are the most fundamental unit of DNA packaging in eukaryotes. They’re composed of an octamer of histone proteins (purple), about 150 base pairs of DNA (gold), and additional factors not shown here (such as the histone protein H1). This rendition is crocheted out … Continue reading Crochet nucleosome
Have you ever wondered what inspires the creation of new products like Velcro, or paint that remains dirt-free [1]? Peeking into the secrets of nature has inspired countless technological applications such as these. Responsive, adaptive, and functional, these “smart” materials are becoming more and more pervasive in our society. And yet, still, “smart” objects cannot compare to the proficiency found in nature. With billions of … Continue reading Intelligence Inspired by Nature
My family lives just outside New Delhi, India, and in 2008, our garden was invaded by monkeys. The monkeys quickly made themselves at home, launching themselves off of trees into the pond with shrieks of delight and wandering into the house to help themselves to toffees and aspirin. Figure 1 ~ Hanuman Langur monkeys in Udaipur, India This invasion was remarkable because we know exactly … Continue reading Monkeys in our gardens, leopards in our fields: The role of coexistence in mitigating human-wildlife conflict
Vaccines teach your immune system to recognize and destroy certain pathogens. Unfortunately, it can be tricky to get your immune system to recognize and mount attacks against some pathogens, like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Researchers recently used computational modeling to design a tiny protein that kind of looks like part of an RSV protein. When they injected it into monkeys, many of the monkeys’ immune … Continue reading Can computer simulations help design new vaccines?
Researchers from Harvard University and the University of California, San Francisco have found that going on a diet may be easier for your gut microbes to adjust to than it is for you. Their latest study, published in Nature in December 2013 [1], demonstrates that gut microbes can shift their populations and metabolic functions within a single day in response to changes in the human … Continue reading Extreme Dieting, Gut Microbe Edition