WHAT COMMAND LINE?Left: Courtesy of Pratul K. Agarwal; Right: Courtesy of High Performance Computing Facility, University of Puerto RicoUsers no longer need remember arcane command-line incantations with Linux; the OS hides its complexities beneath a snazzy user interface. Here, Linux versions of ImageJ, an image manipulation suite (top) and PyMOL, a biomolecular structure visualizer (left) are shown.On August 25, 1991, a student named Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki posted an innoc

PREDICTIVE POWER:© 2004 Massachusetts Medical SocietyThis analysis of gene expression ranks 36 genes on the basis of their predictive power (univariate z score), with a negative score associated with longer overall survival and a positive score associated with shorter overall survival. The dashed lines represent an absolute univariate z score of ± 1.5. The prediction model is based on the weighted expression of six genes in the equation shown. (N Engl J Med, 350:1828–37, 2004.)Me

When Seana Coulson, assistant professor of cognitive science, and her graduate student, Christopher Lovett, looked for a high-level language task to study brain responses in right- and left-handers, the investigators turned to humor. The University of California, San Diego, researchers recorded brainwaves in 16 righties and 16 lefties while they read jokes, such as "I still miss my ex-wife, but I am improving my aim"; or nonsequiturs, such as "I still miss my ex-wife, but I am improving my ego."

A GRADIENT OF PORE SIZES:Courtesy of Michael J. Sailorimparts a rainbow of colors to a porous silicon chip, one of a variety of new biosensor technologies in development around the world. The different colors correspond to different sized pores, ranging from a few nanometers to hundreds of nanometers in diameter. These pores help the device discriminate and detect proteins and other molecules based on their size.One morning in March 1995, the deadly nerve gas sarin wafted through the Tokyo subwa

EMBRYOGENESIS UNFOLDING IN 3-D:Left and Right Image: Courtesy of Wen Bin Tsai & W. Kinsey Center image: Courtesy of H. Matsumoto & S. K. DeyThree-dimensional projections created from Z-stacks of a zebrafish embryo at the four-cell stage (left), a blastocyst (center), and a more fully developed zebrafish embryo (right). DAPI-stained nuclei are colored blue, while various specific proteins are labeled green (FITC/FITX) and red (rhodamine).Like much of science, imaging has become almost ent

THINKING ABOUT ROLESCourtesy P. Read MontagueThe brain images show activity for two subjects engaged in a social exchange. The difference in activity may be a result of their different roles in the context of the task.Today's imaging technology can practically gauge brain activity in real time. But scans of a single brain don't offer much information about real life, according to P. Read Montague. "There's a reason that you don't have a cocktail party one person at a time," says Montague, profes

Figure 1By November 2003, 40 million people worldwide – 5 million more than the year before – were infected with HIV. In 2003, three million died of AIDS, bringing the total number lost to the epidemic to nearly 32 million people, the size of the population of Canada.This insidious disease continues to prove itself. When this virus turns on, modern medicine can attack and kill, but it cannot cure. HIV hides. It slips inside other cells and waits. It can wait in reservoirs for years,

An ongoing regimen of HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) keeps HIV from exploding into AIDS. In the clinic, where patients precisely follow the HAART program, it wipes out detectable virus in more than 90% of patients. In the real world, where patients forget a pill here and there, the success rate falls to 50% or 60%, says Dean Hamer of the National Cancer Institute. In addition, HAART itself creates problems.Few, if any, patients could stay with HAART forever. "There are lots of prob

Courtesy of Mike Curtis  TAG, YOU'RE SICK! School children learn about communicable diseases with handheld computers and a program called Cooties. In the 1830s, Charles Darwin used a pen and paper to document finches and other fauna and flora in the Galápagos Islands. For the next century and a half, most scientists relied on the same tools to take notes or collect data. Today, Dave Anderson, associate professor of biology at Wake Forest University, follows in Darwin's footsteps--

For centuries, philosophers and biologists alike dreamed of watching the brain operate to see its active response to sensations, actions, or even thoughts. In some ways, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides such a view. This technology essentially measures blood flow to areas of the brain, and presumably neural activity, in real time. The technique could help researchers specifically map the brain. The visual cortex, for example, appears to light up when a subject sees someth

For most researchers, just keeping up with the scientific literature proves taxing. Actually organizing it in a useful way--to create a bibliography, for example--is even harder. That job can virtually handle itself, however, if a scientist uses bibliographic software. Casual discussions about bibliographic software spawn a range of replies from scientists. Molecular biologist Ted Able of the University of Pennsylvania says, "Yes, I do use bibliographic software. It is absolutely a necessity

Courtesy of Roderick MacKinnon, Rockefeller University Playing gatekeeper to human health, channel proteins penetrate all cell membranes. In the nervous system, armies of channels open and close in precise order to create action potentials, the brief membrane depolarizations that act as the primary form of electrical signaling in animals. These action potentials prove so enduring, functioning properly even in extreme experimental preparations, that investigators might consider ion channels in