Photo: Steve Bunk Dave Tinnin, field research associate in the University of New Mexico's biology department, takes blood samples and measurements of rodents caught on the research station grounds. At the end of a freeway exit near Soccoro, N.M., the hairpin turn onto a gravel road is marked by a sign that warns, "Wrong Way." But it isn't the wrong way if you want to reach the University of New Mexico's (UNM) long-term ecological research (LTER) station. The sign's subterfuge is the first indi
The Scientist and Jerome Siegel | Mar 1, 2016 | 10+ min read
Once believed to be unique to birds and mammals, sleep is found across the metazoan kingdom. Some animals, it seems, can’t live without it, though no one knows exactly why.
Kelly Robinson and Julie Dunning Hotopp | Oct 1, 2016 | 8 min read
Bacteria inhabit most tissues in the human body, and genes from some of these microbes have made their way to the human genome. Could this genetic transfer contribute to diseases such as cancer?
Kristin N Harper, George J. Armelagos, and Molly K. Zuckerman | Feb 1, 2014 | 10+ min read
Researchers are zeroing in on the origin of syphilis and related diseases, which continue to plague the human population some 500 years after the first documented case.
PRIZE WITH A PRICE: Science historian Peter Galison has taken some ribbing from his family since being named a MacArthur fellow. One could almost pity Peter Galison. A historian of science at Harvard University, Galison is one of seven members of the scientific community among the 23 recipients of this year's John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowships. The coveted five-year awards provide unrestricted support plus health insurance to talented individuals, with no reports or proj
Biologists and mathematicians alike are finding their respective disciplines meeting at a very busy crossroads. The rapid advances in both fields, they say, have resulted in an explosion of information in the life sciences, and the creation of sophisticated mathematical tools for handling complicated biological systems. Studies over the entire range of the life sciences--from the molecular level (DNA and proteins) to entire organisms and ecosystems--benefit from insights derived from the mathe