How does the Zika virus cause microcephaly? Why do some people develop schizophrenia or mental disease while others don’t? Is our sexual orientation hardwired in our genes? As seemingly unrelated as these questions might sound, they can all be addressed using the same scientific tool: twin siblings. Nancy Segal (Boston, 1951) has been chasing twins […]
The question of how human interaction works is a neurochemical one, but it’s not easy to solve. While many experiments cannot be performed on humans or primates, smaller laboratory animals are useless for this research due to their differences with us. But prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) have social traits that had previously been assumed as […]
Prolonged exposure to sunlight is not recommended. Even though is really important to synthesize vitamin D which helps us absorbing calcium or phosphate and maintain a mineralized skeleton, the effects of sun´s ultraviolet radiation (mainly UVA and UVB) can be prejudicial in the long term. Main issues may be sunburn (UVB), reduced skin elasticity leading […]
The number of genes linked to autism has not stopped growing in the last decade. Although there are hundreds of variants that are more frequent in people who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) than in the general population, there are sixty genes that have a clearer linkage and could help build the genetic […]
There is a variable that is relevant for such seemingly different fields as outer space exploration , nanotechnology , fusion research , or medicine. And that is electronic stopping, its precise knowledge important for the understanding of space weathering, ion beam patterning, plasma-wall interactions, or radiation therapy, respectively. When ions propagate in matter, they are […]
Plants emit a great amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). They are mainly produced in flowers and fruits and confer them their classical pleasant smell. However, leaves and roots also emit an important quantity of volatiles. VOCs have different functions mostly related with the communication of the plant with the environment. They are responsible of […]
Almost every one of our body cells bears in its nucleus about 2 meters of DNA containing the genes that shape our being. All that, roughly 20.000 protein-coding genes, regulatory and unknown-function sequences, tightly packed inside a structure that has a volume of only a few cubic micrometres. How this huge amount of material is […]
There are plenty of examples of drugs that have been repurposed in recent years. For instance, thalidomide, the initially prescribed medication for headache in pregnant women which led to countless numbers of babies born with body malformations during the 50s and 60s, now this drug is used for treating certain types of cancer, such as […]
According to how the electronic band theory is usually explained, solids can be classified as insulators, semiconductors, or metals. But, actually, there is another kind of solid between semiconductors and metals, the semimetals. In insulators and semiconductors the filled valence band is separated from an empty conduction band by a band gap, in metals there […]
S tem cells can be cultured, multiplied and differentiated. By interacting with each other in this process of specialization they can follow organization programs that show striking similarities with what happens in the entire organism. This way you can form organoids —microscopic, yet primitively functional versions of livers, kidneys, hearts and brains grown from real […]