Month: January 2015

  • Communicating… Cells… Humans…

    Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that mouse embryos are contemplating their cellular fates in the earliest stages after fertilization when the embryo has only two to four cells, a discovery that could upend the scientific consensus about when embryonic cells begin differentiating into cell types. Their research, which used single-cell…

  • Grothendieck, manuscripts, burning libraries..

    Alexander Grothendieck, who died on Nov. 13 at the age of 86, was a visionary who captivated the collective psyche of his peers like no one else. To say he was the No. 1 mathematician of the second half of the 20th century cannot begin to do justice to him or his body of work.…

  • Mammoth extinct. Resurrected. Life and death.

    Mammoth extinct. Resurrected. Life and death.

    Scientists are one step closer to cloning a woolly mammoth, thanks to the results of a new autopsy conducted on a remarkably preserved specimen of the species discovered last year. The 40,000-year-old mammoth, nicknamed “Buttercup,” was found in permafrost on the remote Siberian island of Maly Lyakhovsky. When scientists cut into the carcass, its fresh-looking…

  • Human clocks. Human time… Life…

    Human existence is basically circadian. Most of us wake in the morning, sleep in the evening, and eat in between. Body temperature, metabolism, and hormone levels all fluctuate throughout the day, and it is increasingly clear that disruption of those cycles can lead to metabolic disease. Underlying these circadian rhythms is a molecular clock built…

Verified by ExactMetrics