FOR MORE THAN a century, pathologists have identified cancer by looking at slides containing tissue stained with dyes to make the malignant cells more visible. Spotting aberrant cells among healthy ones is similar in spirit to recognizing familiar faces or objects in pictures. “Our brains are very good at recognizing patterns in images,” says physician and […]
Recognizing AI’s potential Read More »
ONCE A MONTH, 40-year-old Kristen Kilmer drives nearly 400 miles from her home in Spearfish, South Dakota, to the Avera Cancer Institute in Sioux Falls. On some mornings, she leaves as early as 1:30 a.m. after kissing her sleeping 11-year-old daughter goodbye. Without traffic or inclement weather, it’s a six-hour haul from one side of the
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Seven years after her brain cancer diagnosis, Liz Salmi decided she wanted to know more about the makeup of the tumor that changed her life. Salmi had already undergone two surgeries to remove the grade II astrocytoma, an invasive but usually slow-growing brain tumor. After her second surgery, she was treated with Temodar (temozolomide), a chemotherapy drug, for two
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Kefir is a viscous, sour-tasting, slightly alcoholic, milk-based beverage that’s been consumed for centuries. It’s made by adding a starter mix of bacteria and yeast – called the kefir “grain” – to pasteurized cow milk, though brewers have reported success with milk from goats, sheep, buffalo, and soy. As fermented dairy products go, it still
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Many types of squid have razor-sharp teeth. They just are not where you’d expect to find them. Each of the suckers that run along a squid’s tentacles hides a ring of teeth. Those teeth prevent the animal’s prey from swimming away. They also are more than just a curiosity. Scientists want to create squid-inspired materials
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Like other structural biologists, Eva Nogales works in extraordinary times. The University of California, Berkeley, faculty member now has the tools to tackle important questions about cells’ molecular machinery that would have been impossible to answer just a few years ago. A recent project with Berkeley colleague Jennifer Doudna, the molecular biologist who co-pioneered the
Let the structural symphony begin Read More »
They are vast towers rising out of the jungles of the Amazon basin. Tepuis, rocky tabletop mountains isolated by hundreds of metres of steep cliffs, form a unique habitat on their tops and inside their maze of caves. Untouched for millions of years, they host a secret world that has evolved in parallel with its
Inside the lost cave world of the Amazon’s tepui mountains Read More »
Kent Haffer remembers when his oncologist approached him with an unusual idea. It was 2013, and Haffer, a 55-year-old computer programmer living in St. Peters, Missouri, had been receiving treatment for advanced melanoma for eight years. His oncologist proposed that Haffer be part of a clinical trial, but not one involving hundreds of people. Instead,
RODNEY WOODSON never set out to be a pig trapper. He joined the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency because he was passionate about conserving water birds. But that was before the hogs rocked up, with their high libidos and low cunning. Across the world, and especially in the southern US, feral pigs are a problem. Marauding hordes
According to ancient historians, Archimedes spent the last moments of his life drawing figures in the dirt, so deeply entranced with the pleasures of geometry that he failed to notice the bloody pillage of Syracuse right outside his door. Aloofness, it’s tempting to conjecture, was his fatal flaw. By many accounts, he paid scant attention when
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