Microfluidic systems redefined biology by providing platforms that handle small fluid volumes, catalyzing advancements in cellular and molecular studies.

Madness and Memory, Promoting the Planck Club, The Carnivore Way, and The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons

Researchers unravel the biology of beauty and art.

Noncoding RNAs are proving to be critical players in the evolution of brain anatomy and cognitive complexity.

Meet some of the people featured in the November 2013 issue of The Scientist.

The normal functions of peptides that aggregate in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s have been largely overlooked by scientists, but some argue that they are critical for understanding the development of disease.

FEATUREThe Ecology of Tumors Stem cells for brain cancer BY PETER B. DIRKSNeural stem cell biology took off in 1992 when Brent Reynolds and Samuel Weiss, working at the University of Calgary, discovered that culturing mammalian brain cells in serum-free conditions (in EGF and bFGF), yielded clonally derived colonies of undifferentiated neural cells (neurospheres). This culture system demonstrated that cells within these colonies showed cardinal pr

A controversial idea from the mid-20th century is attracting renewed attention from researchers developing theories for how cognition arises with or without a brain.

Lab Girl, The Most Perfect Thing, Half-Earth, and Cosmosapiens

With human research trials resulting in dozens of successful deliveries in the US and abroad, doctors move toward offering the surgery clinically, while working to learn all they can about uterine and transplant biology from the still-rare procedure.