Best Places to Work : Postdocs 2009 International postdocs often take on challenges that go beyond the lab. How do this year's top institutions help foreign fellows adjust to their new lives? By Jennifer Evans © Amac Garbe / ein-satz-zentrale.de Only moments after emerging from the plane, exhausted from his 23-hour flight, plant microbiologist Andry Andriankaja was met at the Dallas–Ft. Worth airport by a driver from the Samu

Credit: courtesy of Jayasankar Jasti, Hiroyasu Furukawa, Eric B. Gonzales, Eric Gouaux" /> Credit: courtesy of Jayasankar Jasti, Hiroyasu Furukawa, Eric B. Gonzales, Eric Gouaux The paper: E. Gouaux et al. "Structure of acid-sensing ion channel 1 at 1.9 Å resolution and low pH," Nature, 449:316-23, 2007. (Cited in 68 papers) The finding: Neuroscientist Er

Credit: © Eric Millette" /> Credit: © Eric Millette As a child, Michelle Chang would sit listlessly in a University of California, San Diego, lab while her mother, a geneticist, ran experiments. As hours ticked by on the lab clock, the young Chang made a decision: she would not grow up to be a researcher. But after only a handful of introductory science classes her freshman year at UCSD, Chang became so excited about

Generating the most complete evolutionary tree for mammals sparks debate and discovery.

How four successful scientists find time for their other passions, and why it's good for their science.

Credit: Courtesy of Adam Johnson" /> Credit: Courtesy of Adam Johnson When chemistry graduate student Stanley Miller first heard University of Chicago professor and Nobel laureate Harold Urey's idea that organic compounds, such as amino acids, arose in a reducing atmosphere, Miller was determined to find out. Together, they built the spark-charge apparatus—two glass flasks connected by glass t

Henry Molaison (HM), a patient with amnesia who helped scientists to unlock the secrets to how the brain processes learning and memory, died last week at the age of 82. HM participated in thousands of memory studies over the past 50 years, after a surgery to cure his debilitating epilepsy in the early 1950s altered his ability to form new memories. "[HM] was an extremely cooperative and gentle human being," linkurl:Brenda Milner,;http://www.mcgill.ca/about/history/pioneers/milner/ a neuropsyc

A malaria vaccine for infants and children -- the group most vulnerable to the disease -- may be heading to phase III trials, according to authors of two studies published online today (Dec. 8) in the New England Journal of Medicine. "The research results show we are one important step closer to malaria joining diseases like small pox or polio that have been either controlled or eliminated by vaccine," said Christian Loucq, director of linkurl:PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative;http://path.org/ du

Credit: Journal of Biological Chemistry, vol. 280, issue 41, 10/14/05, courtesy of Yuko Fujiwara, University of Tennessee Cancer Institute, Memphis, TN" /> Credit: Journal of Biological Chemistry, vol. 280, issue 41, 10/14/05, courtesy of Yuko Fujiwara, University of Tennessee Cancer Institute, Memphis, TN The paper: J. Chun et al., "GPR92 as a new G(12/13)- and G(q)-coupled lysophosphatidic acid receptor tha

How to be an effective mentor: tips from two highly successful principal investigators.

The signals that tell your skeleton to lay down new bone come from an unlikely source -- your gut, according to a study published today (Nov. 26) in Cell. "This study revolutionizes how we think about the skeleton," linkurl:Cliff Rosen,;http://www.mmcri.org/cctr/rosen.html a bone biologist from Maine Medical Center Research Institute who was not involved in the research, told The Scientist. "We, as bone [researchers], thought of the skeleton as functioning independent of everything else," Ros

They twirled and tangoed, somersaulted and flipped. Some interpreted their science through linkurl:hula-hoops;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Va4zcGyYs0 set ablaze, while linkurl:others;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zCBcghQ1rA used the beats of Notorious B.I.G. to guide their rhythmic undulations, pipette in hand. The American Association for the Advancement of Science crowned its newest linkurl:Dance Your PhD;http://gonzolabs.org/dance/ champs yesterday (Nov 20.): two graduate students, a po