With the help of directed evolution, scientists inch closer to developing viral vectors that can cross the human blood-brain barrier to deliver gene therapy.

Animals with human cells could provide donor organs or help us understand neuropsychiatric disorders.

Ferreting out the biological function of dreaming is a frontier in neuroscience.

The scenarios that run through our sleeping brains may help us explore possible solutions to concerns from our waking lives.

Can mice with humanlike tissues better model drug effects in people?

The COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Biomedical innovation has rallied to address that pressing concern while continuing to tackle broader research challenges.

Optical techniques for monitoring action potentials

Editor's Note: This is the first of two articles on questions raised by recent stem cell discoveries. The second article, focusing on various organs and the nervous system, will appear in the Nov. 27 issue of The Scientist. Researchers first isolated embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from mouse blastocysts almost 20 years ago, and a paper announcing the discovery of human ESCs emerged in 1998. Adult-derived stem cells (ASCs) have since become the rage in certain quarters of biology, with unexpected--

Research shows that melanopsin acts as a bistable pigment in vertebrate ganglion

Courtesy of Genevieve Anderson If not for Nobel laureates Thomas Hunt Morgan, Eric R. Kandel, and Sydney Brenner, the notion of a general behavioral model might seem odd. Behaviors, after all, are determined by an animal's evolutionary history and ecological niche. They are often idiosyncratic, shared in detail only by closely related species. But, thanks to Morgan's research in the early 20th century, and Kandel's and Brenner's work over the past 35 years, the fly Drosophila melanogaster, t