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A cure for peanut allergies in sight?

With peanuts being the most common children’s food allergen and the rising prevalence of allergies, discovering a cure for peanut allergies is crucial. Symptoms of an allergic reaction – such as anaphylaxis, leading to the inability to breathe – can be life-threatening and occur rapidly. While EpiPens are used to control general allergic reactions, there is no specific treatment available for peanut allergies – until … Continue reading A cure for peanut allergies in sight?

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Making Steak out of Spinach: How bioengineering could change meat production

by George Touloumes figures by Brad Wierbowski Would you ever consider eating meat that was grown in a lab instead of raised on a farm? What if it were both healthier and more sustainable than conventional meat? Silicon Valley venture capital firms and major meat companies like Tyson Foods are now investing tens of millions of dollars in bioengineering research to produce exactly that kind … Continue reading Making Steak out of Spinach: How bioengineering could change meat production

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Art Gallery, Images

Faces

Have you ever seen the image of a face in a seemingly random set of objects or an unexpected place? This phenomenon is known as pareidolia, it’s the perception of a familiar pattern when none exists in reality. No one really knows why we see these faces, but many theorize that it results from a common cognitive mistake that we are prone to make: we … Continue reading Faces

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Sticky Light: Physicists discover new Photon Interactions

Light is made of little particles called photons that usually don’t interact. Imagine how strange it would be if the light from your window ricocheted off the light from computer screen! Our brains couldn’t make sense of these images and we’d be stuck in a blurry—albeit bright—world. Professors Vladan Vuletic and Mikhail Lukin, at MIT have made this mindbender a reality. By shining a weak laser … Continue reading Sticky Light: Physicists discover new Photon Interactions

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SpaceX Launches Falcon Heavy Rocket Successfully

Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket launched successfully from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier this week. Musk, The SpaceX CEO, said that the chances of a successful launch might only be 50-50. The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket since the Space Shuttle, and it lifted clear of its pad without incident on February 6, 2018. The aim was to send a car … Continue reading SpaceX Launches Falcon Heavy Rocket Successfully

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Art Gallery, Images

Vines

Plants grow in interesting ways. You may have noticed that your houseplants “lean” towards the window, seeking the sunlight. This movement towards light is called phototropism. Tropism is a general term referring to any instance of growth or movement of an organism in response to the environment. Vines display another kind of tropism known as thigmotropism, meaning they respond to touch. In this set of … Continue reading Vines

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Edit Thyself: Biohacking in the age of CRISPR

by Patrick Griffin figures by Olivia Foster Wincing slightly, Josiah Zayner depressed the plunger of the syringe in his right hand. “This will modify my genes to give me bigger muscles,” he told the crowd—attendees of a biotechnology conference in San Francisco last October. They nervously laughed and then applauded, having witnessed the first instance of someone trying to edit their own genome using a … Continue reading Edit Thyself: Biohacking in the age of CRISPR

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The Circle of Lactate: How cancer cells can reuse their own waste

by Lara Roach figures by Aparna Nathan There are trillions of cells in the human body, and each one needs nutrient molecules they can convert into energy or useful chemicals to survive, grow, and divide. Cells can get their “fuel” from a variety of sources, but the most common is the sugar glucose, which is abundant in foods like fruit and honey. When cells transform … Continue reading The Circle of Lactate: How cancer cells can reuse their own waste

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Colonies 5

The colonies in this image display some of the diversity of pigment production in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The blue-green colonies contain a pigment called pyocyanin, which is known to be toxic to human cells and helps the bacteria establish a niche during infections. The colonies containing a brown halo produce the brown pigment pyomelanin, which is thought to help the bacteria scavenge for iron, an essential … Continue reading Colonies 5

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Monkey see, monkey do: scientists have created the first cloned primates

No, we won’t be seeing designer babies anytime soon. But scientists have successfully cloned monkeys for the first time, establishing a technique that could be used to create better disease models using primates, the closest animals to humans. These cloned monkeys, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, are alive and well in China. They were created using the same technology (somatic cell nuclear transfer) used to … Continue reading Monkey see, monkey do: scientists have created the first cloned primates

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