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A new historical photograph collection from the Mutter Museum honors the human side of rare conditions

An histology slide of US President Ulysses Grant's squamous cell carcinoma from 1885. Credit: Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine, AFIP, Photo: © Jason Varney | Varneyphoto.com" />An histology slide of US President Ulysses Grant's squamous cell carcinoma from 1885. Credit: Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine, AFIP, Photo: © Jason Varney | Varneyphoto.com In 1885, pathologist George Elliott was looking through his micr

As Anna Dhody tells it, sometime in 2000 or 2001 she and her supervisor Steven LeBlanc, director of collections at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, were discussing ways to obtain ancient DNA from secondary archeological finds over lunch. Recalling her training as a forensic anthropologist, Dhody, now curator of the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, mentioned how things like cigarette butts or discarded coffee cups from crime scenes

Lacayote squash Credit: Courtesy of Thomas Andres" />Lacayote squash Credit: Courtesy of Thomas Andres Last fall, Thomas Andres was wandering around New York City's Chinatown when he happened upon the subject of his doctoral dissertation: the lacayote, Cucurbita ficifolia, a South American squash rarely sold in the United States. He was happy to shell out $6 for the mottled green gourd. Twenty-five years ago, he had dreamed of discovering its wild ancestor on some scrubby hillside in

For University of California, Los Angeles, epidemiologist Anne Rimoin, 2007 was a rough year.

Two images of the nisin PLA polymer, outer surface (left) and cross-sectional (right) views. Nisin is evenly distributed, ensuring its slow but continuous release. Credit: Courtesy of Tony Jin" />Two images of the nisin PLA polymer, outer surface (left) and cross-sectional (right) views. Nisin is evenly distributed, ensuring its slow but continuous release. Credit: Courtesy of Tony Jin Food scientist Tony Jin's dissertation had something most don't: A picture of a Jack in the Box rest

This month, researchers decided to play around with a particular protein structure

This year's ASCB conference honored a series of short films about science

A new dating service matches singles using major histocompatibility complex genes

Tell us what you think about the agency's ideas for improving how it evaluates grant applications