by the astonishing variety of forms, shapes, and colors that have evolved in nature. This variation has allowed organisms to adapt to their local environments, for example, to…
Human brain cells begin their lives as pluripotent cells with the potential to develop into any cell type in the body. As those pluripotent stem cells differentiate and…
Considering both good and bad is fundamental for future planning and decision-making. When animals forage, they may consider how tasty the food is, how much food is available…
As neurons develop in the central nervous system, they encounter many potential synaptic partners, and choose among them to form stable connections with only a few. The specific…
Many of the approved chemotherapy drugs are either collected from natural sources or inspired by molecules existing in nature. Natural products with anticancer activity can be readily identified…
An exciting aspect of neuroscience is the ability to peek into the brain, measuring the activity of neurons in behaving animals. Electrophysiology allows us to listen to the…
How good are we at detecting a specific smell in a mixture of smells – for example, the fragrance of a stargazer lily in a large bouquet of…
When we think of the chemical elements of life, the “big four” of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen leap to mind, and rightly so, as they make up…
The complex circuits of the brain are built from thousands of types of neurons. More than a century ago, Santiago Ramon y Cajal founded what we now call…
During brain development, neurons connect with each other using branched projections called dendrites. As a dendrite extends away from its neuron’s cell body to connect with dendrites from…
